"I am a care taker for creation"

Weight Loss, Exercise, Food

We've been busy, school starting, planning school lunches and missing our normal giant lunch that I'd make for the family, the buying club, well, life, you know how it goes. But we've also been busy losing weight, without trying, just from our more refined eating. So it's interesting today reading the article in Time since our exercise level has not changed. They explain that the BMI is important, not necessarily exercise level and that exercise does not mean healthier or that we'll lose weight.

There have also been articles in how organics, less chemicals, preservatives, pesticides, on our food allow our liver to use the fat instead of cleansing our bodies like mad; eating organic food allows our body to function optimally and do what it's suppose to do for us and therefore helps us lose weight too.

There are have also been recent articles on the "optimal" diet for a human being like this one from MSN The Healthiest Foods On Earth. Turns out the best diet is, drum roll, is real food!

Simplistic? It all makes sense and now we understand why we are losing weight and feeling better. In our family, we eat what we want but we only eat real food. If it comes in a box with a list of ingredients, it's not in our house. Our meals always include vegetables, even breakfast. Fruit is a standard snack. Meals always include plenty of vegetables and we try to eat salad every day topped with all sorts of things from fresh and dried fruit, to olives and cheese, or canned fish and meats. Meals are always delicious, colorful, and varied. Soups and stir-fries are standard but with different mixes of vegetables and/or meats.

Even school lunches, while they may include sandwiches (usually on sprouted wheat or rice or spelt bread), they always include at least 2 fresh fruits (an apple, strawberries, a pear or plum) and maybe a dried fruit or nuts (raisins, trail mix, dried mango) and sometimes a cookie I make with molasses and maple syrup - so they have a big variety and lots of different textures and colors and nice things to keep them occupied but nothing that comes in a box with a nutritional label on it.

I know we are lucky. We don't even want the stuff they label as food, even my kids. But I know there are so many out there that don't even know where to start. So many don't even know what food would be, how to prepare it, what to eat if you cut out something that comes from a box. I know for those, it's a struggle at first and I wish you great success in learning about food and know that you will learn about yourself and life in the process.

We eat well. I still make meals at home from real foods (grassfed meats and dairy including butter and free roaming preferably pastured eggs, coconut and olive oil, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, wild fish) and we feel good. The way our clothes fit show the improvement yet, and I'm embarrassed to say, my real exercise is my fingertips on the key board. I'd still love to have more muscle definition and lift weights but I guess I don't want it badly enough or I would have started already. Either way I'm feeling good about my family and our level of health.

Food is so important. It is what nourishes our body and our soul. It is amazing that we so freely gave up the thing that sustains us as beings and attaches us to the world to big agri-biz. They do not have our health as their goal, even when the label shouts out some bold benefit. Understandably, their focus is their bottom line, not ours. If we choose real foods, those without a long list of ingredients, if we choose to get back in the kitchen, if we choose to cook and eat with friends and to prepare meals together, then we will have succeeded in finding real food and taking back our life amongst the chaos of what they tell us is food.

What we eat is such a big choice we make each day. We set an example for children in how and what we eat. We impact the planet in the choices we make in our food: from the packaging, the fuel used to transport it, the chemicals used to create it, the family farms we are supporting in other countries, the small communities that need our support despite that item being a bit more money than another made from the giant factory farm. We need to take responsibility for that act instead of food being a last thought when we are just starving.

I still sit in disbelief that fast food chains exist. Certainly I understand the convenience and the price, but what is the real cost? I guess if it were a more immediate and direct link, it would be easier to give it up, but it's not. Many still do not correlate the disease, our societal obesity, our lack of health with the fast food chains, with the fact that there are only a handful of the same big food distributors that service all the restaurants, with the sad truth that we have freely offered up our food choices so that we can run in and grab something because we think that adds to our life.

To me food is life. Food creates memories. Food joins the family and can even bring peace. We really are what we eat and what we choose to eat impacts our world and our future.

Breastfeeding: the best foundation for health

It's

World Breastfeeding Week, Aug. 1-7

so I'm resurrecting and adding to an older post.

Breastfeeding is good for mama, good for baby, good for our earth, good for our future. Simply, it is the best, most sustainable, greenest and by far healthiest food to feed our babies.

picture courtesy the Ecologist, Suck on This

Breast is Best:

• it provides security and can help calm a fussy baby more quickly than a bottle (also helps calm a busy mommy!)
• it offers powerful DHA for brain development; (it's important that YOU get your DHA and Omega 3s to pass on to the baby - eat eggs from pastured hens fed flax and other things to make high omega eggs and eat safe wild Alaskan salmon)
• breastfed babies are smarter and have greater academic achievement according to New Zealand researchers
• it promotes bonding between mom and baby
• it promotes healthy jaw and mouth muscle development (the baby must use 20 to 60 times more muscular effort to get the milk from breast!) This creates stronger muscles and jaws and promotes a healthy formation of their mouth and head. This in turn lowers the risk for braces, promotes proper breathing, correct speech development, healthy teeth, nose breathing over mouth breathing, and better hand-eye coordination!
• can correct cranial strains from birth
• it forces even the most powerful type A personality of moms to rest
  
• it offers special immunities that last a lifetime for baby
• lowers risk of colic since it takes longer to drink, unlike the bottle where the milk just pours right in with little sucking
• breastfeeding helps the mommy (shrinks uterus faster, lowers risk of breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers, helps us lose weight, lowers risk of osteoporosis, protects us against anemia, and is an amazingly empowering experience to know that it is YOU and only you (for the first 6+ months at least) that is keeping that baby happy and fed properly)
• for every year a mama breastfeeds, she reduces her own risk of developing breast cancer by 4.3%, reduces her risk of ovarian cancer by 24%, reduces her risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes by 15%
  
• breastfeeding also helps the child later in life (less risk of obesity, higher IQ, less chance of ear infections and other sickness; it lowers risk of diabetes, food allergies, SIDs, childhood cancers, vision problems, and even cavities)
• breastfeeding lowers cardiovascular risk later in adult life and lowers chances of a stroke in adult life
• breastfeeding regularly tends to delay ovulation allowing for natural spacing of children in a family - this does not always happen for all mamas for the same length of time, but most of us happily avoided periods and ovulation for years!
  
• poopies of breastfed infants are sweet and quite smelly of formula-fed babies (output is based upon input)
  
• breastfed babies have the most delicious soft skin ever! That is really true - take the test and feel the leg of a breastfed baby versus a formula fed baby. Breastfed babies are much softer because their fat is distributed better throughout their body
  
• breastfed babies smell sweeter; take a whiff. You'll know a breastfed baby.

It's great that formula exists for moms unable to nurse their own babies or babies who are not able to breastfeed. But let's call it like it is, breastfeeding should always be our first choice.

Vegetarian Bolognese & Kids ate it up!

So the other night I was at a loss for what to make. We got lots of zucchini from our share in the buying club and we had tons of other veggies from past shares that I needed to use up. I had to come up with some dish that the kids would eat. I decided on a Vegetarian Bolognese (no meat since I didn't have any) and it was a hit so I'm sharing it here (so that I remember how to make it again) and so that it might inspire you to try something like it on your family.

• 1 onion, chopped
  
• 1 leek, cleaned and sliced (I happen to have it and love the flavor but you can certainly do w/o)
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• olive oil, a couple tablespoons
  
• 2 carrots
• 2 stalks celery
• 1 big zucchini or 2 smaller ones
  
• sea salt & black pepper
  
• 1/4 cup of grass-fed cream OR about 1/2 cup grass-fed milk and a roux
• handful of grated Parmesan
  
• 1 pkg pasta - we like brown rice pasta by Tinkyada

Cook pasta according to directions.

Saute onion, leek, and garlic in olive oil until the onions and leek begin to brown and caramelize. Add chopped carrots and celery and saute several more minutes until the carrots are just about tender. Add zucchini and saute until caramelized and season with sea salt and some black pepper.

Here is where I would have just added cream and let it bubble a little (if I had some white wine I probably would have added that first and let it evaporate down and deglaze the pan and then added the dairy but I didn't have either so had to make a thicker sauce with milk and a roux) so I added about 2 tablespoons of flour to the pan coating the veggies to make a roux and sauted a minute. Then I added the milk and brought it to a simmer to thicken.

Blend the whole thing to a thick creamy sauce. I used a hand-held but you could move to a blender to make a smooth sauce. Add more milk to thin it out if necessary.

Toss with pasta, top with grated parmesan and serve. They even thought meat was in it, it was so hearty.

Even Better the Next Day:
The next day for lunch I added 1 egg mixed with 1/4 cup of grass-fed milk and mixed it all together with the pasta tossed in the sauce. I put it in a casserole dish and baked it 375F until the top was crunchy, then topped it with some cheese that melted over it as it was still warm. They loved this version even more and the flavors of the sauce were even better the next day. They asked me to make it again!

Please note:
My kids, three out of four, do eat vegetables. They are bombarded by fruits and vegetables all the time seeing me and my husband eat them, and they always have a selection for snacks (washed fruits and sometimes some veggies are on the table around snack time) and during meals. But, for some reason, even the vegetable-eaters don't seem to be too fond of zucchini. It's one of my favorites so I'm not sure why, so yes, as I was making it, I got a lot of "eww, zucchini, I don't like zucchini" and "that has a lot of vegetables, what are WE going to eat?" and "I'm not eating all those vegetables and I hate zucchini" but once it was blended they didn't know (until I told them) and they ate it up and LOVED it!

Hope your family does too! My kids ate it too fast for me to snap a pic so I'll make this again soon and post it. My non-vegetable eater (well, he eats some if I insist and wait for an hour, which I do) declared it was the best he's ever tasted!

This is part of Kitchen Stewardship Make it from Scratch blog carnival

Food, Inc. - the truth about what we eat and where it comes from

Read it. See it. Change your life and the lives of your loved ones. Make a difference in your health and the health of the planet. And our future. We CAN do it and most certainly we must make informed choices.

Grocery stores are such an illusion. The waste in packaging, transporting products, the ingredients (and the real ingredient behind what is mysteriously listed on the label), shelf space and electricity, dated items going to the garbage (that's mostly produce since the other stuff has a life span to practically last into our child's adulthood), how the animals we consume are treated (you are what you eat!), hormones shot into our animals and getting into our dairy and meats, genetic modifications to the dna of the foods, the colors and additives and smells added that now seem normal to us, it's all a strange place with food-like substances. Choose FOOD. Learn how to prepare and enjoy it. We can make a difference in what's offered to nourish us.

Highly recommend:

In Defense of Food

Check out the books below too - really good ones - we are each making a decision, we are casting a vote for our lives and our food every time we put something in our mouth, every time we buy something. If you choose to skip this movie and books, you are still voting for status quo - learn what that is and how THEY are playing you. Make the decision. Make it consciously.

This is part of Real Food Wednesdays: