I'll be riding my bike this summer!

I went to my asthma doctor today.  I have a mild asthma that wasn’t diagnosed until I was an adult, though my parents and I sometimes thought I might have it as a child.  It mostly manifests itself as a dry cough in cold weather or after physical exertion.

I finally got it “under control” with the use of a rescue inhaler as needed (rare, maybe once a month or so in the winter) and a puff of Advair on mornings when recovering from a cold or flu or an hour or two before doing exercise or heading out into the cold in winter.

That seemed ok, but I was not thrilled with the idea of taking medicine, especially asthma medicine which has a host of side effects.  I’d been interested in natural foods for a while, and believed that the right diet could improve health, but when I started getting involved with Weston A. Price’s research and raw milk and such, it sounded like really applying these principles could help me with my asthma (in addition to other health issues, but that is a topic for another day!).

See what changes I made and why I think that made me symptom free 6 months later, after the jump.*

It was January, 2009 when I started applying the Weston A. Price and Nourishing Traditions into my diet.  This includes:

• Raw dairy products whenever possible
• When raw dairy is not possible, then fermented and/or pasteurized at the lowest temperature and non homogenized
• Taking cod liver oil 3-7 days per week
• Reducing the amount of grains eaten – never going over the “food pyramid” guidelines and usually staying below it, some days well below it
• Soaking/fermenting/sprouting most whole grains before finishing their preparation
• Coconut oil – some days taking 1-3 tablespoons of it in a cup of warm water, and certainly cooking with it
• Butter – spreading liberally on toast, topping steamed vegetables with it, etc
• Eating plenty of traditional fats such as coconut oil, olive oil, and very importantly, butter fat, lard, and other animal fats
• Eating more seafood
• Eating more fermented foods such as water kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, kvass, etc.
• Eliminating all soy except small amounts of fermented soy
• Eliminating when possibly and greatly reducing the amount of processed food in my diet (cereals, cookies, crackers, dinner-in-a-box, etc)
• Eliminating and greatly reducing the amount of non-traditional fats in my diet such as soybean oil, canola oil, corn oil, and safflower oil

Phew!  It is a lot of stuff, but it basically boils down eating traditional foods.  What my ancestors would have eaten between 150 to 150,000 years ago.  Now, I don’t follow it perfectly, but I think I do pretty awesome.  My food shopping habits have changed rather dramatically, as have my cooking habits.  This is a big change from even a year ago when I was getting all of my veggies from the CSA and eating mostly a whole foods diet.  It still wasn’t quite enough.  The few processed foods I ate back then were probably high in soy, and I wasn’t soaking grains or getting enough saturated fat.  I still had my unpleasant asthma symptoms.

Why would these things affect asthma?  Let’s break it down.

• Some studies show drinking raw milk is correlated with a lower incidence of asthma.  Of course, the article is quick to warn you that raw milk can be dangerous.  My answer to that is know your farmer and the condition the cows are kept in, as well as the cleanliness of the milking barn and milk storage area.  Also note that milk has vitamins A and D, both of which are important to the mucus membranes, and vitamin D in particular seems to help reduce asthma.  This could be due to how the muscles need vitamin D to function as well as the fact that vitamin D is a natural immune system boost.
• Cod Liver oil contains vitamins A and D, as discussed above.  It also contains a high amount of omega 3s, which are anti inflammatory.  And since inflamed airways causes many of the asthma symptoms, it makes sense that it would help.  By the way, milk from grass fed cows also contains a decent omega 3 to omega 6 ratio.  Don’t you love it when you are eating as nature intended and you find out how everything works together and has all the right nutrients for you?
• Grains, especially gluten containing grains, can cause an inflamitory response in many people.  By reducing the amount I eat, I’m reducing the possible inflammation in my airways.
• Soaking etc the grains before eating them helps release more of the minerals.  You can digest them and your body can use them.  Minerals play an important function in your lungs, so you want to be able to digest them and fully utilize them when you eat.
• Coconut oil is a saturated fat (along with butter fat found in dairy products).  Dr. Mary Enig says, “When it comes to our lungs, the very important phospholipid class called lung surfactant is a special phospholipid with 100 percent saturated fatty acids. It is called dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine and there are two saturated palmitic acid molecules attached to it.”
• The non-traditional fats I listed such as corn oil and canola oil are primarily polyunsaturated fats.  A study conducted in Australia found that, “a diet high in polyunsaturated fat, equating to margarine usually spread on bread and foods regularly fried in polyunsaturated vegetable oils more than doubled the risk [for asthma], accounting for up to 17 per cent of the cases studied.”  By the way, those oils are also high in omega 6 fatty acids which are sort of opposite to omega 3.  So if omega 3 reduces inflammation, omega 6 cause it.
• By the way, those non traditional fats are found in almost every processed food.  So are trans fats.  To revisit Dr. Mary Enig, she says, “When people consume a lot of partially hydrogenated fats and oils, the trans fatty acids are put into the phospholipids where the body normally wants to have saturated fatty acids and the lungs may not work effectively. Some research has suggested that trans fatty acids are causing asthma in children.”

So, there you have it.  Putting the proper foods in my body has completely gotten rid of my asthma symptoms.  6 months after starting eating this way in earnest, I rode my bike up a very steep hill and when I got to the top, I was a little winded, but I was NOT coughing or unable to have a conversation.  Before I adopted these eating principles, that was not the case.  I haven’t needed my rescue inhaler in months, nor have I taken the Advair in months.  I’m really pleased with how well I’m doing, and my doctor even said that he would like to see all of his patients make this kind of recovery.  Well, then what would he do for a job?

*Note that this is not medical advice, nor is this a cure.  This is simply what worked for me and why I believe it worked.  I recommend working with your doctor,  hopefully one open to eating traditional foods, as I did.

A field in Gettysburg

Yesterday morning, I got up a little late.  I considered not going to the farmer’s market since I still had some vegetables left over from the previous weekend.  But as I thought about it, I realized I could not go a week without quark, the creamy fresh cheese made from cultured buttermilk.  And so, I made the journey to the farmer’s market after all.  I ended up getting some sheep milk cheese, heavy cream, and berries in addition to the quark, so it was productive.   I’m preparing a post on quark.  It is something you can make at home, if you are so inclined.  In the meantime, here are a few links that I found interesting:  some local farms I love,  a coconut milk cooking contest, misconclusions drawn from studies, nutrient deficiencies,  supplies for preserving food, and why local food is awesome.  See below for all the links.

Valley Shepherd Creamery – This is where I got the sheep’s milk cheese from.    It was very tasty.  I don’t eat a lot of sheep’s milk cheese for some reason, sticking more with cow and goat.  But I should make regular stops at this farm’s stall to try the different sheep’s milk cheeses.  The sheep are grass fed, and they even offer some raw milk cheeses.  I see that they give farm tours, so I might try to go.  Their cheese can be purchased in the NYC/NJ area, but if you don’t live here, they do have an online store.

Hawthorn Valley Farm – I love this farm.  Someday I will figure out how I can go work there.  Grass fed cows, fermented foods, vegetables, they have it all.  If you are in the NY area, check them out.

Clean Your Plate – A cooking contest hosted by The Nourished Kitchen.  This month’s theme is coconut milk.  Submit your recipe by July 15th, or vote once she posts the entries!  Coconut milk is a wonderful ingredient, so this will be a great one to bookmark and make all of the recipes!

Warning: Bologna May Cause Cancer Headlines – There are a lot of studies out there that tell you eating meat is bad for you, fat is bad for you, etc.  Is that really true?  Here is a critical look at one such study.  Read it, and you will learn never to trust the headlines when someone tells you some new study shows X.  Instead, read into the study for more information.  How was the data collected?  What data did they look at, etc.  Here is another one debunking the Finnish Mental Hospital Trial.

ABC’s Big Meal Propaganda – A similar article, this one debunking a news report on ABC.  Here is a quick synopsis – A reporter eats 4 foods that are really bad for you – a deep fried appatizer, a hamburger, french fries, and one of those mega cookie ice cream desserts at popular restaurants.  Then a doctor gives her an exam and tells her how the food affected her, and she says how awful she feels after eating all that saturated fat.  What the report doesn’t tell you is all of the sugar and white flour in these foods.  That is what makes them so unhealthy!  Not the saturated fat.  Read the whole article the complete details.  Very interesting.  In general, that is what makes fast food unhealthy – the sugar (in the soda, in the bun) and the vegetable oils everything is fried in.  It isn’t the saturated fat that poses the biggest problem.

Supplies for Preserving Food – If you want to preserve your own food, here is some equipment you might want.  Look for them at garage sales. 

Are you Nutrient Starved? – I believe most of us aren’t getting enough proper nutrition.  Our lifestyle and diet just does not make it easy.  For example, vitamin D.  I work an office job and can’t go sunbathe for 30 minutes every day to get my requirement of sunlight for optimal vitamin D conversion.  And most people don’t eat enough dairy or eggs to make up for it.  The RDA only lists the bare minimum requirements of nutrients to prevent your body from getting deficiency related diseases, but less profound deficiencies can still affect you.  While I disagree with her assertion that answering “yes” to any of her list of symptoms means you have a deficiency, she still makes a good point that any of those things can mean you aren’t getting enough nutrients.  Here is another article on the RDA of vitamin D.

Why local food – A great post on why local food is so good for you and the community at large.

Healthy and unhealthy ingredients – What ingredients to avoid, and what you can substitute with.  A very helpful post for those of you just starting out on a more traditional, less processed foods way of life.

I think that is it for now.  That should keep you busy until I can regale you with tales of quark and lambs quarter.

Berry Breakfast

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday.  This breakfast just has 3 ingredients, all natural!

At the farmer’s market on July 4th, I purchased black raspberries and heavy cream.  Put them together and you have a wonderful breakfast!  It is also quite suitable for dessert.

It really couldn’t be more simple.  Take the organic, in season black raspberries, or any berry variety (raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries), pick through them and discard any ones that have gone bad, and put them in a bowl.  Pour heavy cream over the top and serve.  No sugar needed.  I rounded out the breakfast with 2 pieces of humanely raised, pastured pig bacon.  No nitrates.  (I also do variations with 2 pastured eggs instead of bacon, but that is a topic for another day!)

What makes this breakfast so good?  Let’s break it down.

No Sugar. Refined or even minimally refined sugar is one of the worst things you can eat.  I won’t tell you to never eat it because I’d be a hypocrite.  But sugar is not good for you, no matter what form you take it.  It leads to obesity and various metabolic disorders including diabetes as well as tooth decay.  I do try to limit how much sugar I eat, and I try to make sure it is a more natural kind of sugar, like honey, maple syrup, molasses, evaporated cane juice, etc so at least I can get a little bit of minerals or something with it.  Eating the berries and bacon for breakfast gets you started without the sugar.  A much better choice than a cereal with sugar.  Yes, even so-called “healthy” cereals frequently list a kind of sugar as the 2nd or 3rd ingredient.

Antioxidants – I don’t eat berries because they are good for me.  I eat them because they are delicious; that they are so healthy is a bonus!  One of the things they have is antioxidants and lots of them.  Blueberries and black raspberries are particularly good in this area.  Antioxidants help prevent the signs of aging and can help prevent against cancer and heart disease.

Vitamins – Vitamin K, vitamin E and vitamin C are all found in black raspberries in good amounts.  More vitamins and minerals are in them as well, but these three are particularly plentiful.   Cream has a lot of vitamin A and Calcium, and since cream is fat and those particular vitamins and minerals require fat to in order be metabolized by the body, you know that your body is processing that full amount of vitamins and minerals.

Protein – It is good to start out your day with some protein.  The protein in the cream and bacon combined is almost the same as a cup of skim milk.  Protein is needed for your body to help rebuild itself and it also helps fill you up better than carbs alone do.

Fat – We’ve all been trained fat is bad for you.  That isn’t really true.  Fat from traditional sources is very good for you and is necessary.  Natural sources include dairy and animals (such as cream and bacon) as well as coconut and olive oil.  Vegetable oils made from corn, canola, cottonseed, and soy, to name a few, are not traditional and should not be consumed.  Why is dairy fat so good for you?  Cream from grass fed cows contains CLA and Butyric Acid which help prevent cancer.  Grass fed cow milk also has a better ratio of omego 3s.  Our bodies run on fat as it is a preferred fuel source.  Did you know that our brain is about two-thirds fat?  The nervous system depends on fat.  Besides, it just tastes good!  This is why people love bacon and cream.  Fat is also great because it really fills you up.  It sends a message to your brain to stop being hungry.  Have you ever eaten breakfast of skim milk and cereal only to find yourself starving an hour later?  It has happened to me.  But not when you eat bacon or cream!  You don’t need a lot.  Just 2 slices of bacon and less than 1/2 of a cup of cream was enough to keep me well satiated for hours.

Now, here is where you forget all of that stuff – when I make breakfast, I don’t think about all of these things.  I don’t think about the RDA for vitamin D or how much calcium I’m getting.  I don’t think about antioxidants or other cancer fighting micronutrients.  I just think about a few simple things – Is the food from a traditional source and prepared in a traditional way?  Berries have been foraged for hundreds of thousands of years, I’d bet.  Cream has been around for about 10,000 years.  A short period of time in the grand scheme of thing, but enough time for my ancestors to develop the mutation to be able to drink milk into adulthood (lactose tolerance).  Pigs were also domesticated around 10,000 years ago, but I bet wild boars and related animals were hunted for tens of thousands of years before that.  Since those are the only 3 ingredients in this breakfast, I think that is pretty good.  I also think about taste.  Do these things taste good?  You betcha!  And finally, I think about will this fill me up and keep me full until my next meal or snack?  Fat and protein help keep me full, where carbs, especially refined carbs do the opposite.  I also think about my meals for the past 24 hours or so.  I try and make sure I eat plenty of vegetables and fruit, protein including animal protein found in meat and dairy, and fat from traditional sources.   I don’t count calories, carbs or RDA amounts, and yet, by following this basic outline, I’ve lost weight and maintained myself at my ideal weight.  I’ve been sick less and had improved energy.   I’ve also eaten the most delicious food.

Farmer's Market Haul, July 4th

The July 4th holiday is a big one. And like most holidays, it has its own food associations and traditions.  Strawberries, certainly, and cherries are two.  Both are patriotic colors and come into season around early July.  Pies, cakes and other pastries made with these red fruits or in combination with blue ones like blueberries are on the dessert menu.  Grills are fired up as summer is perfect grill season.  The problem is when these fruits come from conventional farms that use a lot of pesticides, when the meat on the grills comes from factory farms where the animals are fed an improper diet and kept in inhumane conditions.  The problem also manifests itself in the white bread hamburger and hot dog buns, the potato chips fried in vegetable oils, and all the rest of the processed foods that help fill out the picnic.

I celebrated my independence from the industrial food system by going to the farmer’s market bright and early and purchasing the bounty that you see in the photo above.  Going shopping is a pleasure rather than a chore if you have a farmer’s market or a farm that you can buy directly from.  I love talking with the people running the stalls – often times it is the very farmer him/herself!  And just seeing all of the wonderful food and thinking of all the possibilities with the ingredients fills me with optimism.  Cooking food isn’t so bad either.  In the summer you can rely heavily on salads which don’t require a hot stove or hours in the kitchen.  And even in the winter, roasts and soups provide delicious meals and many leftovers with very little effort involved.  And when I do rely on packaged foods or convenience foods, they can be purchased from ethical companies that source good ingredients and create the food in a way as to keep the nutrition in.

Want some examples?  Look no further than the rest of the posts on this blog, or read many of the food blogs linked on the right.  Or stay tuned as I blog over the next few weeks about some of these foods in more detail.  Below the jump you’ll see what I purchased on July 4th and a description based on what I know so far of these foods.

Heavy Cream – I got this from Ronnybrook Farm.  They are an organic dairy upstate.  They feed their cows grass and they pasteurize the milk at the lowest possible temperature allowed, as to retain more of the nutrition.  Heavy cream can be used to whip into whipped cream for desserts (especially fruit desserts!), it can be added to scrambled eggs instead of milk for a little extra richness, added to soups, or used about a hundred other ways.  I specially purchased it to pour it over berries for a simple sugar free dessert.  The cream is sweet enough that I don’t need to add any sugar.  It even overcomes the tartness of the berries.

Red Leaf Lettuce - This lettuce is especially beautiful in salads or on sandwiches, with its ends tinged of red.  Leaf lettuce may not last a long while in the fridge, but it can also be cooked and added to stocks, soups, or stir fries, giving you more uses for it.  Red leaf lettuce is particularly high in beta carotene and vitamin K.  I bought this for salads, but I’ll probably throw some into a stir fry as well.

Quark - yeah, I had never heard of this either!  Quark is a traditional cultured dairy food from Germany.  The easiest way to explain it would be yogurt or sour cream made out of buttermilk.  It is thick enough to spread on toast or crackers, but still creamy.  It can be used in baking, as a dip or a spread.  The taste is similar to sour cream.  A little sour, a little tangy.  But there was something about it, I loved it more than I love either of those two things!  It can go savory with the additions of herbs or sweet with fruit.  Quark will make a regular appearance in my diet.  Absolutely delicious.  And since it is made with probiotics and the milk from happy grass fed cows from Hawthorne Valley Farm, I know that it is at least as nutritious as it is delicious.

Apple and Black Currant Juice - from Red Jacket Orchards.  Their interesting fruit combination and from what I can tell, good farming and juice making practices make them a good place to buy juice from, if you are inclined to buy juice.  I don’t buy a lot since I’d rather eat the whole fruit instead, but they are a good way to help keep a smoothie drinkable, so I do buy every now and then.  This fruit combination is very good!

Broccoli - We all should know by now that broccoli is good for us.  There are so many great nutrients in abundance that I couldn’t list them all here or my post would get too long.  I got this for a stir fry, but I plan on using the entire broccoli, not just the tender heads we all love to eat.  The stems are very good for you too, and eating them helps stretch your food budget and prevent waste.  Chop them into smaller pieces to use in soups, fritattas, pastas, stir fries, or anything else you can think of.

Purslane – I love purslane!  It is one of the best vegetarian sources of omega 3s, and plus, it just tastes good!  A little tart and lemony, it goes well on salads or cooked in stir fry or soup.

Purple Cabbage - I got this for a stir fry (sense a theme?) and chose it over the green because of its pretty color.  Purple cabbage has more fiber and beta carotene than green cabbage.  All cabbage is a decent source of vitamin C which can be further increased by turning the cabbage into sauerkraut.

Zuccini – I made a yummy zucchini bread that made me hungry for more zucchini.  Aside from being put into baked goods, zucchinis are great stir fried, or battered with some egg and fried, which is how I ate a lot of them as a kid.

Green Beans – These just said “summer” to me!  I’ll probably just cook them with some butter.  Delicious and simple.  Green beans are high in vitamin K, vitamin C, and beta carotene.

Sweet Cherries – The pits annoy me (I need a good pitter, recommendations?) so I got the sweet kind that I can just eat out of hand.

Gooseberries – Gooseberries look like miniature watermelons.  They are the same size and shape as grapes and have the same feel in your mouth.  They taste wonderfully sour and can go sweet or savory.  I’ve put some in salads, but I want to try a dessert with them too.

Blueberries - They are packed with antioxidants, but is that why I eat them?  No.  I eat them because they are just so good.  I remember going blueberry picking in Michigan as a child, or hiking in Alaska, eating blueberries along the trail.  That these are so healthy for me is just a bonus.

Plumcots – A plumcot is a cross between a plum and an apricot.  It can occur naturally in areas where these trees are both grown from seed.  Plumcots have been known for some time.  They look similar to a regular plum, dark smooth skin.  The taste is sweet in the flesh, tart in the skin, a delightful combination.  And, like many fruits, high in vitamin C, fiber, potassium, and much more.

Black Raspberries – it struck me that the “blue raspberry” artificial flavor that you can sometimes find in slurpee style drinks and popcicles might actually have its inspiration from nature.  These are small, firm, dark raspberries.  They look black, but stained my fingers purple.  They didn’t spoil as quickly as regular raspberries.  The flavor is somewhere between a blackberry and a red raspberry, and I suppose their nutrition is similar as well.

Lamb’s Quarters – This is a green similar to spinach in taste and usage.  Cook it or eat it raw.  In many places it grows wild like a weed, so you might already have it in your garden!  Don’t weed it out!  It is at least as healthy as spinach, with high amounts of vitamin C, K, beta carotene, and calcium.

Middle Eastern Summer Squash - I can’t remember the exact variety of this summer squash, possibly Magda.  It is a middle eastern variety that holds up well to cooking.  I love trying out new varieties of vegetables, so I thought I’d give this one a try and compare it to zucchini.

And there you have it.  Celebrating my independence from the industrial food system with these great foods.  This will easily last me a week of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with very few pantry items added in.  I won’t even want to make any desserts since the fruit and berries are plenty sweet to satisfy any dessert craving I might have.

Farmer's Market Haul

I got up early this morning and went to the Farmer’s Market at Union Square.  The Union Square one is the biggest around.  There are the most vendors, and it is definitely the most crowded.  I do not enjoy that aspect of it.  However, when you get there as soon as it opens, it is not crowded.  I was able to take my time.  I like being able to walk the entire market before purchasing something.  This helps me plan meals in my head and know what to get.  It also allows me to find the best source for each item.  I’m concerned about price and I want good quality.  Getting there early also means the vendors aren’t too rushed.  They can take their time and you can too.  Ask about the meats – are they grass fed?  Do they receive routine antibiotics, or only if an animal is ill?  Is the milk homogenized?  What sort of pest management do you use? Where is your farm located?  I ask these questions and so many more.  It opens up a dialog and helps me understand more about the food I’m purchasing.  It puts them in touch with their customers so they know what things are important to consumers.

I saw a lot of fabulous things – non homogenized, lightly pasteurized, grass fed, organic milk; grass fed buffalo, beef, sheep, and goat meat; raspberries; blueberries; strawberries; the first cherries of the season; piles and piles of greens of every size, shape, and shade of green; edible flowers; tomatoes…  Oh, if only I had an endless wallet and an endless stomach.  I would spend my days cooking and eating everything there is to cook and eat.

Here is what I got (as seen in the photo above, left to right):

• Apricot juice from Red Jacket Orchards
• Currants
• Purple carrots (with tops)
• Beets (with tops)
• Purslane
• Feta goat cheese
• Rhubarb
• Almost 2 lbs of ground lamb
• Lamb sausage

The apricot juice comes from Red Jacket Orchards that sells a lot of juice and fruits like apples.   I don’t drink a lot of juice, preferring to just eat the raw fruit,  but every now and then I’ll get some.  It usually goes into my smoothie, which is what happened to a little bit of this when I got home!

The currants excited me.  I remember my grandma once made a current pie.  I LOVED it!  I need to do some research with my cookbooks and the internet and find a good way to use the currants.  My only concern is that I might not have enough for a whole pie.  If that is the case, I could probably add some other berries to the mix, or instead make a quick bread or something else with the currants.  Any suggestions for my currants?

Purple carrots.  Purple!  Why buy regular carrots when you can buy purple carrots?  Did you know that carrots used to come in a much wider variety of colors?  And our familiar orange carrot wasn’t even the dominant variety?  In the 1500’s or so, the Dutch started selecting for the orange carrots because of the ruling family, The House of Orange.  Clever, isn’t it?  I want to be a food historian; I find this stuff so fascinating.  Purple carrots have more beta carotene than orange carrots.  You can usually look at the color of vegetables to find out how much they have – the darker/deeper the shade, the more beta carotene.  If you are like me and love reading about the history of food in addition to its nutrition, check out The Carrot Museum for more information than you knew existed about the carrot.

I love beets with the tops because then it is like getting 2 vegetables in one.  Beet tops are essentially chard and can be cooked like any leafy green.  The roots I’ll probably boil and put in salad.  I love a good beet salad.

The feta cheese came from a farm full of happy goats.  I got to talk to the lady running the stand and I got to see pictures of the goats.  Goats are actually not grazers if they can help it – they are browsers.  They prefer bushes, weeds, even tree bark to grass, though they will eat grass if they have to.  Sure enough, the goats in the pictures were on weedy pastures on the fringes of forested areas.  No wonder the goats looked so happy and the cheese tasted so good!  These cheese will go in my beet salad.

Purslane is back!  I got this once from my CSA last year and loved it.  It is a weed and is unceremoniously tossed from many yards.  But it is delicious and nutritious!  The flavor is herb-y and lemony.  Very moist and delicate.  For nutrition, it is one of the best source for ALA omega-3.  ALA is the vegetarian source of omega 3.  Purslane is great in stir fries or as an accent to soups, meats, and so many other dishes.

It is still rhubarb season!  I’m so happy.  I haven’t even touched on all of the rhubarb things that can be made.  Rhubarb pie, rhubarb bread, rhubarb sauce to put over yogurt or anything else really…  Any suggestions?

Finally, I stopped by Catskill-Merino Sheep Farm’s stand.  They sell wool and meat, and the occasional plant item that grows on the farm.  They have an online store and they ship, if you don’t live nearby.  The sheep seem to be happy, grazing on very green grass, just as sheep are meant to do.  I haven’t eaten lamb in a long time, so I purchased some ground lamb and a lamb sausage.  I figure I can just use lamb instead of beef when making tacos, spaghetti, meatloaf, stroganoff, or anything that calls for ground beef.

Any suggestions for any of the things I got?  I’m particularly interested in ideas for the currants and rhubarb.

Ground Beef and Mushroom Stroganoff

I love ground beef and mushroom stroganoff.  It is such a simple meal, but it is so very satisfying.  It is such a great comfort food to me.  I used to cook my ground beef, throw in a can of mushroom soup and a cup of sour cream and call it a day.  But as I was looking through my vintage cookbooks, I knew there had to be a better way.  The old cookbooks gave a lot of inspiration, but they didn’t deal with ground beef, but rather strips of steak or chunks of beef.  I didn’t have any of those cuts, besides I grew up eating ground beef stroganoff, so that is what I wanted.

A few things about this recipe – I wanted to boost the nutrition up without altering the flavor too much.  Liver and heart are such powerhouses of nutrition, so I added small amounts of those.  Not enough to change the flavor, but hopefully enough to make a difference, however small, nutritionally.  If you want to, you can eave those out, but you might want to increase how much ground beef you use.

There are a few reasons I included those organs.  The first is that the more aware I become of the industrialized food chain and our society’s disconnect from where our food comes from, the more involved I get in food activism, I feel like if I am going to eat an animal’s meat (which I do because it works for me and I feel healthier in doing so), I should respect the animal and use every part of it’s body.  Not just the choice muscles.  I put the bones in stock, and people used to eat organ meat a lot more frequently, so why can’t I?

As for nutrition, organ meats are fantastic sources of vitamins A and D.  It is a great source of CoQ10 which is getting a lot of press these days in the supplement world.  Personally, I always prefer to get something from a whole food source.  Additionally, iron, vitamin B12 are found in organ meats, and so much more.  Check out what the Weston A. Price Foundation has to say about liver.

And always, always get your beef grass fed (and most importantly, grass FINISHED).  Personally, that is more important to me than the organic label, as grass fed/finished cows are frequently organic without the certification, but an organic cow could have been fed massive amounts of corn and soy, which are not part of its natural diet.  Grass fed cows have more omega 3 in their meat and a special fatty acid called CLA which helps protect against cancer (among other things).  Get to know your farmer.  That way you can make the best decision about your food.

Please keep in mind that you should play around with the flavors in this recipe to suit your own tastes.  Like a more onion-y or garlic-y flavor?  Add more ramps and/or garlic.  And so on.  Also, I did not have worcestershire sauce, so I approximated the flavor with my own ingredients.  Feel free to just use worcestershire sauce, or play around with my proportions to make it sweeter, saltier, tangier, etc.   Just be sure to use traditionally fermented soy sauce, as soy has anti-nutrients such as phytic acid that are only removed during fermentation.

A final note, sometimes flavors take time to mingle.  I found that this was the perfect leftover food as it tasted even better the second day!

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 3 Large portobello mushroom caps
• 3 tablespoons Ghee
• 1 lb Ground beef (grass fed!)
• 1/4 lb Ground beef heart (grass fed!)
• 1/8 lb Liver, chopped finely or ground (grass fed!)
• 2 Ramps, minced (if no ramps are available, use 2 cloves of garlic)
• 1 1/2 cup Sour cream
• 3 tablespoons Flour
• 1/4 teaspoon Fish sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon Soy sauce (must be traditionally fermented)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon Sherry vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon Molasses
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Parsley (to garnish)
• cooked egg noddles or boiled potatoes or something to serve the stroganoff on

(Note – the fish sauce, soy sauce, vinegar and molasses can be replaced by about 1 and a half tablespoons of worcestershire sauce)

Instructions:

This recipe has a lot of ingredients, but see the note above, if you have worcestershire sauce, you can simplify a bit.  It is still pretty easy to do.  Put the ghee in a skillet or frying pan on medium or med-high and melt it.  Chop up the portobellos into strips and cook them until they have shrunk in size and are completely soft.  Take them out of the pan and set aside.  Leave whatever left over ghee is still in the pan.  A little extra is good for the ground beef.

Now add your ground beef and organs if you are using them.  Turn the temp on medium, or even medium low and stir frequently.  When it has cooked through, add the mushrooms back in and add the ramps.  Stir it up a bit, mix it up, then in comes the sour cream.  It is going to get a little liquidy.  That is ok.  Keep it on low, you don’t want to get dairy products too hot.  Add the flour to thicken it a bit, and then add the fish sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, and molasses (or worcestershire sauce if you are using it instead).  Salt and pepper to taste, and that is it!  Serve over cooked egg noodles or boiled potatoes witha  little chopped parsley on the top.

Hens on the farm

As much as I wish I did, I don’t live on a farm.  In fact most Americans don’t live on a farm and have become increasingly cut off from the food they consume.  Food comes in boxes or bags.  Meat comes deboned and deskinned.  Many cows are fed grain to fatten them up, and they live in crowded conditions.  Many chickens live their lives in windowless sheds.  They are packed beak to tail in this horrifying shed.  They never see the light of day.  And so on.  And because they are in so much emotional and physical stress from the unnatural diet and crowded conditions, they are more prone to infection, thus the standard feeding of antibiotics.  The products we buy from stores have gone through so much processing that they no longer resemble the food it comes from.  In fact, I’ve taken to calling much of the processed food you’ll find at a supermarket a Food Type Product.  It just doesn’t seem right to call something made with heavy machinery and chemicals food.  It makes me sick.  That stuff isn’t food.

I think we need to get that connection back to the farm.  We need to see vegetables growing in the garden.  We need to see cows out on pasture, and then connect that with the food we eat.  I also believe it is important so that we can know and approve of the conditions in which our food is made.  I want to make sure that the eggs I eat are from chickens who actually spend time foraging outdoors.  Partially because I believe that all animals have the right to be treated with some basic respect, but also because eggs that come from clean conditions, from hens who receive sunlight and are able to forage for bugs and grass and weeds in addition to chicken feed are so much healthier!

In my effort to get closer to the food I eat, I visited one of the farms that provides me with milk, milk, eggs and other homemade or farm grown products.  What I found was nothing short of delightful.

Milk cows on grass

The milk cows were munching on more than an acre of green grass.  They all looked happy and healthy doing what cows do best.  Milk that comes from grass fed cows contains more vitamins A, D and K as well as more omega 3s and a type of fat called CLA.  Vitamins A, D and K are important for bone health and immune system function in addition to other things.  Omega 3s help prevent inflammation, and CLA is an amazing fat, but not talked about much.  It has anti cancer and antioxidant properties.  I find it beautiful that when we treat animals as they are meant to be treated, they provide us with the nutrition we need in the right balances.

The Beef cows also seemed pretty happy munching on their own couple acres of gorgeous green grass.  The meat from grassfed cows also contains more omega 3s and CLA.  It is also a little leaner.  In addition, cows fed grass have the proper digestive track ph.  When cows are fed grain, the ph gets out of whack and nasty bugs, like e. coli which has caused so much sickness, can colonize and in turn, contaminate the meat.  With cows fed grass, what nature has designed them to eat, this does not happen.

The chickens raised for meat were out on pasture in these floorless pens.  I imagine they are similar to the ones Joel Salatin describes on his Polyface Farm.  They are open to the sun except a covered portion for shade or to get out of the rain.  The chickens get to peck at the grass and insects in addition to their feed.  They feel real earth beneath their feet and real sun on their back.  After a few days in any one location, the pens are moved to a new location on fresh grass.  These chickens looked like real chickens.  They didn’t grow too fast for their body to keep up.  They were healthy and able to run around in the pen, just like any natural chicken should.

The laying hens seemed about the happiest of them all.  I didn’t count how many there were, but they had a whole acre to themselves.  There were a few little sheds and converted houses for them to live in, and I saw some go in and out.  Mostly, I watched the hens out in the grass, foraging.  One would find a good spot and make some happy noises.  Each one has as much space to herself as she could possibly want.  Just like milk, pastured eggs contain more omega 3s and vitamins A and D.  You can tell by looking at the yolk – the yolk of a chicken allowed to forage for bugs and grass will be larger and a much deeper shade of orange.   Those hens were treated the way they were meant to be treated, and in return, they give us healthy, nourishing eggs.  What a beautiful relationship.

I also got a tour of the garden.  Rows and rows of rhubarb, broccoli, potatoes, lettuce, everything!  I learned when they planted, how they planted, and what organic tricks they use to discourage pests and weeds.

For lunch I was treated to an amazing meal of chicken, homemade pasta with a cream sauce, salad with ranch dressing, peas, corn, milk, and for dessert, rhubarb pie, cookies or ice cream.  All homemade!

Getting out to the farm was amazing.  I’m so glad I went and I plan on visiting as many of the farms I purchase from as possible.  When food and animals are treated with respect and honoring their biology, the way they were designed to live and eat, not only are we respecting them and giving them a good life, but the food they give to us will nourish us so much more than anything grown on an industrial scale.

I read quite a few blogs, and there were a lot of interesting posts waiting for me when I came back.  These are a few posts that I thought were full of good and interesting information I simply must pass on.

Sally Fallon Interviews on Hartke is Online! – I love Fallon’s books Nourishing Traditions and Eat Fat, Lose Fat.  I’ve cooked many of her recipes and had them all turn out, plus, she only uses whole foods and traditional ingredients.  She stresses the importance of traditional foods and especially traditional fats.  Give her a listen!

High Fructose Corn Syrup Warning on Hartke is Online! – As if I needed more reasons to get this stuff out of my food supply.  But just in case you or someone you know isn’t convinced, send them this link.

Big Corporations Dictate What We Eat at Agricultural Society – Title says it all.

Three Great Traditional Food Videos at  Nourished Kitchen – Videos on making Kombuchu and Fermented Vegetables, and Sally Fallon discusses diet and emotional health.

Fish at Whole Foods at The Slow Cook – If you eat fish (and it is a healthy choice to do so), we are often faced with the reality that what we are doing is not healthy for the planet.  Overfishing and poor fishing practices deplete ocean stock.  Here is a post listing some fish available at a local Whole Foods and if it is a good choice or poor choice.

Heartburn information from Natural Bias – A great article on heartburn.  What causes it, how to treat it, and how antacids and other pills for it are about the worse thing you should do.

Phew!  More later, but I hope this gives you something to read and think about as I get a post together about the farm I visited.  Also, tomorrow I will be seeing FOOD INC. I’m quite excited to see it and I’ll try and post a review.

Plus I made a versatile sauce using lovage that I’d love to share with you, and I’ll be trying to make chicken stock in the crockpot for the first time this weekend.  Lots going on, so stay tuned…

My first line of defense: Acerola powder and cod liver oil

It seems a funny thing to talk about. Winter is over and summer is on the way. Today is sunny and gorgeous and expected to hit 90 degrees! Well, I want to talk about immune system support anyhow. You may have heard about the Swine Flu that is going around. Now, it seems to be mild in the US, but it is a good idea to take proper precautions.

In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to take supplements. We would get all the nutrition our body needs to remain healthy just by eating a healthy diet. Well, we don’t live in a perfect world. Many of us haven’t been eating healthy our whole life, so we are already at a disadvantage. Many if us still don’t eat perfectly, even if we would like to. There are pollutants in the air around us that make our body work harder. There are lots of reasons why diet just doesn’t cut it.

That being said, I still prefer to get my vitamins and minerals from food sources. Here is what I take/eat to support my immune system:  

• Cod Liver Oil – Contains Vitamins A and D. Estimated about half of the US adult population is not efficient at converting beta carotene to vitamin A. Vitamin D has a similar problem, never mind the fact that for most of the northern US, we are just barely in the part of the year when we can make vitamin D from the sun. That is, if we spend enough time in the sun without clothes or sunblock.
• Acerola powder – This comes from a South American berry that has extraordinary amounts of vitamin C in it. If I’m going to take vitamin C, I’d rather it be in this form, from a whole food, rather than a sugary powder that is as far from a whole food as possible.
• Dessicated Liver – Vitamin B12
• Whole Milk – preferably raw or pasteurized at a low temperature. Do not get the kind in the shelf stable boxes, as that has been treated at an extremely high temperature which completely destroys much of the good things in milk. It is essentially cooked milk. It tastes funny too. Anyhow, milk contains vitamin A, D, and E, all needed for your immune system to function.
• Eggs – preferably pastured, organic eggs (hens fed low or no soy, organic feed, allowed to forage for bugs, grass, and weeds). Eggs contain vitamins A and D. Be sure to eat the yolk – the most nutritious part!
• Vitamin E – found in whole grains, nuts, and oils. If you eat whole grains, be sure to soak them first to rid them of the phytates which block mineral absorption.
• Coconut Oil – Coconut oil has many wonderful properties. One of them is the kind of fat that makes up coconut oil disrupts the lipid coating of viruses and bad bacteria. The viruses and bad bacteria are then unable to infect you.
• Zinc – the best dietary source of zinc is oysters. Then meat, crab, fish, etc. White meat such as chicken and pork has plenty of zinc in it – it isn’t just red meat.
• Probiotics – this is a pretty big category: Yogurt, kefir, kombucha, kimchi, sourkraut, beet kvass, etc. Our body needs beneficial yeasts and bacteria to keep our body running smoothly. When we have a healthy growth of beneficial organisms, it becomes harder for a hostile one to come in and reproduce enough to make us sick. The good ones crowd it out!

Finally, not enough can be said about getting the proper amount of sleep and keeping good hygiene. Most adults need between 7-9 hours of sleep in a night. Make sure you get enough. The body needs a chance to rest and repair itself. As for handwashing, simple soap and water is plenty good. No need for antibacterial soaps (which won’t prevent the swine flu as it is a VIRUS anyhow). Just be sure to wash your hands for a full 20 seconds and get inbetween the fingers and on the top of the hand as well as the palm.

Stay well!

The types of sweeteners you will find in my house - none artificial

I don’t eat Sweet and Low, Equal, or Splenda. I don’t believe they are food. They are chemicals that are masqueraded as food. Geared towards those who want to have their cake and eat it too, these artificial sweeteners supposedly provide all the sweetness of sugar without the side effects of calories. Eat yummy food and keep your waist trim!

Well, my first thought is that they taste awful. Even Splenda, which has marketing materials talking about how much it tastes like sugar, tastes awful to me. I can taste them in anything. Gross.

Secondly, maybe we shouldn’t be eating empty calories (like that which is found in refined sugar and to a lesser degree all the other natural, minimally processed sugars – honey, maple syrup, etc) to such excess that it causes weight gain. Maybe it should remind us that sugar is a treat, something to be used in small amounts and/or infrequently. I bake with sugar and eat it, but I try to use unrefined sugars when I can, and I also try not to bake sweets every week or eat them every day. In fact, I find the less sweets I eat, the less sweets I want to eat!

With all of this already in mind, today I checked out The People’s Chemist and learned some truly awful things about Splenda.

From the article:

Splenda contains the drug sucralose. This chemical is 600 times sweeter than sugar. To make sucralose, chlorine is used. Chlorine has a split personality. It can be harmless or it can be life threatening.

Guess what one Splenda is? It was discovered when its creators were trying to design a new pesticide, so that should tell you something. Go read the rest of the article to get the full scoop.