"There's no sugar in marshmallows..."

I am continuously surprised by the ignorance of our modern culture when it comes to food. I don't mean that in a condemning way, just as a fact. And I can't be too hard, because I remind myself that until recently I was pretty ignorant. Here's the most recent story generating these comments:

Friday morning when I took Jayden to her classroom, we were running a little late and the kids were already sitting down to their breakfast ("morning snack"). It reminded me to tell her teacher about something in Jayden's lunchbox that day (I don't remember what), so the context of the conversation was food and Jayden's menu. Lowering her voice, Jayden's teacher tells me (somewhat hesitating): "yesterday for our dessert after lunch, we had Rice Krispie treats, and I let Jayden have one, because the only ingredients are Rice Krispies and marshmallows, there's no sugar in them...." At this point I'm diligently trying to control my reaction. I could tell by her tone she was a little concerned about my reaction (David says I'm intimidating, and I hate that -- it's not intentional), so I wanted to try to be careful to convey what I intended and not to over-react. Now, a year ago I would have been upset. There is a reason why Rice Krispie treats are not circled on her menu! (I circle the things she can have to eat at school and send substitutes for the things I don't want her to have.) But now I'm better about not getting upset; I realize I can't do anything about the past -- we can't go back and not give her the R.K. treat yesterday -- but we can learn from this to keep it from happening next time. So, the reaction was not so much anger but amazement -- no sugar in marshmallows?!? I just kind of closed my eyes and took it in as she was telling me. She was watching my reaction. I just replied (trying very hard to keep my voice positive and calm): "marshmallows are sugar. Marshmallows are basically nothing but sugar." To which the teacher was kind of surprised and embarrassed.

Now, I think very highly of this teacher, so none of these next comments are directed towards her individually. She is educated and takes very good care of my daughter and her other students. I use this story as an example of what's become normal in our culture. Come on, Rice Krispie treats not having any sugar? You would think knowing that they're a treat and a dessert would directly imply that they contain sugar. I've read articles lately about how ubiquitous sugar is in our food and how much sugar Americans consume. This story reinforces the idea about our ignorance not only about our food in general, but about sugar in particular. No sugar in marshmallows? I couldn't believe it!

Success! Homemade Whole Wheat Garlic-Cheese Biscuits

I made these tonight. Yum! Here's what I did:

Mixed together in large bowl: 2 cups whole-wheat flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 Tbsp baking soda, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp oregano, and a dash of ground red pepper. (The only thing I actually measure is the flour, so the rest of these measurements are approximate.)

Cut 4 Tbsp butter into small pieces and then mixed into flour with fork until "crumbly."

Stirred in about 1/2 cup shredded cheese. (I think grated Parmesan would work really well in these, too, but I don't have any right now to try it.)

Added 1 cup tomato juice. Stirred with fork and then mixed/kneaded (only a few times) with hands.

Shaped into about 8 large biscuits and baked at 450 for 15 minutes.

I think these were the best biscuits I've made! These are so easy, and so yummy. You'll have to let me know if you try them.

Baking Powder

I learned something new! This came from running out of baking powder this week:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baking_powder

Interesting Website

http://www.naturallyhealthy.org/

This is a herbalist who lives in our area. A friend sent me her website link. I haven't had time to read too much on the site yet, but I want to keep it here to come back to, and share it with you, too....

Natural Beauty Products

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/07/15/three-green-beauty-alternatives.aspx?source=nl

Hidden Chemicals in our Food ("Food?")

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/04/29/new-stealth-chemicals-hidden-in-your-food.aspx?source=nl

Finding BPA-free products

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/05/22/where-to-find-bpa-free-products.aspx?source=nl

High Fructose Corn Syrup

Very interesting article and comments:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/07/08/beware-of-new-media-brainwashing-about-high-fructose-corn-syrup.aspx?source=nl

Interesting information on sunscreen

I enjoyed reading the comments at the end. I always learn a lot from the other readers.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/07/01/four-out-of-five-sunscreens-may-be-hazardous-to-your-health.aspx?source=nl

Back to the Beginning

I got online this week to order some more canned food for Joshua, and -- surprise! -- the price has nearly DOUBLED. I know everything has gone up lately, but this is huge. Before, I would order 12 cases at a time (24 cans of food in each case) for a little over $500 -- because the website I order from (I can give them a shout-out -- I've been very pleased with them -- I use imed.com) offers free shipping when you order $500, so I figure why pay shipping when you don't have to? I just stack the boxes in Joshua's closet to use as we go. Well, now for just over $500 I can only get SIX cases. Wow! The food is now $85/case -- that's over $3.50/can. Sometimes we only give Joshua 5 cans a day (5 feedings, 1 can at each), but he really should get about 7 cans/day. That expense adds up very quickly! Now we could switch to a different cheaper food, but the whole point of us using this canned food is that it has more "real food" ingredients. In fact, this is what started us down this health path. So all we know to do right now is to be more diligent to blend up Joshua's food. It's better for him and cheaper, too. So we've been working on a basic recipe we can use to efficiently make a good blend for Joshua. Having a basic plan in place will help me when I shop, too, so we'll have the ingredients on hand for him to eat well, too.

Whole Wheat Biscuits!

I decided to try something new this morning for breakfast: I made fresh, from-scratch, whole wheat biscuits. Let me say this: I am a Bread Eater. So I have to admit, one of the reasons I have hesitated trying biscuits is that I knew I would EAT THEM! And my body has one response when I do. And it's just the opposite response I would really like to happen, especially right now, but anytime. But Sunday morning I went over (next door) to David's great-aunt and great-grandmother's house and they shared some breakfast with me -- including -- you guessed it! -- homemade biscuits his great-grandmother had just made. YUM. Way better than Cracker Barrel. That did it: it got biscuits on the brain, and I decided to take the plunge. For a first attempt, they turned out really good. Here's the recipe I used:

Buttermilk Biscuits

Preheat oven to 425. In large bowl, sift together 2 cups flour, 1 Tbsp baking powder, ¾ tsp salt, and ½ tsp baking soda. Using 2 knives (or pastry cutter), cut 5 Tbsp chilled solid butter into flour mixture until course crumbs form. Add 1 cup buttermilk (I reconstituted powdered buttermilk), tossing with fork until dough forms.

Turn out onto lightly floured surface. Gather into disk. Knead lightly a few times, just until smooth. (Can be made up to 2 hours ahead, wrapped in plastic wrap, and refrigerated until ready to use.)

Pat the dough into a square, ¾-inch thick. Cut into square-shaped biscuits with a floured knife. (I used a glass and made round biscuits.) Bake 12-15 minutes on ungreased baking sheet.

For flaky biscuits, don’t overhandle dough.

This made 8 or 9 large biscuits in about 30 minutes, start to finish. We all enjoyed them, and I think I'll try Attempt #2 in the morning!

"Poppy Seed Rice" recipe

David's always been a big fan of his mom's "poppy seed chicken casserole." In fact, she made several big pans of it for our rehearsal dinner supper (almost 9 years ago!). It was a big hit, and made several new "fans" of the recipe.

I like it, too, and made it regularly for us to enjoy -- until our "health/diet transformation." The biggest problems I have with the original recipe are the canned cream soups it uses, and the Ritz cracker topping.

Well, last night I tried a healthier, simpler version of the recipe which I think was a success. It could use a little more seasoning (salt, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.) -- but the basic flavors are good and true to the basic idea of the original recipe. Here's what I did:

I cooked a pot of brown rice (about 1 1/2 cups) in water. (I would have used and will use chicken or turkey broth if available. I did allow my rice to soak overnight before cooking.)

To the cooked rice, I added a good bit of cooked (leftover!) chicken meat, one 8 oz package of cream cheese, 1 1/2 Tbsp of butter, some salt and garlic powder, and about a teaspoon or so of poppy seeds. Also, since my rice had already cooled, I added a little water to keep the rice from burning on bottom while I heated it all up again.

I just mixed it all up and left it in the saucepan for us to serve from, but it would look nice spread into and served from a casserole dish, too. (But you might miss the look of the topping more if you spread this into a casserole.) We like the taste of the topping, but that was easy to omit and we still enjoyed the rice mixture. (My brother would object to the missing topping, I'm sure!) Instead of a saucepan or casserole, you could also use a Dutch oven or skillet, of course.

I really liked keeping the ingredients more simple (less processed) and that it was a one-dish meal (since my chicken was already cooked). Another downside to the original recipe is that I would use several dishes to make it -- yuck! Washing dishes is not my favorite pasttime. I don't mind it that much, but I also try to intentionally cut down on the number of dishes I'll have to wash, especially since right now we don't have a dishwasher. (Which most of the time, I don't mind a bit.)

David and I each brought this for our lunch today, along with a baked sweet potato and green salad. It was very good, and something I believe we'll do again!

Well, "Baby Day" is 3 weeks away. I am expecting to be responsible for my own food during my hospital stay; I doubt they will provide me much worth eating. (Isn't that ironic?) I'll try to blog about my experience with the menu options they give me while I'm there! (Of course, there will also be plenty of baby news to share, but I'll do my best! It'd be great if they'll let me keep my little menu sheets.)

My latest "research" endeavor

http://www.naturemoms.com/blog/2007/04/10/glass-baby-bottles/

New Recipes to Try

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Moroccan-Lentil-Salad/Detail.aspx
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Brown-Rice-Lentil-Salad/Detail.aspx

Live Long!

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/07/18/seven-factors-proven-to-lengthen-your-life.aspx

(Genesis 6:3)

Eat Slower

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/07/16/five-powerful-reasons-to-eat-slower.aspx

Find What You Love to Do

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/07/19/how-to-find-what-you-love-to-do.aspx

Laundry Detergent

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/07/12/how-toxic-is-your-average-laundry-detergent.aspx

"What Have They Done to Milk?" video

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/07/05/what-have-they-done-to-milk.aspx

Healthy Food in Health Care

http://www.noharm.org/us/food/pledge

Berkey Sport Bottle for Water

Wow, look at what I just found! I had no idea something like this existed: http://www.jamesfilter.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=20

Pricey, but convenient; definitely something to keep in mind. Could be worth it.

From my calculations, it looks like it works out to be a little cheaper than buying filtered water at 25 cents a gallon (like we do now). And buying 25 cent/gallon water is much cheaper than buying bottled water (usually about 25 cents/BOTTLE, at the cheapest), not to mention better for the environment. This would also be very nice to have with us for travel. Hmm, very interesting ....

Hospital Food

"...why is sugar fed to people that are trying to get well? And margarine and creamer/milker were on the menu each day. No butter or cream here! Important to get your daily dose of trans fats and hydrogenated oils, after all. Much better choice than saturated fat, which our bodies need to get the vitamins and minerals into our cells. Oh yeah. Food cooked to death so I guess there are no vitamins left to transport. No worries then - no transportation needed. By offering up trans fats, cell messaging will be blocked instead. That will help people heal...."

Read the full article online at Vreni Gurd's blog: http://blog.wellnesstips.ca/blog/index.php/?p=158

Also see this link of an Oregon hospital making big changes in the food it serves: http://www.foodalliance.org/newsroom/articles/2006/This%20is%20hospital%20food%20(The%20Oregonian)%2003-07-2006.pdf