Vacation....alone.....

I am actually leaving my family. 3 days, no kids, no cooking, no cleaning. Since I have only left them for three days in my entire tenure as a mother, 15 years of it....I think it is time. So, my blogging friends, I will be back next week full of great ideas to share. My recipe book is coming along. No later than the end of May. Promise. Polling question: 

Do I put the recipe book in a spiral bound form or put it in a nice binder, complete with cute cover and divider pages so that you can add recipes to it that you get off my site and other great cooking sites as we go along? I am leaning toward  the binder. Let me know what you think. Either way, you are going to get about 175+ awesome recipes to share with your family, harmful additive info and nutritional info on grains and how to use them. What a deal. You will also be helping fund Autism treatments with your purchase. Even better!

Stay tuned.....

uncomplicated

I get emails. I get lots of emails. I get lots of different questions. But, I have to say that one of the more frequent emails I get is about diets and protein drinks. What diet do I think is best? What protein powder is better than others? Swim suit season is almost upon us. To many of us, this is horrifying. In any group of women right now, the topic seems to go to dieting, exercise, swim suits. But, the crazy thing to me is how we complicate the whole process of losing weight. We may pay a company $500 to get a certain powdered drink or $100 for a magic pill. We buy exercise equipment promising us to get ripped abs in only 5 minutes a day! What a deal! If we want to look like Carmen Electra, all we have to do is lap dances for our husbands each night. We can drink 2 slim fasts a day and get into our skinny jeans. So many promises, so much money. However, if you read the fine print on any of the diet and exercise gimmics, it will tell you that you need to also eat low cal foods and get moderate exercise. Why make it so complicated? Why pay so much money when the bottom line is the same? Exercise and eat right. That's it. Simple.

The pills, the protein drinks, the shakes are ALL heavy laden with junk. They are not real. You may loose some weight but without a lifestyle change, the results may not last and you are jeopardizing your health in the meantime. You can lose weight and have some chocolate. You can lose weight and eat a normal dinner with your family. When I go out to eat, I am amazed at the quantity of food on peoples plates. We eat too much. You can have good food, just cut it down. Fill up on the fresh produce first then dive into the other part. Have your deserts but save them for the weekend. It works. When I finally get motivated to loose a few pounds, I am always amazed at how quickly it comes off if I follow a few basic rules: A good whole grain breakfast; maybe a pancake but loaded with fresh fruit and a little whipped cream, or, an omelet with lots of salsa and a little cheese but made with egg whites. Lunch and snacks consist of fresh fruit and veggies, maybe some hummus on carrots or whole grain pretzels, a little lunch meat on one piece of bread with lots of veggies and some pesto or some tuna. Then, Dinner. Whatever I am feeding my family but smaller portion than I would normally eat. No white flours. Nothing fried. But, lots of taste. Even pizza on whole grain crust can work just load up one slice with lots of veggies and spices. If I am still hungry, I eat more fruit. If I really need something sweet, about 10 chocolate chips, dark, Giardellis. The good stuff. If you eat a little less, you will shrink your stomach and in turn, you will get full quicker.Stay away from juices and sodas. They are too many calories.

The grapefruit diet, the protein diet, cabbage soup diet. All crazy. They can work but only because they are lower calorie. But, once you go off them , you are back to your regular diet. Eat the foods you would normally eat, just less. Just smarter. If you really want a chocolate chip cookie, about 100 calories, make sure your other portions that day compensate for it. I just know that if I deprive myself of good food, I will end up binge eating. I don't want to live on ice burg salad and shakes. Yuck. If you need protein, go for eggs and nuts. Why spend $40 on protein powder. It is so full of synthetic material that you are paying for. Have some hard boiled eggs in the fridge and nuts ready. Put some real peanut butter on an apple. Real protein for real people.

Of course, exercise is also really important but I have found that even if I exercise a couple hours a day, if I don't also watch my food, I won't loose weight. I love to watch Biggest Loser and always love when they say that they never imagined that loosing weight was so easy and so attainable. They feel horrible that they never did it before. Keep it simple. Keep it real. Keep the junk out of your house so your options are clear. You eat what you have.

One example was the teenage rockers at my home this weekend. My house was full of 15 year old-ish boys rocking on their instruments. We went out on a date night and they were left hungry to fend for themselves. Comments were made to the effect that "all you have is organic crap. No real food." But, guess what, when I came home, they had eaten all of my organic apples and tangerines. You can bet that if I had bags of Doritos and M & M's that the fruit would have been untouched. They eat what is here. One of the boys commented to me when I returned that "those were the best apples that I have ever had." He probably hasn't had an apple for quite some time. Keep on hand what we should be eating. If I had chocolate and Doritos in my home, I would eat those also in quiet moments when no one is looking.

Keep it simple. It works. You will feel better too. Eat for your health, not for the skinny jeans.

More Gardening Tips.....

I am impressed with how many new gardeners we have out there. I think we are getting the message. I hope the plants are all thriving and getting ready to spill with ripe fruit. Just a few more tips on how to get the most from your garden this year:

Remove weeds as they pop up. You don't want to waste the water and nutrients in your soil on the weeds.

Pinch off leaves on the plants like tomato, pepper, chili, etc. that are on the ground. Always remove parts of the plant that do not support the food. You don't need to have a huge bushy tomato plant. Prune it for better fruit yield.

It is getting warm. Make sure to increase your water. I water every other day. The new gardening method I learned was to water 1 inch deep every day. My garden isn't set up this way yet so I am watering deeper every other day. Listen to the plants. They will let you know. Don't let the soil get dried out. This will stress the plants.

If you fertilize your soil weekly, Stop about 3 weeks before the food is getting ready to harvest. If you started in February, you are probably about there.

If you still need more reasons to start a garden, here is an article to get you going. Thanks to Brittany for forwarding this to me.

http://truthinlabeling.org/msgsprayed.html

Good luck to you all! If you have any great garden fresh recipes, kick them my way!

Granola Bar recipe correction

Oops, please check out the recipe. I forgot to add the oil. Hope no one made this yet. I have corrected it on the post. Sorry for those whom I already gave this to without the correction. I will make sure my recipe book is edited! 

Eat Naked segment....Granola Bars.

These are actually labeled as "healthy" choices for snacks for school . After all, they use whole grains so they must be good for you. Right? I just so happen to have a box of these in my pantry right now, a left over from a school function but not at all a normal thing in my home. Once in a while won't kill us but for those of you who do keep this as a regular healthy snack in the home, take a gander at the ingredients:

(its long, get comfortable)

Granola (whole grain rolled oats, sugar, rice flour, whole grain rolled wheat, partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonssed oils with TBHQ and citric acid with natural tocopherol added , whole wheat flour, molasses, sodium bicarbonate, soy lecithin, caramel color, barley malt, salt, nonfat dry milk, corn syrup, crisp rice (rice, sugar, salt, barley malt) semi sweet chocolate chips, sugar, dehydrated marshmallows (sugar, corn syrup, modified food starch, gelatin, artificial and natural flavor, sodium hexametaphosphate, blue 1) corn syrup solids, high fructose corn syrup, glycerin, honey graham cracker crumbs, high fructose corn syrup, whole wheat flour, vegetable oil, sorbitol, calcium carbonate, salt, water, natural and artificial flavors, molasses, soy lecithin, BHT, citric acid.

Yum. No, I did not accidentally keep retyping High Fructose Corn Syrup and sugar. That is how it is listed. There may be some whole grains in there but they are surely overshadowed by the junk. A health food? NOT. Here is a granola bar kept simple. Try it out. Eat Naked!

Peanut Butter Granola Bars

combine:

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup chopped almonds

1/2 cup raisins

In saucepan whisk:

3 T. oil ( I use coconut)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup natural smooth peanut butter

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1 T water

Heat over low heat until sugar dissolves. Let cool slightly. Whisk in 1 egg white. Pour over oat mixture and spread in 8" square parchment lined pan. Bake at 30o degrees for about 30 min or until golden brown on edges. Cool for 10 min. Lift out of pan and cut into bars.

(one of the fabulous recipes that will be featured in my cookbook!)

Baked Penne with Roasted Vegetables

In my quest to have more vegetarian meals in my home, this was one of our meals this last week. The kiddos , as usual were asking what was for dinner. I told them a pasta dish they probably wouldn't like. They don't really like pasta and a pasta dish with all veggies most likely would not get rave reviews by them. I made this dish for me, they would just have to deal with it. My daughter upon taking her first bite said, "Mom, you made this sound like it would be bad but it is actually good." See, you play down something and it is always better. All but the oldest, now picky teenager, ate it all and liked it. The secret is a good, spicy marinara sauce and noodles and veggies cooked "al dente". Try it out this week. Yum. Also, just to get you all excited.....I am working on a recipe book. This is something I have wanted to do for me for quite a while so I don't have to go between a hundred little pieces of paper and recipe books. They will all be in one cute little Enlightened Homemaker spiral bound package. Yipee.

Baked Penne with Roasted Vegetables

variation on a recipe from Everyday Italian

Red Bell Pepper

zucchini

yellow squash

crimini mushrooms

yellow onion

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tsp salt, divided

1 tsp black pepper, divided

1 T. dried Italian seasoning

1 pound multi grain penne pasta (fresh & easy multi grain are great)

3 cups spicy marinara sauce ( I like fresh & Easy Arrabiata sauce, spicy)

2 cups grated mozzarella

1/2 cup Parmesan, grated

On a baking sheet, toss the veggies that have been cut into 1 inch chunks in olive oil, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper and herbs. Roast until tender at 450 degrees , about 15 min.

Cook pasta in salted water until al dente. Drain. In large bowl, toss the pasta with roasted veggies, sauce, mozzarella, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper. Pour into a greased 9 X 13 pan. Top with Parmesan . Bake until golden and bubbly, about 25 min.

Death Begins In the Colon

In our Enlightened Homemakers Forum this past week, we discussed the stomach. We discussed the role it plays in our health and why we must take care of it, why we need to nurture the stomach so that all else is right with our bodies. This is a topic that leads to utter frustration on my part. The frustration for me lies with the medical community. I watch so many talk shows about Autism and almost everyone talks about shots. Its all about the shots. Yes, that may be a small part of it, but why oh why do they not talk about the stomach? Why can't Dr.s outside of homeopaths ever talk about the role of the stomach? Why is it that I, a little homemaker who didn't get a medical degree, gets it ... crystal clear. It just makes sense. If it didn't matter what we eat, we wouldn't need a food pyramid or the FDA. (both are corrupt anyways). We could drink pop all day and munch on Snickers for lunch. We all know that isn't the case. But, I just don't get why the Dr.'s aren't getting educated on what feeds the brain. Why there is a big connection on what we eat and how we feel.

There is a vicious cycle that can occur in the stomach. It happens frequently, it is happening more and more. You see, the stomach was made by our Creator to deliver nutrients, to filter the garbage , to feed our minds and to give us energy. However, when we damage this system, all else goes haywire. The system fails. It is then critical that this is fixed or the body will suffer greatly.

The cycle begins with an injury to the small intestinal surface. This can occur with the overuse of antibiotics, poor diets and the overuse of drugs such as antacids. Once this happens, the necessary linings in the stomach and the intestines are not in place. This leads to malabsorbtion of nutrients. If the body doesn't' absorb what we are eating, even if good, the body is then malnourished. The proper nutrients won't get to the brain and other parts of the body and the body will then deteriorate. Whatever then the body does not digest, will in turn harm the body. Food that sits create toxins. Toxins are bad. Toxins affect everything. Bacteria will grow in the intestines and the stomach and the by products of the bacteria will grow, ie yeast and mucus. Research is showing the amazing correlation between yeast and bacterial growth and health. The problem is, it is hard to get the lining back in place. You have to be proactive. You have to allow the body to heal by removing offending foods and using probiotics, anti fungal and anti bacterial drugs. It takes time and diligence but it can be done.

What I can't emphasize enough is the importance on making sure that the stomach is working as it should. First, listen to your body. As I have said before, the poop tells the story. You should be going at least once per day. If you or your children are not regular, there is something amis. Same goes with diarrhea. Too much is also not good. Many of the times this means that your body isn't digesting food right. You want the food out within 24 hrs or the toxins will build up. Can you imagine leaving a piece of steak out for 72 hours. It would smell horribly and would be full of bacteria. Imagine that in your stomach. You want the food byproducts gone. Many times this means you need to get more fiber, more fresh food, less processed. It gums up the system.
If you or your children have stomach aches on a regular basis, listen. That is not normal. Many pediatricians tell moms that kids just have stomach aches. NOT. There is no normal reason to suffer from regular stomach aches. Start by removing dairy, a huge cause of stomach aches. Lactic acid not digested builds up toxins and sits in the gut. Remember, whatever the body does not digest does harm. Other common offenders are corn, soy and wheat.

If you think you have a stomach issue or you or your children are already facing serious issues like Chrons, Celiac disease, colitis, etc. I would highly recommend a book called "Breaking the Vicious Cycle" by Elaine Gottschall. She is amazing. She gives you instructions on how you can cure the system, even these diseases if you are diligent. Cure, not just help. The diet is difficult, I did it with my son, but so worth it.

I am continually monitoring the digestive systems in our family. A common question around here is "did you poop today." I know, a little intrusive , a little gross. But, I know that if my child is tooting a lot and especially smelly, he needs a fruit shake. Clean out the pipes. I don't give antibiotics. There is a time and a place for those but only in emergencies. It is so hard on the stomach. I make sure we are eating a diet high in fiber. Very little white flour, very little milk. My husband and I went on a three week body cleanse. We do this on occasion to show the body who is boss. We eat very little meat and very little carbs. We take psyllium husk and Bentonite in the morning before we eat, 1 T. of each in water. Same thing at night. I ate mostly fruits and veggies breakfast and lunch then a normal dinner with my kids but light. I felt great. At the end of week three, I ate some junk, white flour and sugar and meat. I felt horrible. While I don't intend to stop eating offending food altogether, we have decided to step it up a bit and eat better. This means less meat, maybe every other day, all whole grains (almost always there anyways), very little sugar. Eating less meat has made me realize how much energy the body takes to process meat. There is wise council we , as members of the LDS faith get from the Words Of Wisdom in our scriptures to eat meat sparingly. Somehow we overlook that. Me included. I get it now. I am going to do better.

By going through the process to heal my sons stomach who has autism, I am amazed at what a difference it has made in his life (and mine). When we started with his diet by day 3 we noticed an amazing difference. He was happy. Can you imagine being in constant pain but can't tell anyone. You would be angry and crazy too. Poor little guys. Our children shouldn't have stomach aches, have little energy and walk around in a fog. Eat healthy. Cook healthy. It is so important. As far as the damage of shots, we know they are hard on the system but the really damaging part is giving shots when the stomach is messed up. Then, the stomach which is meant to filter can't do it's part. Damage is done.

Please be proactive. I hear too many horror stories. It can all be prevented.It can be fixed. Death begins in the colon.

****for more reading about autism and the gut, please read Terri Hirnings blog. As always, very informative.

The Easter Basket Thief

I just amaze myself sometimes at the great ideas I can come up with. Pure genius. Here is one for the books. One to pass on so you too can benefit next year. Here's how it played out:

It was late, like 12:30am late and I still wasn't done with the Easter basket preparations. My children love me to make silly rhyming clues to find each of their baskets, a tradition my creative mother started thus making me to believe that this is just how it is done. Thanks , Mom. Anyways, I was tired and really didn't feel like making 10 clues each for 5 different baskets. Then, the brilliance hit me. The plot: An Easter Basket Napper. 5 baskets held ransom. The demands had to be met or the baskets would not be found. Ever.

They woke up to a note on the fridge. It read something to the effect that a Basket napper had come in the night and had taken the baskets hostage. If the following list of 10 demands were not met, the baskets would never be returned. Here is where the fun started. The list contained a list of demands such as make beds, my eldest son had to shave his face (something I have been begging him to do for a month, much needed, trust me) ,they all had to sing all versus to the song by White Stripes "Friends" while son #1 played it on the guitar, they had to draw a picture of the Easter bunny, etc... etc.... Anyways, I had beds made, my son had a nice clean face and after their belly buttons had said the colors of the rainbow, the baskets were returned. Great fun. We were both happy. What a great game! Suckers!

Hope you all had as much fun! If not, you may borrow this for next year. I think the next years list will be much bigger. I wonder just how much the baskets are worth to them? Hmmm. We will see.

If you have a few too many eggs around your house, here is a fun little game my mom played with us as little ones. Once again, thanks Mom.Ever so creative. Enjoy!

Pile a mound of flour on a plate. Put an egg on top. Have each child take turns with a butter knife slicing away a section of flour. Keep passing around the knife until someone makes the egg fall. I played this with cub scouts too and they didn't want to stop. Good cheap fun.

More on water bottles

Thanks to my readers for sending me the snopes info on the article I quoted. That's why I put quotes so you know it is not my words. I do have to give one bit of caution about snopes. Snopes is a husband and wife team. They check out a few sources and post it as fact. Not always so. They also may pick up on one word, for instance, Dioxins and invalidate that. However, there is always more to the story. I checked out the John Hopkins site. They did say that the Dioxins in plastics are false but they did warn about other things in the plastics and about heating them. If you just looked at Snopes and saw that this whole danger about water bottles is fake, you wouldn't hear the rest of the story. Here is more from the John Hopkins site directly. Thanks for giving me info. I don't have to worry about dioxins in my water but there are still many other dangers from plastics. Still going stainless.

Here is the info posted on John Hopkins with the question posted:

"So it’s okay for people to drink out of plastic water bottles?"

response by Dr. at John Hopkins

RH: First, people should be more concerned about the quality of the water they are drinking rather than the container it’s coming from. Many people do not feel comfortable drinking tap water, so they buy bottled water instead. The truth is that city water is much more highly regulated and monitored for quality. Bottled water is not. It can legally contain many things we would not tolerate in municipal drinking water.

Having said this, there is another group of chemicals, called phthalates that are sometimes added to plastics to make them flexible and less brittle. Phthalates are environmental contaminants that can exhibit hormone-like behavior by acting as endocrine disruptors in humans and animals. If you heat up plastics, you could increase the leaching of phthalates from the containers into water and food.

What about cooking with plastics?

RH: In general, whenever you heat something you increase the likelihood of pulling chemicals out. Chemicals can be released from plastic packaging materials like the kinds used in some microwave meals. Some drinking straws say on the label “not for hot beverages.” Most people think the warning is because someone might be burned. If you put that straw into a boiling cup of hot coffee, you basically have a hot water extraction going on, where the chemicals in the straw are being extracted into your nice cup of coffee. We use the same process in the lab to extract chemicals from materials we want to analyze.

If you are cooking with plastics or using plastic utensils, the best thing to do is to follow the directions and only use plastics that are specifically meant for cooking. Inert containers are best, for example heat-resistant glass, ceramics and good old stainless steel.

Water bottle warning

Since I live in my car, I usually have my usual staples on hand; clementines in my purse and a water bottle. I have been meaning to change to the stainless steel bottles free from toxins but it just hasn't happened yet. That is to change this weekend. The urgent call to action? Here is the dealio; I went to reach for my water to wet my whistle a bit and I accidentally grabbed the older water bottle that was warm, startling my mouth a bit. I instantly remembered an incident my SIL Melissa had some years back with her warm water bottle. We were at the park with the ninos and she went to her car to get her water. She came back and took a swig and spit it out with gusto. She dumped out the water and it was a goo type material I have never seen come out of a water bottle. It was the consistency of a gelatinous corn syrup. I think we both lost a bit of our lunch that day. The water had somehow chemically changed with the warm plastic. Well, to finish my story leading to my call to action, I came home this afternoon and sat down to check my emails. I opened this one from Be Young oils which included a warning from John Hopkins about warm water bottles. Read it and decide for yourselves. It talks about warm water bottles and freezing water bottles. It doesn't talk about regular water bottles but who is to know if the water companies who shipped it didn't let it get warm? I don't want to guess. Read it and think about it. We all know we are polluting our world with plastic anyway so for me, its time to go stainless. Let me know what you think.

(Since posting this, comments were made saying Dioxins are not present in plastics, please read next blog for additional info.)

" Women should not drink bottled water that has been left in a car.The heat reacts with the chemicals in the plastic of the bottle which releases dioxin into the water. Dioxin is a toxin increasingly found in breast cancer tissue. So please be careful and do not drink bottled water that has been left in a car. Pass this on to all the women in your life. Health effects in humansDioxins build up primarily in fatty tissues over time (bioaccumulate), so even small exposures may eventually reach dangerous levels. In 1994, the US EPA reported that dioxins are a probable carcinogen, but noted that non-cancer effects (reproduction and sexual development, immune system) may pose an even greater threat to human health. TCDD, the most toxic of the dibenzodioxins, is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). TCDD has a half-life of approximately 8 years in humans, although at high concentrations, the elimination rate is enhanced by metabolism.[18] The health effects of dioxins are mediated by their action on a cellular receptor, the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR).[19]Exposure to high levels of dioxins in humans causes a severe form of persistent acne, known as chloracne.[20] A case-control study has shown an elevated risk of sarcoma (a type of cancer) associated with low-level exposure (4.2 fg/m3) to dioxins from incineration plants.[21] High levels of exposures to dioxins have been shown by epidemiological studies to lead to an increased risk of tumours at all sites.[21] Other effects in humans may include:
Developmental abnormalities in the enamel of children's teeth.[22][23]
Central and peripheral nervous system pathology[24]
Thyroid disorders[25]
Damage to the immune systems.[26]
Endometriosis[27]
Diabetes[28]Recent studies have shown that exposure to dioxins changes the ratio of male to female births among a population such that more females are born than males.[29]Dioxins accumulate in food chains in a fashion similar to other chlorinated compounds (bioaccumulation). This means that even small concentrations in contaminated water can be concentrated up a food chain to dangerous levels due to the long biological half life and low water solubility of dioxins.

On the Ellen show, Sheryl Crow said this is what caused her breast cancer. It has been identified as the most common cause of the high levels of dioxin in breast cancer tissue. "

This articled also warned about heating food in plastic and also freezing your food in plastic. I know we all know this but it is always a good reminder. Yuck.