just a quick thought...

Check out this article in the health section of the New York Times: A Stable Doctor for a Scattered Life. I love reading the "Cases" column; it's often very personal and includes fascinating details about the experience of having and treating a disease. Unfortunately this week's column does not live up to my expectations. It is written by a psychiatrist who is seeing a severely mentally ill man. He tells her that he needs an absurdly large dose of Haldol, an anti-psychotic. It is the only thing that works he says. So what does she do? She writes him a prescription for it! Pathetic! P A T H E T I C!!! Who cares what drug the crazy person swears they need, she's the doctor, supposedly uncrazy. Anyway, dude has a terrible reaction to the drug and ends up in the hospital. I can't believe that this woman's ego is so big that she can write about a flagrant medical error and not take any serious responsibility for it.

What I'm Reading This Week Month: Poisonous Plastics and Cruel Dentists

Well, the once a week plan has failed so I'm going to make it a once a month series instead.

I've been doing most of my reading in my horrible textbook "Understanding Normal and Clinical Nutrition." I'm hoping to get it together to do a "best of" blog post where I can detail the most atrocious things I've found in that book.

My reading suggestions are a bit meager this month, but here they are:

I've been following this for awhile now but it seems to be gathering some momentum. Check out USA Today's story on Bisphenol A and pthalates: 'Everywhere Chemicals' in Plastics Alarm Parents.

You devoted readers (hi mom! sup betsy?) might remember my trip to the dentist with my girl:

After calling every pediatric dentist within an hour from my home, I discovered that every practice was a total mixed bag in terms of x-rays, amalgam, fluoride, etc., and that they all looked down on breastfeeding. Knowing that, I made my decision on where to take her based on how soon I could get an appointment. I knew we were not going to use the practice that I ended up taking her to. They have a policy of not allowing parents to be present if their child needs any treatment more extensive than a simple cleaning. This is unacceptable to me; I would not allow any stranger to take my child into a room by herself and do things to her, even if he or she has graduated from medical school. My job as her parent is to protect her and advocate for her, which I cannot do if I am sitting in a waiting room. When my daughter needed a blood test to check her lead levels our family doctor did not ask us to leave the room, in fact, there was an implicit understanding that my partner and I would need to be present in order to hold and soothe our daughter during the procedure. There is absolutely no reason why this would not be possible for a dental treatment. What are they trying to hide?

This is what they were trying to hide: Profit Over Patient? Dentists Accused of Child Abuse. Please take note of how thoroughly unapologetic the dentist is.

* * *

So I am now actually reading Gary Taubes' new book "Good Calories, Bad Calories." The library here has several copies. Silly me, I thought they would all fly out the door and I would have to wait in line. As it turns out Buncombe county is not quite as excited about this book as I am. Now that I'm reading it, I can see why. It is dryyyyyyyyyyyyyy and, even for a nerd like me, a teensy bit boring at times, although it's picking up a bit in the second part of the book. It's definitely a scientific book, but it's as much about the history of ideas about nutrition as it is about the science of nutrition. The book is written very carefully with a lot of detail, which is a wonderful contribution to those of us trying to battle the conventional nutrition giants, but it doesn't make for a catchy read for the lay person. Still, I'm thrilled to be reading it and I think that anyone who does take the time to read even parts of it will reap significant benefits if they alter their diets based on the information in this book. Luckily there are the Sally Fallon's and Nina Plank's out there to translate all this information for the masses.

Oh but wait a second, Sally Fallon and Nina Plank's work came out well before Good Calories, Bad Calories. I think Gary Taubes work is an incredible addition to the field of nutrition, but I am intensely irritated by the lack of recognition given to the myriads of nutrition writers that have come before Taubes. I doubt that there will ever be recognition of their phenomenal work. I was bored by the first few chapters of Taubes' book because I had learned virtually everything he was writing about from attending a Sally Fallon seminar last winter. She even used several of the same graphs to demonstrate how data had been misinterpreted. It's going to take a lot of people to say the same thing for this dogma to topple...but come on, credit where credit is due!

Additionally, Weston A. Price is notably absent from the discussion in Taubes' book. I'm really confused as to why he isn't mentioned because his work is achingly relevant to the topics. Is Weston Price price more of a pariah than I am aware of? Even so, I am confused why Taubes' would not include his work because it supports his hypothesis. He mentions many other doctors and researchers who were coming to the same conclusions that Price did except that they were making these observations in the 40's and 50's, whereas Price's seminal work was first published in 1939 and his research was being conducted throughout the thirties. I'm glad to learn of the other researchers who were also coming to the obvious conclusions that the refined carbohydrates of the modern diet had disastrous health consequences, but why this notable absence?

* * *

Here's a fun little fact I gleaned from Taubes's book: The word homeostasis was coined by a physiologist named Walter Cannon (although he was not first person to recognize the concept) but even he described it as "the wisdom of the body." I find this notable because so frequently I hear alternative healers and midwives refer to our bodies as wise and implore us to leave well enough alone. I guess, on some level, Science agrees.

What I'm Reading This Week: Gary Taubes

I'm initiating a weekly (I hope) blog post about what I'm reading. I find all sorts of interesting things and I figure I'll pass them along.

I'm really excited about Gary Taubes new book, Good Calories, Bad Calories. I'm tired of being relegated to the lunatic fringe or into the diet fads category. The food that I eat is more normal than the Standard American Diet. It looks like the wave that it is going to wash out low-fat dogma is building more and more.

Gary Taubes just had a feature article in the NYT Magazine that is worth checking out: Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy? It is very eye opening about the unreliability of epidemiological studies. Additionally, he has responded to readers questions about his article and there is some great information there. Be sure to pay attention to the Q and A about relative risk vs. absolute risk. It is a commonly used statistical distortion and we should all be questioning medical recommendations that are based on relative risk.

If you're enjoying that go ahead and check out his 2001 article: What If It's All Been A Big Fat Lie?

Can't get enough Gary? Here ya go:

Interview with Gary Taubes

The Soft Science of Dietary Fat -This was originally published in the journal Science.

Cognitive Dissonance

This is old but for some reason I forgot to post it.


The more thoroughly I embrace my new view on nutrition, the more I am able to recognize the wide spread cognitive dissonance about diet. As a nation, we are so committed to the lipid hypothesis that we apply it even when it goes completely contrary to logic. Here is a great example from the New York Times:

But the notion that Americans ever ate well is suspect. In 1966, when Americans were still comparatively thin, more than two billion hamburgers already had been sold in McDonald’s restaurants, noted Dr. Barry Glassner, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California. The recent rise in obesity may have more to do with our increasingly sedentary lifestyles than with the quality of our diets.

“The meals we romanticize in the past somehow leave out the reality of what people were eating,” he said. “The average meal had whole milk and ended with pie.... The typical meal had plenty of fat and calories.”

“Nostalgia is going to get us nowhere,” he added. -For the Overweight, Bad Advice by the Spoonful

I forget that whole milk is an epithet. It's funny to see a doctor living in the fat-era calling the diet of pre-fat-era Americans bad, unhealthy, and possibly fattening. It's like saying, "Back when people were thinner, they ate more fattening food." It simply doesn't make sense. Logically, if people were thinner, than their food was less fattening. Now, I'm obviously leaving out the issue of our sedentary lifestyles to make my point clearer, but the funny part is that in the next few paragraphs of the article they assert that exercise has little influence on obesity and weight loss. This just adds to my point about the cognitive dissonance. This doctor says it's not food but lack of exercise, but then the data says that exercise has little effect, so isn't the obvious next step to reexamine the hypothesis about food?

This question is answered in the last paragraphs of the article:

According to several animal studies, conditions during pregnancy, including the mother’s diet, may determine how fat the offspring are as adults. Human studies have shown that women who eat little in pregnancy, surprisingly, more often have children who grow into fat adults. More than a dozen studies have found that children are more likely to be fat if their mothers smoke during pregnancy.

Blame mothers! Even better, blame poor, malnourished mothers! How about blame a government who doesn't offer universal health care for pregnant women? How about blame welfare reform? How about blame shitty WIC programs? They've also linked formula to obesity, so now we can blame those ignorant, selfish, bottle-feeding mothers too! Or should we blame hospitals for allowing Nestle to supply every new mother with a free gift of formula right as she and her baby are trying to learn to breastfeed even though it's disgusting!

Dissing on Local Food

Note: this was written about a few weeks ago but it never got edited and posted.


While I would much rather be reading Harry Potter 7 during my daughter's naptime, I unfortunately (for me, hopefully not for you!) feel the need to respond to this irritating op-ed in the New York Times today.

The gist of the essay is that while it seems intuitive that eating locally would be better for the environment, there have been studies that show that maybe it is not. The author argues that there are parts of the globe that are very efficient at growing food and that instead of trying to grow food in places where it is inefficient that we should just focus on shipping food from places where it is efficient to places that are inefficient. Whew. Here's the most important section of the essay:

It all depends on how you wield the carbon calculator. Instead of measuring a product’s carbon footprint through food miles alone, the Lincoln University scientists expanded their equations to include other energy-consuming aspects of production — what economists call “factor inputs and externalities” — like water use, harvesting techniques, fertilizer outlays, renewable energy applications, means of transportation (and the kind of fuel used), the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed during photosynthesis, disposal of packaging, storage procedures and dozens of other cultivation inputs.

Incorporating these measurements into their assessments, scientists reached surprising conclusions. Most notably, they found that lamb raised on New Zealand’s clover-choked pastures and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed. In other words, it is four times more energy-efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard. Similar figures were found for dairy products and fruit.

This all makes logical sense, but it does not take into account a very important aspect of the local food movement. Eating locally means eating seasonally and it means eating foods, animal and vegetable, that can be raised naturally in your region. Just because it is possible to grow tomatos in a heated hydroponic greenhouse in the winter doesn't mean we should do it! If Britain doesn't have sufficient pasture to raise lamb, (actually I find this hard to believe, maybe a certain part of Britain doesn't, but I know for sure that the whole country isn't devoid of grass) well then a local foodie should be eating seafood. Or some other creature more adapted to the area.

We humans are incredibly flexible in what sorts of foods we can survive on. We have flourished all over the globe, jungle to desert, without super highways and planes to transport our food. We will have to make sacrifices in order to bring our society back into balance with the earth. We might not get tomatos and strawberries all year round, and we may never see a pineapple (as you can see, the northeast united states is the center of my world). The good news is that we have many new worlds of food to discover. Industrial farming and food shipping, rather than increasing the diversity of food we eat, has a tendency to shrink it. Instead of growing our local, carefully bred, plant varieties and domesticated animals (as well as eating the local wild plants and animals), we have started to eat the same things everywhere. I've done my share of traveling in this country and every time I walk into a supermarket it looks like I could be anywhere. The same apples, same tomatos, same onions, same chicken, same beef. It's very homogenous.

The author is right. If we want to be able to get anything, anywhere, all year around, then yes, it is probably more efficient to put our focus on creating enormous, "super-efficient", industrial food growing operations and shipping food globally. While the idea of being able to get anything I want sure is enticing, (and I have to confess that, while I do buy local a lot, I am not the best seasonal eater) there are a lot of losses to a system like that:

1.) As I have already mentioned, food diversity.
2.) Our local economies lose out when we buy 1,000 mile apples versus 10 mile apples.
3.) Food safety and food security. If we were eating locally we would not be experiencing nationwide food recalls. We would not have to dispose of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of pounds of possibly tainted spinach, or beef, or milk. When our food production becomes centralized we become vulnerable to disasters that can result in catastrophic food shortages. When our production is decentralized, we can create local food security through local food production. If one community loses its crops, theres the next one down the road vs. relying on one area (ie California) to produce a marority of the veggies for a whole large country (ie the United States).
4.) Vegetables that travel are less nutritious. Nutrients break down over time so the quicker it gets from the farm to your table the more nutricious the food is. The author of the article plays this off as being about a privileged and unimportant desire for taste, but (assuming it hasn't been adulterated by taste enhancing chemicals) taste tells us something abour our food. We know when we're eating good food and a seasonal local heirloom tomato tastes richer and better than a bland, ethylene spray ripened, California grown (remember folks I'm on the east coast), January tomato, because it is richer and better.
5.) The environment. While I totally agree that it is not efficient to try to produce plants or nurture animals in an environment that they are not suited for, I question whether that study has compared small or medium sized organic farms striving for sustainability with large industrial farms from far away. It makes sense that a large industrial farm could, through size, become more efficient with its machines, more efficient with its chemicals, and more efficient with packing and transporting. But what about small local intensive farms that are using little input because they are being careful and concious about their resources? Now if Whole Foods would just buy directly from those farms instead of making them ship their products hundreds of miles to their processing facilities that ship the food back hundreds of miles to the local Whole Foods...

Toxic Car Seats and a Case for Local Economies

I've been busy! Hopefully I will be able to write more regularly again soon.

For now I wanted to pass along this website: www.healthycar.org

This is for all you parents and parents to be out there. I'm passing this along for two reasons. One, so you can figure out if your car seat is poisonous and/or prevent you from buying a toxic one. Two, more importantly, I want this to serve as a reminder for all of us that, due to the reckless and indiscriminate use of toxic chemicals, we are all at risk of being poisoned. It is up to the individual consumer to minimize exposure from contaminated products. I've been thinking about this a lot in light of what's been happening with food and chemical production in China (the mass dog poisoning, mass human poisoning, and tooth paste contamination). We also have a current US engendered meat contamination going on.

Yet another (big) reason to re-localize our economies. Local food is less likely to be contaminated, and the same is true for locally made products. In the unfortunate case of a contaminated product the poisoning is limited to a smaller group of people rather than a huge and scattered population. Recalls could happen swiftly and easily.

This is pure speculation, but I would guess that local producers of food or goods would be less likely to use toxic chemicals in or on their products for a number of reasons. They would have to literally face the people who are harmed by their indiscretion. A local food producer may not need chemical preservatives because their product spends less time getting to the consumer. Smaller production is less complicated and more personal which allows producers to use higher quality, natural materials. Staying in the good grace of the community insures their survival as a business, why would they jeopardize that with a harmful product?

While we're on the subject of local economies, I just joined the Asheville Local Exchange Trading System (AshevilleLets). It's awesome!

The Importance of Nutrient Density - Part I: Your Body is a Machine

Our culture has a tendency to focus on calories, the basic energy giving properties of food, as the measurement increment for food. A far more useful way to quantify what you are eating is to pay attention to the amount of usable nutrients in food. A nutrient dense food is a food that has a low ratio of nutrients to calories, meaning that there are a lot of nutrients in a relatively small amount of a food. A good example of nutrient density is to compare the amount of calcium in cheese to the amount of calcium in broccoli. Foods like chips and soda have a high ratio of nutrients to calories, meaning that there are a lot of calories but not many nutrients.

When I talk about nutrients I am talking about vitamins and minerals. There are a lot of misconceptions about vitamins and minerals. The most important thing to understand about nutrients is that they are extremely synergistic in the foods that they come in, as well as with proper food combining. For example, calcium is a mineral that is often taken as a supplement. The problem with this is that in order for our bodies to utilize calcium we need Vitamins A and D, and to utilize Vitamins A and D we need saturated fat. One food that is rich in all of these nutrients is whole, raw milk. Milk should be whole because without the fat we would not be able to utilize Vitamins A and D and raw because pasteurization diminishes vitamin content. A calcium pill will never be able capture the magical synergistic properties of whole food nutrition.

It is possible to eat a diet that has ample calories, but not enough actual nutrition. A decent analogy for this is a car. Gasoline makes a car go; you cannot drive the car without it. At the same time if you don’t change the oil, and replace the brake pads, and the tires, and all the fluids, etc., your car is going to have problems and eventually break down. The same thing is true for your body. Calories are our fuel, but nutrients are the building blocks for our body systems. We need vitamin A for vision; a deficiency can cause blindness. We need vitamin B12 to prevent anemia. We need vitamin K so that our blood will clot properly. Nutrient dense foods keep our bodies in good working order.

Weston Price labeled modern foods, like white flour and canned goods, the “displacing” foods. This is an important distinction because it is an often overlooked aspect of nutrition. When you eat junk food it takes you two steps back. The first is that the food is processed and probably contains harmful food additives or imitation foods like hydrogenated oils, MSG, artificial flavors, preservatives, and pesticide residues. The second and less recognized problem is that these foods are devoid of nutrients and therefore they are displacing foods that have nutrients. Most of us are only hungry for a certain amount of food; when we fill up on cupcakes and chips, we are less likely to eat our nutrient dense dinner. Doing this once in awhile might not be a problem, but what are the consequences of doing it everyday? Each time we skip out on nutrition we are forcing out body to work without being able to repair itself and eventually something is going to break down.

Obligate Carnivore

A couple of weekends ago I attended a seminar with Sally Fallon. She gave a weekend-long talk covering many topics, such as the problems with vegetable oils and the cholesterol myths, the work of Weston Price and traditional diets, and how to incorporate traditional foods into your life. Seeing as I quote her every other blog entry and have read a tremendous amount of her work, I was definitely the choir she was preaching to. Still, it was nice to have someone talk me through the chemistry of lipids and I found her tips on cooking and meal planning to be very useful. I would highly encourage anyone to go and hear her speak if she comes to town.

One of the new things I learned was the term Obligate Carnivore. This term is often applied to cats because they need to get their calories from meat. It refers to an animal that eats virtually nothing but meat. Sally used it to describe people who cannot be vegetarians. I suppose that Obligate Omnivore would be a more accurate description of such people, but for now I will stick to Obligate Carnivore, because I think it drives the point home.

I’ve known for many years now that I cannot maintain my health without eating animal products. Sally Fallon explained that depending on one’s ancestry it is possible to have more or less of the enzymes that allow nutrients to be extracted from plants. She gave Indian people as an example of a population who often has higher levels of the enzymes necessary for eating a plant based diet. People from coastal regions tend to have less of this enzyme.

One example she gave is the enzyme called Delta-6-Desaturase (D-6-D). This enzyme is essential for the elongation of essential fatty acids (EFAs). I wrote in a previous blog entry about the inadequacy of flax seed oil as a source of Omega-3 fatty acids and I’m actually going to quote myself (heh),

“Flax seed oil is rich in the omega-3 oil alpha-linoleic acid (ALA), but lacks the other Omega-3's eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) or docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Our bodies, especially our brains, have an absolute need for EPA and DHA. This means that we cannot function without these fats. It is possible, in a healthy body, for to be converted into EPA or DHA, but not in the amounts that are necessary to maintain optimal functioning…”

This is where D-6-D works its magic, which I unfortunately do not know the intricacies of. What I do know is that it plays a crucial role in transforming into the longer EFAs: EPA and DHA, of which our body has an absolute need. OK, I’m straying dangerously into chemistry that I have only a very weak grasp of, so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead.

The point of all of this is that some people really do have an absolute need to eat a lot of meat, and some people really can live on a diet with a higher ratio of vegetables. I find this reassuring in the face of vegan propaganda that asserts that meat-eaters just lack willpower or compassion. Essential fatty acids are only one example of the plant sourced nutrients that must be converted before they can be used; some other examples are Vitamin A and taurine, and I am willing to guess that there are a lot more. Our bodies all work differently and therefore our ideal diets will vary. An ethical diet must have enough flexibility to keep its adherents in good health, something that I believe veganism to utterly fail at.

Creme Brulee

I am way overdue for a new post. Unfortunately, I had computer mishaps with my last two blog posts. I am trying to rewrite what was lost. In the mean time, my adventures with raw milk continue...this time in the luscious form of creme brulee!

It is amazing to me how different real raw milk is from the pasteurized product. My family and I were out of town recently and were unable to get real milk and so we went for the next best thing: unhomogenized pasteurized milk. While the cream on the top was tasty and comforting, the milk just wasn't the same. Within a day of opening it, the milky bits stuck to the glass at the top of the bottle, had already developed a rank smell that seemed particulary unappetizing, as I have grown accustomed to the milder, cheesy smell of aging real milk. As I've said before, raw milk does not go rotten the way pasteurized milk does. I would never ingest pasteurized milk that is past its prime; as we all know, it's disgusting. Instead of becoming foul, raw milk begins to ferment. This is presumably how all of our favorite fermented dairy products (cheese, yogurt, kefir, sour cream) came to exist. People let their milk get old and depending on where in the world the were and what kind of container it was being stored in, it turned into one of many fermented dairy products. People began to select the ones that tasted better and they propagated them thus nurturing the cultures (strains of bacteria or yeast or both) that we use today.

Before we went out of town I had bought a half gallon of cream for several specific cooking projects. I didn't get to all of them before we left and my partner, who is passionate about not wasting food, was starting to drop some hints about his feelings on the unused quart of cream. Having read this article, I assured him that it would be put to good use. I told him that I was going to make creme brulee. I don't think he believed me, but I actually did make it. The cream was definitely not "sweet" anymore, but there was not even a hint of sourness in the finished product. This is a wonderful recipe; the level of sweetness was perfect (meaning not very sweet at all). Also, the cream I used had not been particularly well separated, so it was a good bit more milky than ideal, but it still formed a delicious custard. I imagine that this recipe could also work reasonably well with whole milk, let me know if you try it.

Here it is:

Creme Brulee with Soured Cream!

Serves 8

1 quart heavy, soured raw cream
8 medium egg yolks
1/2 cup Rapadura
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
8 rounded teaspoons Rapadura or Sucanat

Heat cream gently with vanilla but do not let it boil. Beat egg yolks with Rapadura or Sucanat until smooth and well blended. Beat vanilla and hot cream into yolk mixture. Pour into 8 4-inch ramekins (about 3/4 cup per ramekin). Set dishes in very shallow pans of warm water. Bake 45-60 minutes in a 300-degree oven until custard sets and forms a a crust on top.
Let custards cool, cover lightly with waxed paper and chill 4 hours in the refrigerator. To serve, sprinkle 1 rounded teaspoon Rapadura or Sucanat over the top of each. Place under the broiler until the sugar melts, being careful not to burn. (It melts very quickly!) Let the casseroles cool and then return to refrigerator until melted sugar forms a crust. Serve very cold.

Taken from here. Enjoy!

Superfoods - Part II: Honoring Animals for Concentrating Nutrition

This is a continuation of my post, Superfoods - Part I: Luxuries or Necessities?


When examining a list of Superfoods (fish eggs, organ meats, cream, shellfish, etc.) it quickly becomes apparent that all of these foods come from animals. There are a lot of myths surrounding the health benefits of vegetarianism, and one of the big ones is that you can "get everything you need from vegetable sources." Well, the short and simple answer is: you can't. In fact, any reputable (if they can be called that) vegan information source will tell you that you need to fortify your diet with B12. The real deal is that vegans will need to take far more supplements, like omega-3 oils, vitamin A and D, iron, and calcium, to name a few, in order to maintain their health. There are pills that one can take for all of these things, but the best sources, that are most efficiently utilized by our bodies, are from animals.

There is plenty of vegetarian and vegan media that claims that no animal sourced or synthesized supplementation is necessary, but their theories rarely hold up to scrutiny. For example, I often hear it claimed that flax seed oil is a good source of omega-3. Unfortunately, it is not. Flax seed oil is rich in the omega-3 oil alpha-linoleic acid (ALA), but lacks the other omega-3's eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) or docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Our bodies, especially our brains, have an absolute need for EPA and DHA. This means that we cannot function without these fats. It is possible, in a healthy body, for ALA can be converted in to EPA or DHA, but not in the amounts that are necessary to maintain optimal functioning and certainly will not be adequate for a growing fetus (don't get me started on vegan pregnancy). On the other hand, fish oils, like cod liver oil or seal oil, are rich in EPA and DHA. Another ready example is the myth that plants are a good source of iron. In reality, it is difficult for our body to utilize the iron from plants, but heme iron, from animals, is readily available.

While our bodies can convert small amounts of nutrients from plants into usable forms (i.e. converting beta-carotene to vitamin A), many animals can do this much more efficiently. They are able to convert and concentrate these nutrients into quantities that are not available in plants. Also, the protozoa in the gut of ruminants (like sheep or cows) are able to convert plant oils into saturated fat. This is a very good thing. There is a lot of bad information out there on fats, which will be a subject for another post, but right now you need to know that saturated fat is necessary for the absorption of vitamins and minerals. In fact, saturated fat is so crucial to digestion that it is possible to starve if one's diet is lacking. A famous example of this was Randolph Marcy's 1856 expedition to Wyoming. While attempting to cross snowy mountains, the explorers ran out of provisions and were forced to eat their pack animals that were also in a starved condition. Marcy wrote this about the experience in his book, The Prairie Traveler.

"We tried the meat of horse, colt, and mules, all of which were in a starved condition, and of course not very tender, juicy, and nutritious. We consumed the enormous amount of from five to six pounds of this meat per man daily, but continued to grow weak and thin, until, at the expiration of twelve days, we were able to perform but little labor, and were continually craving for fat meat."

Even though the explorers were consuming a huge amount of meat, their bodies could not utilize the food because there was no fat to allow digestion. They were on their way to starvation.

I empathize with vegans' desires to walk the path of least harm and not cause any animal to suffer. I emphatically agree that animals should be treated humanely. However, the assertion that killing animals for food is morally wrong, is foolishly simple and dangerously ignorant. This theory only holds up if one believes that it is possible to survive off of plants alone. As you know, I heartily disagree with this theory. I believe that we are suffering from serious nutritional deficiencies. Animal foods and Superfoods are especially important for us in our era of devitalized and processed food. It is up to each one of us to end the cycle of deficiency in ourselves and in our children. We can do this by adopting the traditional diets of indigenous people, especially the practice of utilizing Superfoods during childhood, pre-conception, pregnancy, and lactation. The vegan diet dooms us and our children to poor health and that is unethical.

I think the simplest way to understand Superfoods and honor animals is to recognize all of the work that animals do for us. They convert beta carotene, plant iron, plant oils and numerous other nutrients into forms that are usable by our human bodies. Not only are they providing us with available nutrients, but they are also concentrating these nutrients into the amounts that humans (and other omnivores and carnivores) need to maintain optimum health. There is a certain justice to the fact that, generally, mistreated animals are significantly less nutritious to eat. Choosing Superfoods from conscientious farmers and sustainable fisheries is key.

Superfoods - Part I: Luxuries or Necessities?

Every time I read Weston A. Price or Sally Fallon's writing I focus in on something new. When I was pregnant I got caught up on phytates and the enzyme enhancing properties of fermentation. More recently, I was fascinated by the traditional practice of eating raw meat. When my daughter's teeth began to decay, I knew immediately that it had to be a result of poor nutrition, mine, and subsequently, hers. My research into alternative treatment for her teeth quickly led me back to the work of Weston A. Price. This time I have focused on his research on nutrient dense foods rich in vitamins A, D and Activator X.

Dr. Price found that all traditional cultures fed women, and sometimes men, a special diet before marriage, during pregnancy, and throughout the nursing period. These special foods, or 'superfoods' as we call them in my household, varied depending on geographic location and included fish eggs, various organ meats - especially liver, milk and cream from cows eating fast growing grass, bird eggs, shellfish and I'm sure there are plenty of other examples that I don't know about. When Dr. Price asked these people why they gave childbearing couples special foods, they responded simply, "So that they will have perfect babies." It's interesting that they understood so clearly the relationship between nutrition, health, and fertility, when we are still telling breastfeeding mothers that they can eat junk food without harming their babies.

The sacred foods of the past have been transformed into the luxury foods of today. While these foods are still valuable monetarily, they have lost their association as being valuable nutritionally. Because these foods are associated with wealth and decadence, in a roundabout sort of way, they have gained the stigma of being superfluous. While these foods are expensive, they should not be considered extravagant. Superfoods are densely nutritious. They contain significantly more amounts of vitamins and minerals than do "regular" foods like muscle meat, vegetables or grains. This is especially important to us now with a bulk of our food being being grown on depleted soils and then processed and shipped long distances causing the nutrient content to be further reduced. Our modern diet is severely lacking vitamins and minerals and we also consume significant amounts of "anti-nutrients" like phytic acid, not to mention, sugar, coffee and alcohol. Diets that are devoid of vitamins and minerals can give us the energy to get through the day, but they won't give us the body-building elements that we need to maintain our health. For this reason, it is vitally important to our health to consume nutrient dense diets, and part of this means choosing superfoods.

The good news is that you should feel no guilt over your occasional (or not so occasional) decadent food purchases. Instead of buying, at best, minimally beneficial, or at worst, extremely toxic, vitamin and mineral supplements, invest in some raw cream or liver pate. Actually, you will probably save money as supplements are extremely expensive. I've found that if I eliminate chips and store bought sweet treats, I can eat savory pate or homemade whipped cream on bananas without breaking the bank. Sometimes I get snide remarks about my "bourgeoisie" food choices. I've had a taste for the finer things since before I knew why they were so good. I'm glad to know that my taste buds have been right on. Superfoods are our best preventative medicine, not just for us, but for our future children.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to get into great detail here but if you want to read more I would suggest checking out these articles:

Guide to Superfoods

Feeding Babies

Diet for Pregnant and Nursing Mothers

The Liver Files

Ancient Dietary Wisdom for Tomorrow's Children

Also, stay tuned for Part II - Honoring Animals For Concentrating Nutrition

Bad(Ass!) Breastfeeding Mama

I took my daughter to the dentist last week. She has visible caries in her two front teeth. This is indicative of a mysterious modern disease that is now being called Early Childhood Caries (ECC). I am currently working on a series of blog posts about ECC and pediatric dentistry in general, but my experience last week was so appalling that I want to write about it separately from what will be a more scholarly essay.

After calling every pediatric dentist within an hour from my home, I discovered that every practice was a total mixed bag in terms of x-rays, amalgam, fluoride, etc., and that they all looked down on breastfeeding. Knowing that, I made my decision on where to take her based on how soon I could get an appointment. I knew we were not going to use the practice that I ended up taking her to. They have a policy of not allowing parents to be present if their child needs any treatment more extensive than a simple cleaning. This is unacceptable to me; I would not allow any stranger to take my child into a room by herself and do things to her, even if he or she has graduated from medical school. My job as her parent is to protect her and advocate for her, which I cannot do if I am sitting in a waiting room. When my daughter needed a blood test to check her lead levels our family doctor did not ask us to leave the room, in fact, there was an implicit understanding that my partner and I would need to be present in order to hold and soothe our daughter during the procedure. There is absolutely no reason why this would not be possible for a dental treatment. What are they trying to hide?

Since I was not concerned that we would need to maintain a relationship with this dentist, I decided that I was not going to be a placid, submissive patient. I, actually, intentionally choose to appear ignorant to most doctors because I know that most of them will not react well if I challenge their medical recommendations. I avoid the doctor as much as possible and when we do have to go in, I take what I need and ignore the rest. I really did want their medical opinion so I assumed that I would be able to go through most of the initial exam before I would become difficult. That initial period where we all smiled at each other congenially turned out to be about 30 seconds. They gave LZ (my daughter) a new toothbrush, asked me why I was there (caries, I told them), and the immediate follow up question was: Do you breastfeed? It was that fast and downhill the rest of the way.

The ADA and the AAPD believe that ECC is caused by "on demand" nursing, particularly night-nursing. This logic flies in the face of millions of years of human history (and I'm going to get into that in much more detail so stay tuned). After I told the dental technician that we were breastfeeding she immediately said "Oh, that's why she has the cavities" and then wrote on LZ's chart "Mother nurses on demand." I just about lost it. In any other situation, a medical professional writing on a chart that a baby breastfeeds would be like putting a gold star on the paper. It is finally widely accepted that breastfeeding is the absolute best way to nourish human babies. In every other medical office I would have been treated like a good mom.

I was thinking last night as I read this incredible news that throughout modern history every time doctors come up with a reason to dissuade mothers from breastfeeding or to persuade them that there are superior alternatives, they end up having to completely rescind their previous recommendations and grudgingly endorse breast milk. The very beginning of this lie being the fallacy that formula is just as good or better than breast milk. Many doctors are still telling moms with sick babies that they should discontinue nursing and give their babies pedialyte because breast milk is too rich or heavy or will produce mucus or some other baseless excuse. Pedialyte may hydrate a baby but it has no nutritional value. Breast milk is easy for babies to assimilate, is not analogous to cow's milk, and medically is considered to be a clear fluid. This means that in a medical situation where a doctor would prescribe a diet of clear fluids, breast milk is the top of the list for nursing children.

I argued with the hygienist for a few minutes until she ended the discussion with a pat "well we'll agree to disagree". Then the dentist came in and things continued basically the same way. He tried his best to give me explanations for why breastfeeding caused caries. I challenged each assertion he made and he quickly abandoned each point for a different one. I found this to be indicative of his ignorance on the subject, as it did not take much to make him switch theories. He was too focused on convincing me that breastfeeding causes caries, I think that a good doctor (or any wise expert person) should know enough about their specialty to thoroughly explain their own theories and should be able to answer questions and consider criticism. He even tried to tell me that her two front teeth were decaying because that is where the nipple sits. I almost laughed at him. The nipple from a bottle might sit near there, but an actual human nipple is pulled all the way to the back of the mouth and the milk is expressed directly into the back of the throat. Without skipping a beat he changed his tune to: The top teeth are prone to decay because they can dry out if the child is a mouth breather. I asked why it was only the middle top two and not the others, and could it be that her enamel had not formed properly? Oddly he seemed to have never thought of this possibility and could barely even manage a coherent comment about it. When I posited that it just did not make evolutionary sense, he explained to me, with a big smile on his face, that he was an anthropology major and that the American Indians in southern California where he studied dentistry, got caries just like all the white people. I pointed out that they were eating the same diet (or worse) that the white people were eating. He looked confused and told me we were digressing.

It was a fruitless appointment. My daughter is too young to be treated (or so says this dentist), so for now we will just watch and wait. We're also supplementing her diet with cod liver oil, high-vitamin butter oil, and bone-broths to try to boost her mineral absorption. My best case scenario is that her teeth will remineralize or at least the decay will slow to a rate where she will be able to keep her teeth until they fall out naturally. If not, we will have to choose between an array of invasive and costly procedures. I'm hoping that we will ,at least, be able to postpone treatment until she is old enough to hold her mouth open and sit still.

The Baby Bucket

This takes the abusurdity of the baby bucket, aka infant car seat travel system, to a new level. I feel like we've come full circle; from carrying babies in a sling, to carrying babies in a car seat, to carrying babies in a car seat in a sling.

These days the stork flies in with a baby in a car seat instead of a cloth bundle. Everywhere I go I see mothers lugging these heavy accessories around. On countless occasions I've seen parents take their baby and seat out of the car, pop them into a stroller, walk around town, go into a restaurant/coffee shop, put baby in the seat on the floor next to them, finish eating and leave, put baby and seat back in the stroller, back to the car, pop the seat into its base, and drive away. Not once do they touch or hold their child. I've seen babies fuss and strain against their car seat straps and parents react by rocking the seat or giving them more toys, rather than releasing their children from their restraints.

There are several compelling reasons to not use car seats as a baby carrier. The most basic one is that they are cumbersome and extremely heavy. If you've never held a baby in a seat before I suggest that you try to lift one if you have the opportunity. They are considerably heavier than they look. While I fully intended on baby-wearing as much as possible, prior to my daughter's birth, I considered the car seat to be a good carrying option for short distances. Until I tried it. Even with my little newborn, it was so heavy I had to stop and rest halfway up the stairs into the house. If I didn't hold it away from my body, which was hard to do because it was so heavy, it would bang into my legs and bruise me. Despite the cold weather, I quickly abandoned the car seat as a carrying device, and focused my energy on learning how to use various baby slings.

An even more important reason to keep your baby out of the seat, is the increasing incidence of positional plagiocephaly aka Flat-Head Syndrome. This is surprisingly common in this country, if you take the time to look around, you'll be surprised at how many babies you'll see who's heads have flattened out in the back. Babies heads are normally round, and generally their occiput protrudes quite a bit. The most frequent cause of plagiocephaly is very simply that babies are spending too much time laying on their backs. A lot of babies spend most of their day laying in a car seat, a bouncy seat, a swing, or a stroller instead of being held in arms, playing on their tummy or propped in a supported sitting position. Also, there has been a huge "Back to Sleep" campaign by the AAP and the NICHD that has parents and daycare providers laying babies supine, instead of a side-lying or prone position. If babies are going to spend all night and several hours a day sleeping on their backs, it is critical for their growth and development that they spend their waking hours in a different position!

It's strange that this isn't a given, but babies need to be held and touched. It is a well known fact that baby mammals need physical contact in order to thrive. The same is true for baby humans. There is a reason that simply holding babies is often enough to soothe their cries. A baby in arms experiences the world from the level of the parent, they are in the midst of conversation and activity, they can make eye contact with other people, and they learn that they are a part of things. A baby on the floor in the car seat has a very limited view of the world; they cannot turn their head to see who is speaking or what made a noise. Car seats inhibit curiosity and restrict movement; a restrained baby cannot even try to roll over, or sit up, or crawl.

On a more philosophical level, I wonder about the effects of teaching our infants to passively accept physical confinement. I wonder about the emotional health of docile 6-12 month old babies who lay in their car seats all day and have not learned to sit or crawl. From the first time we had to strap my daughter into her seat, she made it quite clear that she did not like being restrained in the plastic device. Her instincts were absolutely right on. What human, child or adult, would not fight being physically confined against their will? It was clear to me then, and still is, that car seats are a necessary safety device for small children riding in cars. However, I made a concious choice that I did not want to stifle her instinctual need to be held. If my daughter was awake I would take her out of her seat and wear her on my body in a wrap.

Other than while driving, there are two instances where it makes sense to use a car seat carrier. It's really convenient to be able to move a sleeping baby out of the car without having to fuss with buckles, and when it's cold or rainy it's much easier (and safer, bulky layers make it difficult to get the straps secured properly) to put your kid in the seat, put blankets on top of them and carry them in the seat from indoors to the car or vice versa. Other than these situations it almost always makes sense to leave the damn seat in the car and to take your baby out of the seat as soon as you're in a warm and dry space.


Here is a good article with more information on this topic.

Car Seats Are For Cars - from Mothering Magazine

Women Need Preventative Medicine

I find this kind of advertising masked as an Op-Ed really frustrating.

Here are some quotes and my responses:

...state legislatures should require that all young girls be given this vaccine, which protects against a virus that causes some 10,000 new cases of cervical cancer in the United States each year — and 3,700 cancer deaths.

This is a misleading statement because there is no statistical context. In order to make a decision based on these numbers we need to know how often the vaccine itself causes severe reactions. If millions of girls and women are being vaccinated we need to know how many of them are going to have reactions to the vaccine vs. how many will get cancer from HPV and how many will actually experience morbidity or mortality from the disease. Additionally, cervical cancer is treatable and preventable through safer sex practices and a healthy lifestyle that includes getting pap smears if one is sexually active. In fact, the survival rates for women who catch pre-cancerous lesions early is nearly 100%. To me the obvious conclusion is to provide accessible and universal health care that would allow women to utilize preventative tools and treatment rather than a mass vaccination campaign.

Here are some statistics on HPV infection...

With more than two million doses already distributed, the reported side effects have been mostly minor, such as dizziness or fainting.

A preliminary google search immediately turns up evidence that this may not be true. Also, since when is dizziness and fainting a benign reaction? I would be really concerned if my child fainted (not from a needle phobia) after being injected with something. What is causing dizziness and fainting? Could it be a sign of neurological compromise? Were these patients followed in order to track whether or not this was a preliminary sign of a more serious reaction? This article validates my concern:

"The most frequent serious health events after GARDASIL shots are neurological symptoms," said NVIC Health Policy Analyst Vicky Debold, RN, Ph.D. "These young girls are experiencing severe headaches, dizziness, temporary loss of vision, slurred speech, fainting, involuntary contraction of limbs (seizures), muscle weakness, tingling and numbness in the hands and feet and joint pain. Some of the girls have lost consciousness during what appears to be seizures." Debold added "The manufacturer product insert should include mention of syncopal episodes, seizures and Guillain-Barre Syndrome so doctors and parents are aware these vaccine adverse responses have been associated with the vaccine."

According to the National Vaccine Information Center, Merck's Gardasil vaccine was tested against a "placebo" containing aluminum, which is also a component of the vaccine. A true placebo would be an injection of sterile water, not an injection of aluminum. The aluminum itself can cause mild or serious reactions and therefore can skew the results by making it look like the vaccine causes not much more reaction than the placebo. I am continually amazed at the low standards for determining the safety of pharmaceutical drugs.

Others complain that a mandate will pre-empt parental rights to make health decisions, but all vaccine mandates do that, to protect the children and those they might infect.

This statement makes me cringe. A correct response to the concern that a mandate will pre-empt parental rights, would be pointing out that you do not have to vaccinate your child and that all states have some form of vaccine exemption that will make it possible for you child to be enrolled in daycare, attend public school, etc. Also, parents have every right to be wary of laws that affect our ability to make choices about our children's health. Of course the author of this article would never publish what I have written and wrongly asserts that mandatory vaccination protects children and prevents infection of others. What about those who have been vaccinated infecting others with the live viruses from the vaccines? What about the children and adults who have been injured or killed from vaccination? Why do children and adults who have been vaccinated still get sick with diseases like pertussis or mumps?

Merck deserves praise for developing Gardasil at a time when many companies shun the vaccine business as risky and unprofitable. But it is charging $360 for a three-dose regimen, a price that might come down if a competing vaccine enters the market soon, as expected.

$360 is about as low as it's going to get, for now anyway, and it will almost definitely cost more. According to this survey of pediatric practices, actual costs will be in the range of $500-$900 dollars. Who is going to pay for this? Parents? Insurance companies? Tax payers? Not Merck, and they are sure going to get rich on this scam. I want to know how much it would cost to provide all women with yearly pap smears and necessary follow up treatment. It would be interesting to compare those figures. Additionally, if all women were getting a yearly exam it is likely that many other diseases or conditions would be caught in early stages or prevented entirely, reducing the need for costly invasive treatment. Now how much money would that save? And who would get rich doing it...not Merck!

As usual, Barbara Loe Fisher, sums it all up:

"GARDASIL safety appears to have been studied in fewer than 2,000 girls aged 9 to 15 years and it is unclear how long they were followed up. [1] VAERS is now receiving reports of loss of consciousness, seizures, arthritis and other neurological problems in young girls who have received the shot," said NVIC President Barbara Loe Fisher. "At the same time, parents who take their daughters to private pediatricians are going to be shocked to find that they will be paying two to three times the widely publicized $360 cost for the three-dose series. The cost is going to break the pocketbooks of parents and break the banks of both insurance companies and taxpayers, when the reality is that almost all cases of HPV-associated cervical cancer can be prevented with annual pap screening of girls who are sexually active."

Animal Abuse is Bad for Your Health

In the last two years I have become an almost daily reader of the New York Times. I don't read it because I think it is a quality news source (I don't), but because I find it to be a great source for understanding the prevailing and predominant mainstream cultural beliefs. I am particularly addicted to the Health section, probably because I am most adroit at debunking their myths on those topics. Today they have an article about PETA confronting a monastery about their abusive chicken raising practices. Unfortunately PETA's accusations will fail to be understood by the general public for the simple reason that most Americans know nothing about raising chickens. This section stood out to me in particular:

He [Father Gumula, the abbot] also took issue with the film’s criticism of the abbey for a common practice called debeaking, in which a hot blade is used to slice the tip of the beak off a chick before it is 10 days old. He said the abbey got its hens when they were 18 weeks old, long after their beaks had been trimmed by the supplier.

PETA says that the tip of a chicken’s beak is incredibly sensitive and that birds in the wild use it to peck the ground more than 15,000 times day as they forage for food.

Animal welfare experts say beak trimming prevents chickens from tearing one other to pieces.

“I guess, in this case, beak trimming is the best of two devils,” said Inma Estevez, an associate professor in the department of animal and avian science at the University of Maryland. “I’ve seen the alternative, and, believe me, it’s much worse.”

First of all, the monastery could be getting their chickens from suppliers who do not practice debeaking, or they could hatch their own chicks and choose not to mutilate them. Second, while it is disturbing to think of how much pain these animals endure through this practice, this factoid lacks important contextual background. Healthy chickens are raised on pasture and are allowed to forage for insects in addition to being fed grain and food scraps. This is why I distrust any chicken producer who brags about their chicken's 100% vegetarian diet. Chickens are not natural vegetarians and are only vegetarian when they are kept in barns or cages and denied access to fresh pasture. The fact that the chickens at this monastery are debeaked is an immediate clue to the conditions that they live in. They don't need their beaks to forage for insects, because they don't have access to insects. While debeaking may be a solution to the inherent problems of overcrowding, it is only necessary because of the inhumane conditions that the chickens are living in and therefore should not be considered a necessary evil.

The article goes on to say,

And he said he kept the birds caged because it kept them cleaner and healthier. “When they are on the floor, they are subjected to all sorts of parasites and bacteria that are around,” Father Gumula said. “They walk in their own manure. They walk in their troughs.”

Again, the humane solution to overcrowding is a facility with enough outdoor space for birds to be able to roam freely and forage for insects. Cages are only necessary when the birds are kept in indoor and overcrowded situations.

While treating our fellow creatures humanely should be reason enough to end these practices of factory farming, there are serious consequences for us humans that should be considered when analyzing farming techniques. Chicken meat and eggs from chickens that are raised on pasture, are much more nutrient dense. For example, their eggs will naturally contain Omega-3 fatty acids. If you generally eat factory farmed eggs take the time to notice the size and color of the yolk. It is generally on the small side and a pale yellow color. Now make the effort to procure good quality pasture fed chicken eggs. The yolk will be a much deeper color, more orangey, and the yolks are generally larger. Another example of nutritional differences between the chickens is that stock made from factory farmed chickens often will not contain enough gelatin to gel. These are just a few differences that are easy to see and experience, but really the physical differences between the chickens goes much deeper. In these times of mineral depleted soil and damaging diet we need our food to be as nutrient dense as possible. When we sacrifice the welfare of animals we are sacrificing our health and the health of future generations.

Note: I am not a supporter of PETA, mainly, because they are proponents of veganism which I consider to be an unhealthy diet for adults and tantamount to abuse when imposed on children. I also believe that one can be both a meat-eater and believe in animal rights.

Slow Cooking, Fast Living - Part II

I've gotten to the point where I totally accept that traditional foods are good for me and that everything else has the potential to make me sick. I'm speaking for myself here. I recognize that other people who have a firmer grasp on health may be able to get away with eating trash, but this is not so for me. A few weeks ago I decided to eat a cupcake baked by a friend of mine who is a work-at-home-mom with a cake making business. Her cupcakes taste so awesome. Yet, as I swallowed my last delectable bite, I realized that my throat was sore. I wouldn't have thought to attribute the immediate sore throat to the cupcake, but I've had the exact same experience several times drinking beer. Generally, it happens when I'm already feeling a bit run down. I guess the alcohol or sugar is the last straw and my body lets me know that it is time to slow down.

The biggest challenge for me is not choosing to eat good foods vs. bad foods, it is putting the time, effort and planning into buying and preparing healthy foods. As anyone who has read Nourishing Traditions knows, these meals take some forethought! One poignant example is the need to soak, ferment or sprout grains, nuts, and legumes in order to neutralize the enzyme inhibitor phytic acid. As a person who has been food-health concious for awhile, I was very discouraged to learn that my vegetarian diet, relying heavily on grains and legumes, was so full of this anti-nutrient. Phytic acid or phytate acts as a chelator (pulling something out of your body) of essential minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc. Also, I was pregnant and experiencing fatigue and joint pain that I knew intuitively was the result of a nutritional deficiency. At that time I realized that I needed to make changes, but I struggled to implement healthier practices. A large part of my inaction had to do with fatigue. I think it is reasonable to say that many sick people who could benefit from traditional cooking methods fail to make changes because of low energy. Disease can be such a downward spiral!

However, another big reason that I failed to implement traditional cooking methods was my persistant attachment to the convenience and familiarity of modern foods. Store bought bread is easy! White rice is fast! Deli meats are pre-cooked! I did try to change while I was pregnant, but my efforts were panicked and disorganized. I was able to grasp which foods were bad for me, but I wasn't stocking my kitchen with enough healthy alternatives. This often resulted in me simply not eating enough some days, which is worse than eating bad food, especially while pregnant.

I started rereading Nourishing Traditions a few months ago and this tip from her "Kitchen Tips & Hints" section stuck out to me:

When preparing a meal, always think ahead to what must be done for the next two meals; put grains and pulses to soak and meats to marinate, as necessary. Our readers will notice that the food preparation methods we recommend call for considerable advance planning--not a bad habit to cultivate in life. [emphasis is mine]

I love how rather than playing into the modern, destructive desire for convenience and speed, the point is made very succintly that this inclination is not a healthy one. So often the solutions we are offered are all about cutting corners and saving time (GoGurt!). This simple advice has created much positive change in my life and the wisdom behind it has helped me to stop trying to find a quick fix where there is none. Other than having a store of frozen meals, it just takes time (and money, but that is a whole other post) to cook nourishing food.

Read "Slow Cooking, Fast Living - Part I" ...

Slow Cooking, Fast Living - Part I

I've known about Weston A. Price for over three years, and Sally Fallon for almost two, but it is only in the last few months that I have truly implemented traditional foods and cooking styles in my kitchen. In the past I've taken the bits and pieces that fit easily into my life. I've been making my own mayonnaise for awhile, although it took me awhile to give up the safflower oil I was using for it. I soaked my beans, but not for long enough. I started to eat more meat, but I didn't shell out the money for grass-fed.

I'm not sure what changed. Probably a combination of my baby being old enough to party on her own for a minute, finally having my own kitchen, and by virtue of my partner being in school full time, sliding into full on housewifedom. In the book For Her Own Good by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, the authors describe how industrialization took over the important duties of mothers in the home. We used to be the makers of medicine, the healers, the food providers, the clothing makers, and much more. The work that women did was significant and skilled. I'm not advocating liberation through housework or any sort of naive regression to the old ways, but I do think that returning meaningful work and expertise back to mothers is vital for our spirits (and the physical and emotional health of our families!!). It certainly has been for me. Doing laundry, scrubbing toilets and toasting pop tarts, doesn't cut it. Making all of our food from scratch is hard work, but it's a skill, which means that it is something that I can practice and excell in. I need that in these days where people ask me what I've been doing with myself and I find the word "nothing" coming out of my mouth. I'm busy from morning to night raising my daughter and caring for our household, but in the light of my bustling young adult peers, everything that I do seems void. At least I'm not bragging about dumpster diving shitty pizza.

Sometimes I feel extremely overwhelmed with the amount of time I spend in preparing food for my family. While I'm cooking I feel all the love going into the food and I take great pride in being able to cook well and put tasty and beautiful meals on our table. While I'm doing the dishes, I fantasize about frozen food, plastic packaging, microwaves, and washing just three plates and three forks. I cook and breastfeed all day and then I sleep and breastfeed all night. Some days I lose it and we eat expensive restaurant or prepared grocery foods. We do the best we can.

This week I've been making a concerted effort to prepare food that I can eat on for several days or freeze. I tried out two recipes from Nourishing Traditions, Empanadas and Fish Cakes, and both came out great. I'm also planning to have another dumpling making extravaganza in a week or two, we have a great recipe from Cook's Illustrated, I'll post it up later. Additionally, I have spent the last four days soaking and roasting walnuts, cashews and almonds so that we can have some snack foods. I'm not a nuts person so I hadn't thought to bother with proper nut preparation (ala Sally Fallon) because I never choose to eat them. Now that I have, I am totally surprised at how good nuts taste after they have been prepared in this fashion. The first batch of walnuts I roasted were so tasty that we ate half of them while they were still being roasted (warm, buttery walnuts, yum!) and ate the other half as soon as they came out of the oven. I find that the nuts taste less bitter and have a more pleasing texture after they have been processed through soaking and roasting.

Read "Slow Cooking, Fast Living - Part II"...

Cream Cheese

I have recently begun acquiring raw milk. I live in North Carolina where raw milk cannot be sold legally. This is not true everywhere. In some states you can legally purchase certified raw milk, in some places they don't sell it in the stores but you can buy a share in someones milk producing cow, and in other places you can buy raw milk "for your pets". Not so in NC. Like midwifery, it's just plain illegal here. But you can get certified raw milk in South Carolina and it makes its way back to this mountain town. In my house we call it the Black Market White Milk.

One of the problems with the Black Market White Milk is that it is only available every two weeks or so. Initially this left me with the problem of trying to figure out how much milk to get. My partner and I are rather erratic about our milk consumption. We've been trying to avoid unfermented pasteurized milk and instead we purchase our dairy in the form of raw milk cheese and good quality yogurt and kefir. So now we're trying to relearn milk and its many culinary uses.

The first step to understanding how to use raw milk is to realize that it is totally different from pasteurized milk. Its nutrient content is different, it tastes different, the cream sits on the top, and it does not sour in the same way. Instead of becoming absolutely fetid and foul, it sort of mellows in a (literally) cheesy kind of way. I loathe rotten pasteurized milk to the point that I am a compulsive milk smeller. Every time I open a carton of milk or cream I have to smell it before I pour it, even if I just bought it, even if I just smelled it ten minutes ago!

So I was confused when I read in Sally Fallon's book (Nourishing Traditions) that one way to make homemade cream cheese is to allow raw milk to sit out on your counter (!) at room temperature (!) for 1-4 days (!!!) until it separates. I let it sit for about a day and the cream rose to the top and I smelled it and it was ripe. I was freaked out. Black Market White Milk is expensive! And here I was letting it sit unrefrigerated. I felt like I should make the cheese immediately before things could go really wrong (I was anticipating the rotten curds that are created by pasteurization). Although I couldn't figure out how the very much liquid milk would magically become cream cheese, I set up my strainer, cheese cloth, and bowl and poured the milk through it. As it had not yet fully separated, the milk, except for a little bit of thickened cream, went straight through the cloth and the strainer. I had ruined the milk and failed to make cheese. I poured it back in the glass jar and set it next to our compost bucket.

But fortuitously, it was extremely cold the next few days, and I neglected to take out the milk with the rest of the compost. (When you've got a baby in one arm you can't carry out the compost bucket and the half gallon of ruined milk without making more than one trip into the cold!) It was probably day four when I looked at the milk and realized that it had truly separated. There were now three distinct layers to the milk: the cream on the top, and then the milk solids, and then the whey on the bottom. I poured it through the cheese cloth, separating the cheese from the whey, and then hung the cheese in the cloth from a wooden spoon to drip the rest of the whey into a jar. The byproduct, whey, is very useful in the kitchen, for example, it is a great acidic medium for soaking grains.

After a night and the better part of a day the cheese stopped dripping. I cautiously unfolded the cheese cloth to reveal my "cream cheese". I was very proud, but it certainly was nothing like cream cheese. It was clumpy and didn't exactly smell fresh. Not that it smelled bad, it just smelled like a cheese of some kind and definitely not your mild store bought cream cheese. I wasn't so sure about it but I decided to try a recipe to turn it into a cream cheese spread. This is really the key, I think, to this sort of of homemade cream cheese. You blend it with flax seed oil and your choice of seasonings and flavorings. I highly recommend smoked salmon, green onions, and unrefined sea salt. It is delicious!

For Further Reading:

realmilk.org
A campaign to legalize raw milk

Learning to Maximize the Use of Your Raw Milk and Cream
An article with information and recipes for souring raw milk or cream

Grain Mill

I'm in the market for a grain mill. I'm not really a big baker, so up until recently, I had deemed this kitchen gadget to be unnecessary. However, the more research I do on grains, the more necessary a grinder seems. Through all of my reading lately I have come to realize that nutrient density is probably the most important factor in our food. Any time we eat food that is lacking in vitamins and minerals, it displaces other more nutrient dense foods. This is the real harm of junk food. Of course the artificial flavors, chemical preservatives, and hydrogenated oils are bad for us, but the real crime is that the food gave us calories without any of the necessary vitamins and minerals to actually sustain our bodies. This is where the grain mill comes into play for me. When I cook with flour I want it to be nutritious.

To understand the importance of fresh ground flour we must understand what a grain is. A whole grain consists of three layers: the bran, the germ, and the endosperm. The bran is the outside layer which consists of fiber. Next is the endosperm, a starchy middle layer. And then we have the germ, where much of the nutrients and essential fatty acids are housed. White flour is made from endosperm only, excluding the fibrous bran and the vitally nutritious germ. Whole grain flour contains all of the nutrients found in the original kernel, with one caveat, it has to be freshly ground and refrigerated, otherwise the oils go rancid and the nutrient content is greatly diminished. Ground flour goes rancid at about the same rate as milk. That always makes me think as I walk down the grocery store baking aisle.

In doing my research I came across this:

"The nutritional importance of using fresh stone-ground grains for bread-making was revealed in the results of feeding studies in Germany (Bernasek, 1970). Rats were fed diets consisting of 50% flour or bread. Group 1 consumed fresh stone-ground flour. Group 2 was fed bread made with this flour. Group 3 consumed the same flour as group 1 but after 15 days of storage. Group 4 was fed bread made with the flour fed to group 3. A fifth group consumed white flour. After four generations, only the rats fed fresh stone-ground flour and those fed the bread made with it maintained their fertility. The rats in groups 3 to 5 had become infertile. Four generations for rats is believed to be equivalent to one hundred years in humans." -from this article

It reminds me of Pottenger's Cats. Of course humans are neither cats nor rats, but those sorts of studies have all sorts of interesting lessons for us, the most important being that a lack of proper nutrition for any creature results in a multi-generational degenerating condition.

As I said before, I'm not much of a baker, but I really enjoy making fermented pancakes. They have such a great texture! They're quite easy to do. Just combine your grains and liquids together in the evening and add something to start the ferment like yogurt, buttermilk, whey, or even plain old baker's yeast. Cover with a clean dish cloth and leave in a warm place overnight (room temperature is fine). In the morning your soupy pancake mixture should look bubbly, if it doesn't you can always postpone [ :-( ] your pancakes until the next day and by then your batter should be seeing some action. Add your eggs, oils, sweeteners, and baking soda to the batter and then fry em up. They bubble up in the pan too, it's fun to watch. Sometimes their texture reminds me of injera. I learned how to do this from Sandor Katz's book "Wild Fermentation". It's a great cookbook.

For further reading about grains check out this article:

Wheaty Indiscretions--What Happens to Wheat, from Seed to Storage by Jean Allbritton, Certified Nutritionist