real food

Raili

Thanks for bumping this thread, Julia!  I agree with you that whole foods are best, or at least, foods with the least amount of processing possible.  I was a vegetarian for the past 9 years, but recently started eating seafood again (mainly salmon and tuna) because my naturopath recommended it for the nutritional benefits.  Actually, what's really strange is that about a month before I was dx'd with BC, I started CRAVING fish... I ate a couple tuna sandwiches, and felt horribly guilty, but at the same time, new my body needed it.  (Okay, it doesn't need TUNA exactly, due to the mercury, but you get the idea!)

I'm now eating a diet that is sort of a combination of the "nourishing traditions" diet and the "anticancer" diet that Dr. S-S advocates. I eat mainly whole foods, and partly it's because I believe that's what's best for my body, but mostly... I have to admit... it's because I am a bad/lazy cook and don't have the patience or ability to concoct anything fancy!

A typical day of food for me:

Breakfast: organic goat yogurt, mixed with muesli and frozen mixed berries

Lunch: a baked sweet potato, brown rice with avocado slices and Braggs

Dinner: salad (organic, pre-packaged) with olive oil & balsamic vinegar, organic/omega-3 egg & goat cheese sandwich on sprouted grain bread

Snacks: nori, curried cashews, an apple with almond butter, carrot sticks, etc

These meals don't require any cooking other than the very basic frying of an egg, boiling rice, baking a sweet potato.  It's about all I can handle, but it's okay.   

CrunchyPoodleMama

Lucy, I haven't looked extensively into this, but are you saying that Dr. Bernstein states that studies like this are a lie?

Researchers from the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada, tested the affect of white sourdough, regular white bread, whole wheat bread and whole wheat bread with barley on a group of overweight people aged 50 to 60 years old.

"When the subjects ate the sourdough bread, they saw the least blood sugar and blood insulin response, which is a good thing," says Terry Graham, professor in the Guelph human health and nutritional services department.

Graham adds, "There's an urban myth that if you want to lose weight, you shouldn't eat bread. But the truth is, bread is one of our biggest sources of grains and has a number of healthy benefits."

Graham and a team of researchers examined how participants responded just hours after eating the bread for breakfast and again just hours after eating a standard lunch.

"With the sourdough, the subjects' blood sugar levels were lower for a similar rise in blood insulin," says Graham, whose findings are to be published in the British Journal of Nutrition.

He continues, "What was even more interesting was that this positive effect remained during their second meal and lasted even hours after. This shows that what you have for breakfast influences how your body will respond to lunch."

althea

Hi Julia,

Good to see you posting again.  My food choices are constantly evolving.  You were doing a good job in avoiding processed foods before you ever came to this site, and I think that is really the single thing that all the experts seem to agree on.  From there, even being vegan isn't as simple as avoiding anything derived from a source with a face.  There's cooked food vegans and raw food vegans.  And then there's the issue of vegans typically being deficient in B12.  To me, that seems like a deal breaker.  If we're supposed to be totally vegan, why isn't B12 readily absorbable from plant sources?  sigh  It's all so complicated.  

Let me know what you decide about the bread issue.  Quite some time ago I was disgusted by everything in the bread aisle when I tried to find a loaf without soybean oil.  So then I went through a phase of making my own bread.  Took a detour through a cookbook of Shaker recipes (totally yummy and totally loaded with calories, butter and eggs).  I especially liked the shaker daily loaf, which called for a bit of butter.  When I was trying on some vegan subsitutes for size, I found some 'buttery sticks' which were vegan that I truly liked every bit as much as butter for baking.  But, as you might've guessed, the buttery sticks are made from soy.  Non GMO soy at least but still soy.  Then when I learned soy is a goitrogen and intereferes with thyroid function, that was the final straw in my big waffle over soy.  I went back to butter.  

Also, several authors comment on ancestry and how our inherited dispositions are often the best clue to what choices are best suited for each individual.  

Raili

I get B12 from fortified nutritional yeast, bought in bulk at the Co op... I add it to anything/everything - sauteed veggies, pasta, popcorn, baked sweet potatoes, soups, rice, etc.

Anonymous

Robin, yes, whole grain breads have more vitamins and nutrients in the whole grain complex form. That part is true.

But the whole grains not raising insulin as much part is not true, tho it's been widely stated. But a lot of stuff is widely stated without actual evidence.

No one ever thought to actually test the assumption until a diabetologist tested it.

I get sprouted whole grain sour dough bread (frozen) from San Francisco. No bromated flour and yummy. But I eat it sparingly. And it's off limits for my son.

3monstmama

I find that once you decide to ditch processed foods, the key for the rest is moderation.  So, instead of 1/4-1/2 lb of meat/fish per person, use 1lb for a family of 5-6.  Just bulk it up with grains and veggies.  Go veggie 1-2 days a week--meatless meals are simple when you think about it a bit.  Buy what meat [or fish] you do eat from a real farmer.  YES it will cost more---my large organic free range eggs are $6 per dozen.  But they taste so good--one egg is so much more satisfying than 3 grocery eggs used to be.  An added benefit is that when I eat meat where I know the person who raised it and how it was grown and how it was slaughtered, I don't have to feel guilt about supporting big agri or that I have contributed to suffering in an unnecessary way.  Finally, try--as best you are able--to eat locally grown food.  If nothing else, it tastes better in the same way that the tomato from our garden tastes so much better than the one from the grocery store.

All that being said, for those who hope this will "cure" their cancer, I've consumed mostly organic veggies for nearly 20 years---shopped only at my local farmers market for produce--and for nearly 2 years prior to being diagnoised, ate 85-90% local [within 250 miles] and yet, here I am.

What I can say, even though my grain intense local organic diet didn't save me from breast cancer, is that I do feel really good about how I am impacting the earth and more connected to the world around me.  And when it comes down to it, how can that not be good?

RunswithScissors

Oooh I Love this thread!  It's so wonderful to hear from folks who have grown weary of the so-called "expert" diet advice that changes from week to week. 

I think I can add some help to those who would like to do their own bread without a big hassle - the book  Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day has literally transformed my cooking.  

I tried doing sourdough several times over the years, but my family just didn't care for it. It was heartbreaking to put so much time and effort into it only to get a loaf no one would eat. 

Now I get praise, praise and more praise, (which I must admit is nice!). If they all knew how easy this is.  It's based on the slow-rise, old dough concept - it's a compromise between sourdough and regular bread.   

You basically make a large batch of dough and keep it in the fridge for up to 14 days (you can also freeze it if you need to). Every day you yank off a hunk and bake it. The older the dough gets, the better it tastes. The basic recipe can be shaped into a baguette, boule, pizza, pita, breadstick, whatever you're in the mood for.  There are whole grain versions of this system, but my family likes part whole grain loaves the best. I prefer using white whole wheat (a variety of wheat that is not as bitter as red wheat) - sold by King Arthur - makes a really nice bread for folks who don't care for regular whole wheat. 

You mix the dough right in the storage container - no bowl to wash. No kneading necessary.  When you mix the NEXT batch, if you still don't wash the container, you transfer the "old dough" goodness to the new batch.  

This site has the master recipe in it's entirety: 

 http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/cookbook/2009/artisan-bread/boule.html

There are lots of videos out there that show the technique, too. And there is  a website by the  authors that has good info. 

 Happy Baking! 

CrunchyPoodleMama

WHOA -- girls -- I learned something today. I'd been buying organic cage-free eggs and organic butter.

But did you know that "cage-free" does NOT necessarily mean "free to roam through pasture and eat grass, bugs, and everything else a chicken is supposed to eat"??

Apparently, they can call it "cage-free" even if they are still in crowded conditions with their beaks amputated (otherwise they would peck each other to death because of overcrowding). AND, worse, I looked up the cage-free eggs I'd been buying, only to find out they feed the chickens CORN and SOY. That makes me sick!! GRAIN-fed chickens' eggs are not much better than "conventional" (factory farm) chickens (either in terms of the chickens' quality of life, or their nutritional value).

What we need to buy is something that specifically says grass-fed, pastured, or similar verbiage. Fortunately, Whole Foods Market carry these kinds (they're even more expensive than regular organic), or you can find a local organic farm and grill them on how their livestock are raised (e.g. are they fed corn or are they truly free to roam freely and graze as they are meant to). Pretty sad that "organic and cage-free" isn't enough.

Runswithscissors, I have that book and their other one, Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day... I was going to try to adapt their recipe to sourdough, but it sounds like theirs is a sort of hybrid approach anyway? I have a hunch my sourdough will bomb too, but I'm still going to give it a whirl and see!

Iza

Well yes exactly, Crunchy. Organic is just a label, and labels are not very traditional :-)

Seriously. The concept of "organic" started as a nice good idea, but it has been taken over by big business. Organic milk and meat can very well come from cows that live in horrid conditions. The same applies to eggs and poultry, as you have just discovered. 

Given the choice between food from a small, family-owned and -managed, traditional farm (without any labels, organic or otherwise) or food from a fancy store, covered in cute stickers... I will take the farm, any day. 

Don't misunderstand me, organic is good. It is just not good enough.

And since "organic" and "traditional" seem to be incompatible, I choose traditional. Small-scale, low-tech, unsophisticated.

It may be worth remembering that such farms almost never have the time, money, or inclination to apply for, and maintain, an organic label.

Also, what kept our ancestors alive and healthy for millennia was not the organic label. It was no-nonsense, traditional hunter-gathering, then farming.

RunswithScissors

Crunchy - I know you were interested in raising your own food, so I wondered if  you've seen this. 

It's easy to keep couple of laying hens  even if you don't have a lot of space. This expensive but nifty thing  hides them from neighbors and the zoning officer: 

http://www.mypetchicken.com/catalog/Chicken-Coops/The-Stealth-Coop-p493.aspx

Chickens are a predator magnet, so most pastured chickens are raised in a way that gives them access to forage but still provides them some protection.  Some producers use an electric net pasture, but we can't because the birds would be easy pickins for  hawks.  So "chicken tractors" are very popular.  It's a bottomless coop of some sort that the farmer moves onto fresh grass each day.   Why a producer would go to this amount of trouble, yet still overcrowd and debeak escapes me. 

About the grain -  I think most chickens are fed some amount of grain because foraging does not meet all their nutritional needs. But unlike ruminant animals, their bodies digest grain (seed) without issue - it's a natural part of their diet. (Cows naturally consume some seed, too, when grazing. It's the quantities that are the issue.) 

The yolks of your eggs will say alot - a healthy chicken has yolks that are so orange and bright, the average supermarket egg-eater would think there was something wrong with it!  

I agree with you that food labeling is completely deceptive and that is infuriating.   It's one of the main reasons my husband and I decided to buy our farm and raise our own.

Best of luck with your sourdough. 

3monstmama

What Iza said.

And this is why my eggs cost $6 a dozen---they don't come from Whole Food or the store, they come from chickens that are out in a pasture where the farmer uses chicken tractors to rotate them.  My chickens are not debeaked--I know because when I buy a whole chicken, it really is whole.  Anyone who hasn't read it already should read "Animal Vegetable Mineral" by Barbara Kingsolver as well as "Omnivore's Dilemna" by Michael Polan and "Fast Food Nation" by Eric something.  Be prepared to be really sad when you read about how cattle react when they are fed a grain based diet---the short version is that they are slaughtered when they are because the grain based diet is slowly killing them and giving them ulcers etc. . . .

Sadly, those chickens and eggs that people are buying at Whole Foods and the like, and paying a premium for, while they may be organic, are not out roaming around picking out bugs. They are being raised in giant buildings with thousands of other chickens. For the deceptive advertising, thank the mega producers.  And by the way, thing about those veggie fed chicken eggs. . . chickens are not vegetarian:  they eat bugs!!!! so if eggs say they were laid by veg fed chickens what does that tell you about how the chickens themselves are being kept???  Best bet --if raising chickens for eggs is beyond you---is to seek out a local farmer's market near you.

I pay a lot of money for my meat products.  But I know that the animals actually live in a field and have a good life before they meet their end.  Sometimes there isn't any chicken because a racoon got into the chicks or there was an unexpected cold snap or I got to the market late and when you buy from a small producer, there is only so much to buy each week.

Final thought:  when it comes down to it, certification is NOT really a good thing.  As someone noted if there is certification, the costs are sooooo high that small producers can't afford it.  When we lived in LA and shopped the farmer's markets there, we knew LOTS of people who grew organically but weren't certified because they couldn't afford the certification costs.  In CA those people weren't even allowed to use the word organic!!! how crazy is that?  I have come to be afraid that if there is an official certification and standard for organic, all that will happen is small growers will go out of busines and all the organic produce will be shipped in from Mexico, Central and South America where it may be technically organic but the workers are being paid slave wages while big corporations get richer.

CrunchyPoodleMama

VERY well said, Iza. From May through December, I get my organic produce from my CSA/organic co-op, plus whatever I manage to grow myself starting this year. 

And by the way, thing about those veggie fed chicken eggs. . . chickens are not vegetarian: they eat bugs!!!! so if eggs say they were laid by veg fed chickens what does that tell you about how the chickens themselves are being kept???

EXACTLY! That's actually what tipped me off and got me researching... the words "100% vegetarian fed!" proudly emblazoned on the "organic, cage-free" eggs carton at the store. First off, "vegetarian" could mean anything, such as soy (and of course that's what it turned out to mean). And second, like you said, chickens are supposed to eat worms and bugs and whatever else they naturally forage for!

Runswith, what a neat contraption! I've been trying to figure out what kind of hen house I could build that would be unobtrusive-looking (mainly, because I am a photographer with my studio in my home, and I'm not sure how my high-end clients would react to chickens clucking all over the back yard!).That kind of thing could definitely work.

On the other hand, just up our road is a guy with a ton of chickens who are VERY free-roaming (they don't even stay within a fenced-in area). I've been meaning to ask him if he would be willing to sell eggs. Of course, his little run-down home would never qualify as USDA-certified, but as 3monst said, I'd MUCH rather eat his home-grown, TRULY organic/free-range eggs than buy them shipped in from an "organic" large farm operation where the workers are getting slave wages. I'm not into "industrial organic"!

3monstmama

If I had spare cash [giggle] this would be my choice of chicken houses:

http://www.omlet.us/homepage/

can you imagine a cuter hen house?  Of course, given the price tag, it would take about a zillion years to re-coop [snigger] the investment but still. . . . . 

Be sure to check out the guide on chicken breeds.   Who knew there were so darned many types of chickens? 

althea

Y'all have me reexamining my egg cartons!  I learned some time ago that 'cage free' doesn't equate to free roaming.  I buy brown eggs that are 'from natural grain fed free roaming nesting hens'.  Then there's a U inside a circle and I can't remember what that symbol is for. 

RunswithScissors

You got me curious about that symbol so I looked it up.  It seems to mean they are inspected kosher.

Does anyone here do something special for St. Patrick's Day dinner? I can get grass fed beef, but not grass fed corned beef.    I  have no idea how beef is "corned"!

PS73

hi gals.  this is such an interesting thread.  you had me running to my fridge to look at my eggs which are, 'free roaming & vegetarian fed'!  what bs!

runswithscissors - i looked up your question and this is what i got: The "corn" in "corned beef" refers to the "corns" or grains of coarse salts used to cure it. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the usage of "corn", meaning "small hard particle, a grain, as of sand or salt." The term "corned beef" can denote different styles of brine-cured beef, depending on the region.

..to the point about the eggs, it makes me nauseated how the USDA and Dairy Company marketing trickery have pulled one over on us.  I guess we cannot trust anything anymore.  I used to be proud that the USDA had our backs and I was always happy that America had quality Beef but now I just feel like a fool.  Note that my gf only eats bison meat because their standard of identity is that they are not allowed to be kept in crates whatsoever - its against the law.  Now I wonder about the verbage. 

..I also was looking up dairy yesterday and came across information that milk is grade a and has to be inspected every 6 months but cheese is made with grade b milk which only needs to be inspected every 2 years.  Also note that there is a major ack of compliance when it comes to inspections. 

3monstmama

Hey Runswithscissors, here are some tips on corning your own beef.  I think you have just enough time to do it for this year:

http://chowhound.com/topics/593990

The different marks---U with a circle, K or whatever---refer to certification by particular branchs of Judism.   Inspected kosher, in case anyone doesn't know, has little or nothing to do with the way the chicken was raised as far as is it a battery raised chicken or what.  Kosher means that it fits religous rules as to what it was fed--example would be no shrimp meal or pig meal because neither of those things are kosher.  Probably would include a lack of contact between the chickens and any pigs.  With meat, particularly with larger animals like cows, it means that the animal was killed in a particular fashion but that isn't a guarantee of the slaughter having been humane. In fact, there was a big scandel recently about a purported kosher slaughter house that was treating cattle abominally before/during slaughter.  In other words, you can have battery raised chickens designated as Kosher.  That said, I have read that some Jewish ethicists are arguing that chickens raised in battery cages and cows forced to eat grain shouldn't be considered kosher no matter how they are slaughtered because they have been raised inhumanely.  But for now, to the best of my knowledge, that is an argument being raised so that if you are trying to eat humanely, a kosher designation isn't a good indicator.

A helpful source for local produce and farmer's markets can be found on the website of the people who wrote a book about living for a year eatting only locally.  In the States, the book is called "Plenty" but in Canada its called "The 100 Mile Diet."  Its by Alisa Smith and JB Mackinnon and the website is at http://100milediet.org

RunswithScissors

Thanks for the corned beef info. I did find some grass fed beef from the Amish market not far from me - so I'm corning...  I didn't have all the spices on hand so I used a premixed  pickling spice, and skipped the nitrates. 

We'll have Irish soda bread  with our corned beef and cabbage. 

I also recently  tried the Artisan-Bread-in-Five's version of Deli Rye, and it was great. So we'll have corned beef and home baked rye sandwiches as leftovers - and if there's still some left, we can have hash. 

I've been dying to try  Alton Brown's hash recipe, but we only eat corned beef for this Holiday. 

Maybe now that I can make it without the saltpetre, we can have it more often. I can try making  saurkraut so we can   have reubens...

I must be hungry.... sorry. 

RunswithScissors

Counting down to one of my all time Favorite Holidays now ----

First day of Spring is Saturday, March 20!  

Yesterday enough snow had melted so I was able to walk around the kitchen garden -  what a mess it looks at this time of year - but it felt like visiting a long lost friend. The perennial onions are green and unfolding themselves already, even though there was a lingering patch of icy snow right next to them. 

This morning I finally found someone who sells the chickens I wanted to get, so she is putting eggs in the incubator for me today, and we'll have chicks in the bathtub before we know it... (best place I've ever found for them- Inside  a tote bin full of shavings, and then into the bathtub. eZ to keep a small space like that warm for them. )  I picked Faverolles. Here's a pick of a faverolle roo I used to have. He was so sweet with his hens - always so proud to call them over when he found something yummy to eat. 

althea

Hi ladies, I'm posting just in time to keep this topic from scrolling to the next page.  Seems like every aspect of my life these days is 'never on time'.  I bought some plants for my garden two weeks ago and I just got them planted today.  I scavenged some landscape timbers from other parts of my yard and created a raised bed in the sunniest corner I have. 

I planted a tomato, several bell peppers and a cucumber.  In the middle I placed a butterfly stepping stone I bought at an art festival last year.  I love it so much.  It has a mozaic in pink, purple and silver on top.  I raised the bed with some gardening soil, cow manure, soil conditioner and compost. 

I'm even creating some of my very own compost.  I've created a habit of saving my pulp from the juicing machine plus all the fruit and veggie peels and scraps.  I'm not to the point of having a compost pile, but I have some bedding areas where I just dig a hole every so often and bury the compost material.  I dug some of it up to place in the bottom of my raised bed, and by gosh, it looked composty!  lol  

Claire_in_Seattle

No one here mentioned the Slow Food movement.  Lots of focus on natural ingredients and on slower, more flavorful cooking methods.  Might be worth checking out.

On nutrients and animals:  I have never forgotten what it was like to turn our dairy cows out into lush pastures in May after being fed hay and corn sileage all winter.  They would produce about 30% more milk.  And it was richer, having more butterfat.  (We were paid partly based on butterfat content.)  So I have always assumed the same to be true in the foods I eat.

So real organic eggs for me.  Agree too on organic milk.  I can taste the difference.  Noticed quite some time ago that a "Tofurkey" does not exist in nature.

I am not ready to bake my own bread, although have in the past.  But even the white bread you bake from scratch is vastly different from the stuff you buy.  Because you are not likely to cut the same corners as the commercial bakeries.  Same is true of the premium white pasta I bought recently.  Just totally different and made with real ingredients.

CrunchyPoodleMama

Hi, girls - after this morning's portrait session I'm making the 25-mile trek to a local organic farm to buy pastured eggs, raw milk (which I will use to make my own quark for FOCC), and maybe some other stuff (they said they're low on beef/poultry but they may have some soup bones -- I've been dying to make a good hearty bone broth after hearing Sally Fallon talk about them!).

3monstmama

We were active in our Local Slow food convivium until we moved.  Now we are just very very very active in our farmer's market.  I am not a big milk drinker but I concurr fully with Claire_in_Seattle on the eggs.  When I was little, the only place I liked eggs was at my grandmother's house when we visited in the summer.  I HATED eggs at home and would barely eat them.  It ticked off my mother no end.  When I grew up, I started buying eggs at the farmers' market for my monsters.  One time I ended up trying the farmer's market eggs and thought they were wonderful.  Then I put it all together---my grandmother used to buy her eggs from the Amish farms where she lived in PA.  Her eggs, the ones I liked, were free range eggs.  Contrast my mother's supermarket eggs and even the mass marketed organic labelled eggs from Trader Joes.

Now I never buy anything else.  If the farmers are sold out ---doesn't happen often because I get there early---we go without.  Yes, it costs more.  But food that tastes real is so much more satisfying, you don't need to eat as much.  I've found that to be true for pretty much every type of food--eggs, chocolate, bacon, etc.

For those thinking of baking bread, you should know there are different types of whole wheat bread now.  Its not all the flakey brown stuff that was whole wheat in the old days.  Even pastry flour comes in whole wheat!

CrunchyPoodleMama

3monst, that is so interesting -- I've found the very same thing! I've either been indifferent to, or outright hated, eggs for most of my life. Throughout my 20's and so far in my 30's, I stupidly ate egg white omelets only (which I doctored up with plenty of herbs to make it edible).

But these truly free-range/pastured eggs... holy cow, they are out of this world. I crave them every day. Then when I saw on a Sally Fallon video where she had a regular battery egg, a supposed "cage-free organic vegetarian" egg, and a truly free-range egg side by side, the difference was amazing. The first two were barely different at all. The pastured egg had a much deeper-colored yolk and it was much larger. And of course, we now know that the two BIG differences you can't see in a photo are nutrient content and taste!

Didn't someone say here recently that you need the white AND the yolk together to balance nutrients, estrogen/progesterone etc.? That is making so much sense to me now.

I just remembered that my acupuncturist (that I went to when we were trying to conceive 2 years ago) was giving me nutrition suggestions, and one of them that sounded so weird was when she looked at me and said, "You need to eat eggs. WHOLE eggs, with yolk." I was in such a mainstream-nutrition mentality that that sounded absurd to me and I couldn't even fathom taking such radical advice!!

Interestingly enough, I've now been eating free-range eggs almost every day for the last 4-5 weeks. And... as you know if you read the natural girls thread... I got a positive pregnancy test (two of them, but then two negative tests -- so no baby for now). So... coicidence that I conceived now that I was eating whole pastured eggs (plus a lot of other "REAL" food)?? I don't know, but you can bet I will continue to eat healthful, whole, cancer-fighting REAL food and we'll see if I'm able to conceive again!!

Nan56143

My dear friend Bev raised 10 Long Island Reds from little chicks last year, and now gets at least 9 eggs a day. We can't wait to visit this summer to get a taste of the "real thing". Her chickens roam free and one in particular is her favorite. Her name is Princess. Bev would agree with you that her eggs taste so much better. One other thing. Bev buys only grass fed beef, and I told her to get some lard there, and she did. This place renders the lard themselves. Lard makes the best pie crust. Yes ladies....lard. A hell of alot better for you than Crisco. Why anyone would buy and eat margarine is just foreign to me. Butter is so much better.

RunswithScissors

Last week I cheated and bought some non-local veggies - asparagus is an early spring veggie here in the northeast - but it's not ready quite this early. Still, I saw it in the store and I couldn't resist buying some that was shipped in from the south. 

 Brushed with a little olive oil and roasted in a hot oven for 12 minutes....   Oh, so good!

Julia - I'm so happy to hear you conceived.  If you did it once, you'll do it again!  Best to you.

Althea - I'll bet the juicer leaving does make a fast compost.  I've heard that adding a little leaf litter from a heathy forest floor will speed it up, too. I guess it helps establish the right microbes.   

Claire and 3monstmama - I haven't read much regarding slow food but now I look forward to checking it out. thanks!  

Sally Fallon inspired me so much with her book Nourishing Traditions.  (which I adored as level headed dietary information... but as a cookbook... not so much!  )  Then she wrote "Eat Fat Lose Fat"  and I was so disappointed.  The Eat Fat book really pushed using coconut and coconut oil.  

I was shocked to hear her so heavily  relying  on one food product; especially a product that only grows in such limited area on the planet.    The whole idea of that seems so contradictory to her first book.

I suppose her point was that it's a good substitute for dairy and since good quality dairy is nigh impossible to get in the US - she used coconut instead.  Something about it just didn't set right in my mind, though. 

I think she was on target with bone broth, though!  Soups based on great stock really sustained me through chemo.  It was of the few foods I could  eat  - and  I actually enjoyed them even though most other things tasted weird. 

Iza

I agree with the mixed feelings about Sally Fallon. I, too, take her very seriously and believe her contribution to nonsense nutrition is huge, but I am a bit weary of a couple of things. One of them is that she seems to have a "cultish" following that will take her word as gospel without putting it through the test of common sense. I stopped participating in a yahoo group that discusses Nourishing Traditions because no criticism was allowed, no matter how politely phrased.



I prefer to listen and learn and read as much as possible, then come to my own conclusions. In my case, this means that I now put everything in more distant perspective. I take all nutritional advice with a pinch of salt. All of it. Still, my guiding principle is food as simple, natural, and traditional as possible.



Iza

Nan56143

I just bought a bottle of Agave at the heath food store for over $10.00,  and then I get this email from the Mercola site.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/03/30/beware-of-the-agave-nectar-health-food-fraud.aspx

RunswithScissors

Sorry about the agave. Maybe if you take the article to them, the store will refund your money?

It's all so very confusing. 

When it comes to sugar, my family has concluded that a sweet item that no longer tastes like where it comes from, is overprocessed.  Example, maple syrup tastes like maple, honey tastes like honey, molasses has distictive flavor.  All of these flavors are what help us put some brakes on how much we use. I'm rarely tempted to use too much honey, because the flavor would take over a dessert and make it taste yukky, or else I just get sick of it very fast.  

Unlike all the "denatured" sweeteners that for some reason, I just crave more and more of.  

So we try to use sweeteners that taste like something. It's completely unscientiftic and I have absolutely no links to show that this theory is in any way healthier.  I just have a gut feeling about it, and it fits nicely into my efforts to eat real food.  

Claire_in_Seattle

I don't normally use sweeteners of any kind except when baking or with some teas.  So really depends on the dessert.  So.....

• White sugar for more delicate desserts such as white cakes where anything else would overpower the flavor
• Turbinado sugar for fruit-based desserts.
• Honey for chai tea and fruit teas
• Maple syrup for some pumpkin dishes and other baking (BTW - don't go out of your way to buy organic here.  Really hard not to make organic.  Yes, I helped in my youth, tapping trees and dragging sap buckets.)  Or course, when I make pancakes or waffles.
• Molasses and brown sugar for recipes that call for it.

I don't use other sweeteners.  I also have my grandmother's recipes and use them all the time.  Not as sweet and don't cut corners.  I don't chop nuts though if I don't have to.  Otherwise, I use the best ingredients I can find, such as real eggs and high quality butter.  I make my own whipped cream.

One major discovery I did make is crumble topping made with whole wheat flour and ground hazelnuts.  This goes on top of frozen mixed berries.  YUM, and lightning fast.

On another note:  try to find a "pasture raised" chicken.  Pricey, but you roast it for company and collect the raves for "all your hard work".  Of course, no extra work, just a memorably wonderful chicken.  Which reminds me that I need to get one and roast for my neighbor who has made me countless dinners throughout chemo.