Jan. 23, 2006
Health Nut at Circle Z
Posted in Blogging
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I have found that I have been posting much more often over at my new Homestead blog,
so I though I'd post the link here for anyone interested. The ladies
over there are just great and I'm having a super time there! I'll keep
this blog running for now, but most of my posts will probably be over
there. Come on over and visit me if you get a chance!
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Jan. 13, 2006
You Know You're a Health Nut When...
Posted in Family LIfe
You know you're a health nut when your preschooler asks you for honeycomb and he means actual honey on the comb. 
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Jan. 10, 2006
Books, Books, Books
Posted in Books
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Just read: The Untold Story of Milk, by Ron Schmid The Herbal Body Book, by Stephanie Tourles
Am now reading: 1776, by David McCollough Devotions for Homeschool Moms, by Jackie Wellwood
Hope to read soon: Know Your Fats, by Mary G. Enig The Family Cow, by Dirk van Loon The Great Physician's Rx, by Jordan Rubin So Much More, by Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin
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Jan. 3, 2006
It's Nice To Be Back
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I'm really so glad to be back into the
schoolwork again. It's a nice change of pace to feel like I am
actually accomplishing something. Which is unlike our days off when I
plan to do a lot of cleaning and organizing, but somehow, it just never
gets done. I don't know what it is with me, but I guess school is just
funner than cleaning and organizing. What ends up happening is, I blog,
read internet articles, try new things in the kitchen and make huge
meals for the family...and that's about it. Hooray for school!
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Jan. 2, 2006
2005: A Health Odyssey
Posted in Health
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Baby steps can sure add up over a year's
time. Here's where we (my husband and I - and our family) were
this time last year, and what we've accomplished in 2005: January: We were already not using any transfats. It had been probably about 5 years since I stopped buying products with transfats. We were also already using fresh eggs (either our own, or from our neighbors, the Amish). Our children were already drinking only 4-6 ounces of apple juice a day, with the rest of their drinks being milk and water. We ate refined sugar almost daily. February: Stopped refined sugar. Increased consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. Decreased amount of milk our children drank. March: Started eating coconut oil (I like Garden of Life brand the best). Started losing weight (about 20 pounds over 3-4 months; both my husband and myself). I think the coconut oil is the reason why, although cutting out sugar probably helped. April: Became avid fans of Dr. Mercola. Narrowed down fats we cooked with to coconut oil and butter. Olive oil in salads only (or other "raw" use). Ditched the instant mashed potatoes for real mashed potatoes (my last "instant" food). May: Ditched the microwave oven due to the nutrional deficiencies of microwaved food. Stopped buying ready-made orange juice (real fruit being better for you than juice; and I wanted to "spend" my "sweet points" on something like honey, rather than juice) June: Ordered a great (large) toaster oven as a replacement for the microwave. Read The Maker's Diet, by Jordan Rubin, for the first time. Switched to organic milk. July: Received toaster oven. Started taking fish oil each day. Began decreasing amount of canned food used. Bought grass-fed beef. August: Discovered Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon. September: Still reading Nourishing Traditions. Using almost 100% organic produce. October: Switched from fish oil to cod liver oil for the winter. Started making real beef and chicken broth. November: Ordered Bosch Universal mixer. Started drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice, about one small glass per week (for the winter). Began soaking oatmeal overnight with whey before making porridge in the morning for breakfast. There was one more big change in November that won't be discussed in this blog. But it was a big deal. December: I started drinking coffee again (BAD!) Received Bosch. Started baking all our own bread. These two events are very related. Began eating real sauerkraut and ginger carrots (both lacto-fermented). Read The Real Story of Milk. Had our first Christmas with no refined sugar (here at home, anyway). I still refer to Nourishing Traditions at least 3-4 times a week. In 2006 we hope to learn more about soaking our grains before making our breads and other grains to make them more healthful. I will have to start cutting back on the coffee again, too. 
I like coffee too much. Plus, I dread the headaches when I stop
drinking it. Maybe if I wean myself with a little more decaf each day? |
Dec. 28, 2005
Pumpkin Pie Recipe
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Since Janne
suggested it, I thought I'd share the recipe I use for pumpkin pie.
It's not overly sweet, but it is good, especially if your taste buds
aren't used to a lot of sugar. I just used the recipe on the back
of the can of Libby's 100% pure pumpkin, and just substituted
ingredients I preferred: 3/4 c. Rapadura 1/2 tsp. salt 1 tsp. ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp. ground ginger 1/4 tsp. ground cloves 2 large eggs 1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin 1-1/2 c. cream Note: if you get non-homogenized milk, just take the cream off the top of that; a little bit of regular milk comes out too, but it doesn't negatively effect the filling. The original recipe calls for evaporated milk, but something about canned milk just doesn't do it for me. 1 unbaked 9-ince (4-cup volume) pie shell (I make mine with butter) Mix dry ingredients, and set aside. Beat eggs in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and dry ingredient mixture. Gradually stir in cream/milk. Pour into pie shell and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350; bake 40-50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours. Serve immediately or refrigerate. For a topping, we either whip our own cream with a bit of honey; or buy an organic, naturally sweetened whipped cream in a can. No Cool Whip, thank you very much! (it's almost 100% trans fat) It would probably be even better if you cooked your own organic pumpkin, rather than buying canned. I haven't been able to find organic canned pumpkin. I'll try to post more recipes as I come up with them. I have to warn you, though: we don't follow a low-fat diet. We use full-fat everything, as long as it is what we consider to be healthful fats. It's a little bit unconventional, but my husband and I have researched this, and feel that not all fat is bad. So we use a lot of butter and full-fat milk.  |
Dec. 26, 2005
Good Food and a Christmas Eve Mishap
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I hope you all had a blessed Christmas.
Ours was lovely, despite a trip to the emergency room on Christmas Eve.
We thought our 2-year-old daughter swallowed a little plastic angel's
halo from the nativity scene. The doctor didn't find any evidence that
she did, but we will still have to do some thorough "inspecting" for
the next few days, the details of which I will not go into right now in
case you are still eating your breakfast. Funny, I never thought our
first emergency room trip would be for our little girl. Not when she
has four and six-year-old brothers! I made one batch of refined-sugar brownies last week for my husband to take to work for "food day". This was under the condition that he pawn them all off before coming home. Other than that, I baked with NO REFINED SUGAR this year for Christmas. I have never done that before, and I'm very happy with the results of my efforts. I still made some treats, but I used Rapadura instead. Also, all the treats in the kids' stockings were sweetened by honey or evaporated cane juice. Here's what I made: Coconut cookies (fat - coconut oil, sweetener - Rapadura) Sugar cookies (fat - butter, sweetener - Rapadura) Pumpkin pie (sweetener - Rapadura; whipped cream from a can sweetened with evaporated cane juice) Pineapple pie (doesn't really even need a sweetener, but I added a few small spoonfuls of Rapadura) They all tasted great, although the sugar cookies didn't look especially appealing. The color was definitely not white like regular sugar cookies. They looked more like brown tagboard or something. But they did taste good! I just have to figure out a way to make them look better. I am so glad that avoiding refined sugar doesn't mean you have to give up good food. "I'd rather eat good food than bad food any old day of the week!" Quiz: What old Don Knotts movie does the above quote come from? Anybody know? It's one of my favorites!  |
Dec. 22, 2005
Incredible Find in China
Posted in Faith
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Just read a story this morning in WorldNetDaily about the gospel in China. The story is "Stones indicate earlier Christian Link"
and it comes from CHINAdaily. It's amazing. The stones are carved with
scenes of the nativity, and date to between 25 and 220 AD.
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Dec. 21, 2005
A Good Health and Nutrition Resource
Posted in Health
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I just found another homeschool blog with a link to Dr. Mercola: Janne's Jabberwocky.
(Hi Janne!) Whenever I have a health-related question or problem, I always go to Dr. Mercola's site first and look it up. His approach is to look for ways to treat a medical problem nutritionally before seeking out help from doctors and prescription drugs. I really appreciate his advice, other than I'm not quite sure what to make of his "emotional freedom technique". I would just change that to prayer. 
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Dec. 21, 2005
Reflections on the First Day of Winter
I miss sunlight. When's spring? 
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Dec. 20, 2005
What I Get My Husband for Christmas
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My husband is not a shopper. It didn't
take long after we got married for me to start scheming about our
holiday gift-giving practices. I came up with a great idea. I shop for
him and for myself. When I do
his shopping for him and buy gifts for myself, then that's kind of like
a gift for him, right? What a load that must be off of his mind, to not
have to worry about what to get for me. This way, all he has to do is
ask me: "Amey, what did I get you for Christmas? And did I wrap it
yet?" And I say, "Yes, dear. You got me a coconut candy bar and the
latest issue of Mother Earth News. And yes, 'you' already wrapped it." Easy. And I always get what I want! Side note: it cracks me up that I like to read Mother Earth News. I like to just bring it up in conversations with friends and family members. Something like, "Oh yes. I just read something about that in Mother Earth News." |
Dec. 19, 2005
Yummy Treats with No Refined Sugar
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I found a great candy bar with no refined
sugar! It's great because this time of year can wreak havoc on anyone's
resolve to steer clear of sugar. If you like the Mounds bars, you'll
like Cloud Nine's Coconut Bar . I bought several of them so my husband can give them to me for Christmas. Isn't that nice of me? heh-heh I love these candy bars. The Cloud Nine company is not even paying me to say this! Free advertising for them! I guess they're getting a good deal here.  I also found some M&M-type candies called Sunspire Sundrops for my kids' Christmas stockings. Also for my kids' stockings, I found some honey sticks. They're just these long plastic straws filled with honey - kind of like those pixy sticks we used to get when we were kids. It's great that there are so many good alternative sweeteners out these days. You know, ones that don't cause cancer and multitudes of other health woes. I feel really blessed. |
Dec. 17, 2005
Easy, Good-for-You Dinner Idea
Posted in Cooking and Baking
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A few weeks ago, I tried making
sauerkraut for the first time. I didn't think I was the sauerkraut type
until I tried it. It was much better than I remembered! Here's what we
had for dinner tonight: Chicken sausage (no nitrites or nitrates, from Trader Joe's) Sauerkraut Fresh broccoli (steamed) Homemade bread (made two days ago) Lots of butter (organic, also from Trader Joe's) Sharp cheddar cheese (from raw milk) The only thing about this meal that took any time at all was washing and cutting up the broccoli. Oh yeah, and washing the pans. And the cutting board. But I haven't gotten to those yet. I'd rather blog.  Sauerkraut is great for your digestive tract, as long as it is preserved correctly. It should be lacto-fermented, not preserved with vinegar or tons of salt. I have read that it keeps your immune system in good shape, so that's especially good news this time of year with all the viruses going around. My kids aren't crazy about the sauerkraut (YET). But I'm working on 'em. |
Dec. 17, 2005
Template Change
Posted in Blogging
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So I decided to get rid of "chocolate",
and go with "Grandpa's Barn". I think maybe it will be easier on the
eyes with the white background and dark print. This has nothing to do
with my fondness for chocolate. |
Dec. 16, 2005
Let's Be Perfectly Clear
Posted in Blogging
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I just want to make one thing perfectly
clear: this blog is not about exercise. I am not an exerciser. I get
enough exercise right now by lifting baskets of laundry, keeping cats
out of the garage, and chasing toddlers. I also put that "ecosystem" thing on this page, just to remind myself that I am an "insignificant microbe". Hopefully I will never become a multi-celled microorganism or a wiggly worm. I might get the big head.
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Dec. 16, 2005
How Ironic
Posted in Blogging
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OK, I've started this new blog. My old one is Amey's Blog.
This blog will be better because you can click the "random blog" button
up at the top and not be scared about what's going to come up. Plus,
I've been reading some of the ladies' blogs that are here in this
Homeschoolblogger community, and they sound a lot like me! So I guess I
belong here. I decided to call my blog "Health Nut", but then chose the template "chocolate". But it's not so paradoxical as it sounds. Because what is life if you gain your health but lose your chocolate? |