Naturally Knocked Up » Eat Real Food

Do You Have Culture in Your Life?

donielle — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:12:34 +0000

Bacteria in the correct form is essential to life. Within our bodies it creates an environment that is not hospitable to illness and disease. Unfortunately in our modern culture, we’ve dismissed many of the traditional foods processed by lacto-fermentation, or culturing. We do everything within our power to kill all bacteria with the use of medicinal antibiotics, antibiotic wipes and sprays, and constant pasteurization of our foods.

This severe lack of “culture” is damaging to our intestines and overall health.

Benefits of Cultured Foods

Cultured foods help to repopulate the digestive system with beneficial bacteria that helps fight off any bad bacteria ingested, keeping your immune system strong.
Cultured foods keep your intestines strong and working properly, diminishing the occurrences of constipation and irritable bowel syndrome.
Having the correct amount of beneficial bacteria in the body helps to fight Candida yeast overgrowth (a systematic yeast problem associated with eczema, fatigue, yeast infections, yeasty diaper rashes in babies, jock itch, athletes foot, etc)
They decrease sugar cravings! Your body craves sugar when yeast begins to get out of hand.
Cultured foods are essentially “partially digested”, making it easier for your body to digest the foods and absorb available nutrients.
In many cases it enhances the nutrient profile of a food allowing it to become even more nutrient dense.

Allowing vegetables to undergo lacto-fermentation creates a colony of wonderful bacteria, increases to availability of certain amino acids, and allows our bodies to better digest nutrients within the food. Sauerkraut is a classic fermented vegetable, and you can even make a fermented root slaw, or fermented salsa.

Probably the most well known cultured food is yogurt. It’s frequently advertised that it helps digestion…….and it does – by allowing the beneficial bacteria to work within the gut. Another cultured dairy product is kefir (keh-fear), similar to yogurt but remains much less solidified. You can also culture cream to make cultured butter.

Grains can also undergo a fermentation when you use the process of making sourdough breads. Grains are actually rather hard for your body to digest and when you use sourdough to ferment before consumption, it decreases the activity of the phytic acid contained within. (phytic acid is basically an anti-nutrient) A sourdough starter is easy to make at home for use in breads and even pancakes.

You can also make your own fermented drinks at home by using a kombucha SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria & Yeasts) and fermenting tea, or using water kefir grains to ferment a water/sugar solution. (I get my cultures from Cultures for Health)

We would be doing ourselves a great service by getting back to the way our ancestors consumed these foods. In traditional societies, before the invention of refrigerators, fermentation was a way to preserve foods and they were eaten each day.

How often do you eat fermented/cultured foods?

*This post has been linked to Real Food Wednesday

I have a lot of new and exciting things coming up here this fall, so make sure you add my blog's RSS Feed to your reader or you can sign up for free updates by Email. I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter! **

Cooking a Peasant’s Feast

donielle — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:22:31 +0000

One of the biggest issues I had when I switched over to a whole foods diet was trying to do so without breaking the bank. It was tough, and I struggled each and every week trying to balance buying nourishing foods with the fact that we didn’t have the money for them.

I don’t want this post to sound like a sales pitch. Because although I am an affiliate of The Nourishing Gourmet, I signed up to be so because I believe in what Kimi is doing. I would be telling you about this course no matter my role in it! I believe it’s important to share information and teach others and Kimi has done that for me over the years I’ve followed her blog. I even had the pleasure of meeting her at the Wise Traditions Conference last November and spent time chatting with her about her family, her faith, and of course – her blog. She is one of the sweetest women I know and I sure wish she was my neighbor!

Now, you’re probably wondering why in the world I’m telling you about an eCourse when I’m about to open enrollment up for mine in just a few days. Right? Well, the thing is – after my reader survey earlier this year I noticed that there are a good number of my readers that are actually done having children! I also know how much this course could truly benefit the health of our families as we learn to prepare better foods, and how it could save us all money in the long run.

A Bit About the Course from Kimi

I’ve put together a great 13 week ecourse, starting on June 28th, that will give you a bite-sized amount of information every week in the form of topical articles, cooking demonstration videos, and shopping guides. I will give you tips on where to buy quality food for less, demonstrate cooking methods that both boost the nutritional value of your food and stretch expensive meat, and explain in more detail traditional cooking practices.

If you’ve wanted to learn how to make your own yogurt, sourdough bread, lacto-fermented foods, or how to sprout and soak grains, or simply how to cook real food this ecourse is for you. If you have a hard time balancing the expensive of buying quality ingredients on a budget, I can help.

By taking this huge topic, and breaking it down into manageable pieces, you can learn and digest new information in a timely manner. By the end of the class, you will have the confidence you need in knowing where to shop, what to buy, and how to cook real food on a budget. By using a class format with forums and facilitating discussions, I will be able to give a lot more one on one support to those in the course than is normally available through my blog. Answering questions and helping troubleshoot is another important aspect of this ecourse.

I believe in good deals, so I have sought to pack as much information into this ecourse as possible without overwhelming you. I want this ecourse to really serve you!

I actually just signed up to take the course this morning as I’m forever looking to lower my grocery bill and yet feed my family great foods. I am slightly worried that with all of the work I have with my own blog and course that I’ll be forever behind, but the great thing is, Kimi is giving access to the course and forum until the end of the year! So even though I won’t be able to keep up I’ll be able to learn at my own pace and fit it into my life whenever I can.

Here’s a bit about each class I’ll be taking:

Week One: Intro to Nourishing Food, How to Find Local Resources, Guide to Nutrient Dense Foods, and How to Find the Right Budget for You

Week Two: Why I am not a Vegetarian when Beans are so Cheap, Shopping Guide to Beef, Beef Stretching Recipes and Video Demonstration

Week Three and Four: How to Stretch one Chicken into Three Meals, The Health and Frugality Benefits of Homemade Chicken Stock (Recipes and Video Demonstrations)

Week Five: Why Seafood? Health Benefits of Seafood and What to Buy, Seven Tips for Saving Money on Seafood, Recipes and Video demonstration.

Week Six: The How’s and Why’s of Soaking Grains, Shopping Guide to Buying Grains, Video Demonstration and Recipes

Week Seven: Sourdough, How to Maintain a Starter, How to Make Sourdough Bread, Video Demonstration and Recipes

Week Eight: Eating Dessert like the French (Fruit based Desserts). Naturally Sweetened, fruit based desserts

Week Nine: Sprouting, The Benefits of Sprouting, Sprouting Guide, Pictorial Guides, Video Demonstration and Recipes

Week Ten: Lacto-Fermented Foods: The Benefits of Lacto-Fermenting, Demonstrations of two methods, and recipes.

Week Eleven: Dairy-Shopping Guide to Dairy, Making Homemade Yogurt and Creme Freshe, Video Demonstration and Recipes

Week Twelve: The Joys of Vegetables: Where to buy Quality Produce for Less, Making Main Dish Salads, Homemade Salad Dressings, Recipes and Video Demonstrations

Week Thirteen: Meal Planning Tips and Sample Menus.

I’m really looking forward to the weeks on sprouting and lacto fermentation!

Cost

Money is always a factor right? For 13 weeks of lessons, this course runs $120.00 – less than $10.00 per class. My thinking when it comes to signing up for something like this is that I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to save that much off my grocery bill in a years time with what I know of Kimi. I also happen to know about a little coupon code that’s floating around right now that will give you $20.00 off the course. I haven’t been able to sit down and chat with Kimi since we’ve both been a bit tied up in our courses so I don’t have my own code, but my friend Katie has a coupon code you can use! When you check out just use the code – KITCHENSTEW. This takes $20.00 off the total of the course, or $20.00 off the first payment making your first payment only $20.00.

(**psst. I also know she put this little ditty in one of her blog posts earlier this week- “And I have a few half scholarships left (contact me, kimi (dot) harris (at) gmail (dot) com for those who are completely unable to afford the course”. )

You can get a sneak peek of the course and download two documents- “Why Seafood” and “7 tips for Stretching Seafood” as well as watch a video clip on how to make Seafood Fried Rice. So whether or not you are able to sign up for her course at this time, you will totally enjoy the freeness of her preview!

I have a lot of new and exciting things coming up here this fall, so make sure you add my blog's RSS Feed to your reader or you can sign up for free updates by Email. I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter! **

Commonsense and Food Labels

donielle — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:51:03 +0000

In a world where the food pyramid is king and food science is how we learn what to eat, I think we seem to have forgotten to add commonsense into our diets.

Take for example 2 very different products:

Calories:                                     170                                                 130

Calories from fat:                     80                                                     50

Total Fat:                                         9 grams                                                                              5 grams

Saturated Fat:                                6 grams                                                                          2.5 grams

Trans Fat:                                         0                                                                                         0

Cholesterol:                                   35 milligrams                                                                    0

Sodium:                                         130 milligrams                                                                  90 milligrams

Total Carb:                                      13 grams                                                                            20 grams

Dietary Fiber:                                  0                                                                                            0

Sugars:                                              13 grams                                                                           10 grams

Protein:                                            13 grams                                                                           1 gram

Take a moment and decide which one you believe is the healthiest choice.

Now, why did you select that particular item? Was it based on the amount of fat? What about the cholesterol? That one to me seems like it could be a deciding factor, was it to you? Check out the sugar content, is the difference of 3 grams going to change your mind?

The fact of the matter is, based on these labels alone, food science would choose one product over the other. Demonizing one product because of the ‘bad’ ingredients in it and allowing the other even though it’s void of nourishment.

Ready to find out what they are?

Product A: Whole milk, cream on top, plain, organic yogurt from Stonyfield Farms. A serving was 1 cup.

Product B: Ginger O’s – organic creme filled ginger cookies from Newman’s Own. A serving was 2 cookies.

Now knowing the serving sizes, would it have made your choice easier? Knowing that one product was real food and the other highly processed, would you still have made the same choice?

As you can very clearly see, there is much to eating behind the basics of food labels. The yogurt will fill you up and nourish your body, giving you the right fats you need for proper development and hormone production. The sugars in it, while higher than one serving of cookies, are fromt he lactose in milk, not from added sugar.

On the other hand, had you eaten just 2 cookies, how long till you ate again? A snack like this fails to fill your stomach and not only is it void of all nourishment, it actually robs your body of nutrients due to the ‘organic’ unbleached flour and multiple ‘organic’ sugars.

We have a choice each and every time we take a bite of something to eat. Are you relying only on food science or will you step out of the box and learnt o think on your own?

I have a lot of new and exciting things coming up here this fall, so make sure you add my blog's RSS Feed to your reader or you can sign up for free updates by Email. I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter! **

Review: Tropical Traditions

donielle — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:20:59 +0000

*I was sent a free quart of coconut oil in order for me to review it. This by no means swayed my thoughts about the product or my review.

Awhile back Tropical Traditions sent me a quart of extra virgin coconut oil to review. It sure didn’t last long! I love to use coconut oil and go through at least a half a quart a month and the oil from TT was a fine addition to my baking needs. The flavor was great (I’ve had some not so great tasting ones) and it wasn’t overly coconut smelling, but because it was extra virgin it still held all of the nutritional and medicinal benefits.

Another great thing about Tropical Traditions is that they have pretty good prices and run sales. I signed up for their newsletter and get deals and sales in my inbox quite often. Sometimes even a buy one get one free! They also have a lot of good information on their site where you can learn all you need to know about coconut oil.

Personally I’ve really been enjoying using this oil to make Nourishing Fudge and my Grains Free Brownies! What are you’re favorite ways to use coconut oil?

I have a lot of new and exciting things coming up here this fall, so make sure you add my blog's RSS Feed to your reader or you can sign up for free updates by Email. I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter! **

Cutting Back on Sugar

donielle — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:00:03 +0000

Today I joined in over at Kitchen Stewardship’s Spring Cleaning: Get the Junk Out Carnival, and guest posted on sugar. I wrote a very honest (and sometimes TMI) piece on my personal story with sugar and gave a good 5 reasons why we want to rid our diets of sugar. So go take a read and then come back here for part three;

Get the Junk Out: Sugar

Part Three: Take Action!

With books upon books written on the subject, and a mass of articles online as well, the question still stands for many folks – how do you really get rid of sugar in your diet? For some of us it will be easier than others depending on how far along we are in our journey to real foods, so I’ll break it up a bit for you.

Baby Steps

1. When first trying to cut sugar out of your diet, it’s essential that you start reading the labels on the food you buy! High fructose corn syrup is the first thing that needs to go.

2. Stop buying foods with added sugar that aren’t meant to be sweet. Things like taco seasoning packets, dressings, and store bought sauces can have sugar in them and they are so easy to make at home. (cheaper too!)

3. Start cutting back on your consumption of sweets. Limit not only the amounts you eat, but the days you eat them. Try to have at least a few days each week where you don’t consume sweets.

Take it Up a Notch

4. Switch to natural sugars in recipes. Use sucanat (one of the least refined sugars), maple syrup, and honey. Yes, they are more expensive, but the great thing is, it’ll give you incentive to use them less!

Grain free brownies sweetened with honey are delicious

Healthy Grain Free Brownies

Apple Grunt is a wonderful ‘comfort’ dessert

Apple Grunt

And caramel corn makes a lovely sweet and crunchy snack!

Caramel Corn

(And later this week I’ll be sharing my recipe for whipped cream and showing you what we served my little girl for her one year birthday treat! You can grab my RSS feed or get free updates by e-mail to stay in the loop.)

A good sugar to start out with if you’re used to only refined white sugar is going to be dehydrated cane juice. It’s an easy swap (1:1 ratio) and the taste and textures will be the same. When switching over to more natural sugars, sometimes it’s easiest to replace just some of the sugar at a time. If your recipe calls for 1 cup try using 3/4 cup of your dehydrated cane juice and 1/4 sucanat and increasing each time you make it. For me, this seemed to help my family make the conversion a bit easier!

Put Your Big Girl Panties On!

5. If you’re suffering from medical issues and even things that seem like common annoyances (eczema, headaches, yeast overgrowth, chronic colds/coughs, lowered immune system, etc.) or you’ve been doing the natural sugar thing for some time and want to kick it up a notch, it may be time to cut sugar out of your life!

Personally, I find that I have to go cold turkey in order for me to get a handle on over coming sugar. The gradual cutback cause me to crave sweets more and I end up over indulging. So my advice would be to clean out your cabinets, anything you know you shouldn’t eat, and stay away from buying anymore. The first few days are tough as your body works on the physical cravings. And the days weeks months after, you’ll have to struggle with the emotional attachment to sugar which is the hardest thing to break.

Giveaway!

Now, Katie did a great job setting up a couple giveaways for the carnival this week!

Honeyville Grain has offered to give two winners from Kitchen Stewardship and Naturally Knocked Up their choice of one large can of freeze dried fruit. The cans are about the size of a big coffee can and hold almost 3/4 lb. (Freeze Dried fruit is real fruit, with no sugar added, that is so lightweight you think you’re eating processed cereal. But it’s real food. It makes a great emergency snack for young children when you’re out and about. (U.S. residents only))

The winners will also receive a copy of Katie’s Healthy Snacks to Go eBook, which will be published next week over at Kitchen Stewardship! This book has 20 different recipes plus 14 different versions of larabars and two bonus sections about packing a healthy, eco-conscious lunch and simple snacks that don’t need recipes. This book will be a fantastic resource for making quick and easy snacks, and I can’t wait to get my own copy!

So here’s how it’s going to work. Katie and I will pool entries from both her site and mine and we’ll select 2 winners. (International entries excepted, but the freeze dried fruit can only be shipped to U.S. addresses. So should an international reader win, a third winner will be selected for the fruit)

To enter here at Naturally Knocked Up:

You may leave a comment on this post OR link up a post you’ve written on either the effects of sugar, your story with sugar, or a great recipe that’s free of refined sugar.

Subscribe via RSS feed OR sign up to get free updates by e-mail – leave another comment to let me know

Share this post via social media (twitter, facebook, stumbleupon) – leave another comment to let me know

***Next week make sure you stop by Mindful Momma as Michaela talks about how to clean out the parabens!!!

I have a lot of new and exciting things coming up here this fall, so make sure you add my blog's RSS Feed to your reader or you can sign up for free updates by Email. I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter! **

Could Bread Be the Cause of Your Infertility?

donielle — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:00:05 +0000

Did you know that about 40% of all Americans are sensitive or allergic to the gluten found in wheat products? Many don’t even know it yet. 1 out of 133 are severe enough to be labeled as celiac. And if you’ve been trying to get pregnant for some time and have yet to conceive, or have had multiple unexplained miscarriages, you may want to pay attention.

You know what? Pay attention anyways.

What is it?

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, spelt, kamut, barley, and rye. It helps bread dough to be elastic and causes it to rise. But one of the problems with gluten now is that it’s in everything! And to much of a good thing is well….not a good thing. We eat more wheat products now than ever in history because breads are so convenient. And food manufacturers place wheat and/or wheat gluten in a large majority of processed foods. Another one of the other issues with our modern wheat breads is that it has changed over the last century, as we’ve become a society that loves nice fluffy breads and baked goods. To achieve this we’ve hybridized the actual wheat berry so that it now contains more of this gluten protein and we also add more in later while baking to give it that extra rise. The fact that the USDA food pyramid claims we need more wheat and grains than any other food group is also of great concern. (One of the other reasons that a lot of people do better off of wheat is that they are no longer experiencing the blood sugar issues associated with digesting breads, plus they are now eating more whole foods and not relying on packaged, processed stuff!)

In people who are sensitive to gluten, the body actually attacks the lining of the intestine, damaging the gut wall and causing pain, diarrhea, constipation, and mal absorption of nutrients. The main problem with gluten intolerance or gluten allergies is that their can be a very long list of very different things – and not all of them are specific to the gut.

Anemia

Abdominal pain

Headaches

Ear Infections (especially chronic infections in small children)

Eczema or chronic skin irritation

Bloating and Gas

Depression and Anxiety

Diarrhea and constipation

Fatigue and weakness

Infertility and multiple miscarriage

Aching joints or overall body soreness

Inflammation

Weight Loss (unexplained)

People with celiac disease, a wheat allergy, on average suffer for about 7 years before a diagnosis is made. And their intestinal wall is constantly being damaged during that time.

Our Story with Gluten

Last February, while doing some research for a blog post, I stumbled across an article about gluten that made me think my husbands health may change for the better if he went gluten free. After convincing him to give it a try I started cooking completely gluten free for him while retaining just a small amount of wheat products in my and my sons diet.

The first week or so was tough as not only did we have to get used to eating completely different, he started to experience withdrawal/detox symptoms and some pretty bad headaches. A couple weeks went by and he started to notice he felt better. And not just the things we thought would get better! He started sleeping better through the night and he wasn’t as sore and tired as he had been previously. After about 3 months he decided to try a bit of bread to see what happened. And boy did he find out! He got headaches for 3 days, muscle pains and aches, and stomach upset. It was clear he was sensitive to gluten.

A year later his body has healed enough where he can tolerate a small amount of wheat and normally only in the form of spelt. I have also noticed that not only do I feel much better when I don’t eat a lot of wheat, and my son’s behavior is better as well. So I currently limit our consumption of wheat/gluten products to one serving or less per day, and I may look to limiting it further.

Gluten and Infertility

Melissa Diane Smith, author of “Going Against the Grain” has been stated as saying that the leading cause of recurrent miscarriage is an undiagnosed gluten sensitivity. She also said that 85% of her PCOS clients showed positive for it as well. (It is also been shown to have a direct correlation with Endometriosis as well) Men are not immune to infertility due to celiac either as they may also suffer from unexplained infertility.

So how does gluten specifically affect fertility? No one really knows for sure actually. But one of the thoughts is that the damage to the intestinal wall can lead to a lot of malabsorption. Mal absorption leads to the body not being fed what it needs in order to produce the right amounts of hormones needed for conception or to bring a pregnancy to term. There is also the fact that celiac is an auto immune disease meaning that the immune system begins to attack parts of your body. And while pregnant, an attack on any part of your body is a very bad thing.

What You Can Do

If you think you have a gluten sensitivity, your doctor can run a blood test to see if you in fact have celiac. The one issue I do see with this test is that if you don’t have celiac, but are just gluten sensitive, it doesn’t show up. If that happens to be the case, I do know that holistic doctors out there have a different test they use, though I’m not sure of the name of it, but it measures your reaction to foods differently. Alternatively, you could also try going gluten free for a couple months! (It takes at least a few weeks for the effects of the wheat to get out of your system, so one week just isn’t long enough) Watch for symptoms when you cut it out, and if you in fact have an intolerance to it, you’ll notice when you eat something with gluten in it after a month or so. And even if you haven’t had a positive diagnosis, your health care professional can help you figure out what a gluten free diet may look like for you.

Going gluten free can be tough – I won’t lie to you. But it can also be very worth it in the end! There are now a lot of different resources both online and in print which does make it easier, but gluten free living is a total switch from a normal American diet. Gluten is used in a lot of processed foods and you really have to start reading the labels, and if you truly have celiac, that means replacing things like your toaster and cutting boards. You also need to make sure that your not just looking for substitutes for your normal fare! Gluten free eating can be just as unhealthy if you constantly buy products that are full of other ingredients (bad fats, sugar, stabilizers) that help get the texture close to wheat. My advice would be to also research a primal or paloe diet and equip yourself with recipes from them so that you can cut out your bread and bread substitutes. (Plus GF items are expensive!!)

More Resources for you:

Since it would take a book to write all there is to know about gluten sensitivities, here are a few other resources for you.

My friend Michele, over at Frugal Granola, actually found out (herself!) that she had celiac. This was after she had multiple miscarriages and other health issues. Though not online much anymore (since she had her first full term pregnancy and baby born last August!) her site has some great information and gluten free recipes. She was the one whose brain I picked constantly while making the switch to Gluten Free eating last year.

http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/healing-celiac-disease.html

http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/

http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/2005/08/what-heck-is-gluten-anyway.html

http://glutenfreeworks.com/gluten_sensitivity.php

http://www.celiac.org/

So is going gluten free something you’ve ever looked into, or do you know you have an intolerance to it?

What is your biggest hangup about such a diet change?

This post is linked to Kitchen Stewardships Spring Cleaning Carnival where today everyone is posting about Getting the Gluten Out, so head on over there to find more information as well!

I have a lot of new and exciting things coming up here this fall, so make sure you add my blog's RSS Feed to your reader or you can sign up for free updates by Email. I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter! **

Real Food Twitter Party

donielle — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:14:50 +0000

Pardon me while I make an official landing page for the Real Food Twitter Parties!

What is a Twitter Party?

A twitter party consists of a group of people “talking” on twitter using what’s called a hashtag to follow all of the posts. For this particular party we use the hashtag #realfood. Once placed into the search feature on twitter only the #realfood posts will show up. All people must also use this hastag in each post they send so that others can see their comments within the “party” as well.

One really easy way to follow a twitter party is to use a third party site called Tweet Chat that will automatically enter the hashtag in for you, making it super easy to chat!

What is Real Food?

It’s quite common for us to get lots of questions during our “party” when others notice the hashtag in their own twitter feed, so I thought I’d address it here as well.

The Real Food we talk about is normally:

whole foods in their least processed state

grassfed, pastured meats, milk, eggs

organic and sustainable foods

good fats like butter, ghee, EVOO, coconut oil

local foods

foods traditionally eaten by our ancestors

fermented and cultured foods

foods prepared in ways that allow us to fully absorb their nutrients (soaking, sprouting, etc.)

a lot of us follow the nutritional guidelines of Weston A. Price though to different extents

Of course, we’re all slightly different in our eating styles depending on food allergies/sensitivities and where we live. Some of us are just starting out in our journey to whole foods and others have been eating this way for years. The great part about this eclectic group of folks is that there is always someone to ask a question, and always someone there to answer!

When is the Real Food Twitter Party?

We “meet” on the first Thursday of every month from 9-11pm EST and you may join in at any time! Once it gets going, it can go pretty fast and be hard to keep up, but once you get the hang of the conversation it does get easier.

If you’re unable to make it, but have a question you’d love to have answered you can always send me a tweet (@donielle) and I’ll ask for you. I normally try and do a recap of the nights conversation as well within a couple days so that others can read the great stuff we’ve talked about.

Who can join in?

Anyone can join in the conversation at any time. But…..I also ask that you be respectful to others. We all come from different backgrounds and different eating styles. We’re all trying to do our best to feed our families in the healthiest way we know how. (example – while the majority of us are in no way vegetarian, we have been able to have some great conversations and learn from those who are) So please refrain from any and all name calling and other such nonsense. It’s just not cool.

You may of course choose to be a wall flower and just watch the conversation as it happens, but we’d love to know you’re out there so please introduce yourself!!

Want to help spread the word?

Here’s some buttons you can place on your own blog

I have a lot of new and exciting things coming up here this fall, so make sure you add my blog's RSS Feed to your reader or you can sign up for free updates by Email. I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter! **

10 Things to Buy with Your Tax Refund

donielle — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:34:32 +0000

I’m all about not letting someone have my money interest free for a year, but if you’re like me, you’re probably getting some sort of tax refund this year. So what are you going to do with it? The last couple years I’ve been spending it on things that will;

A. Save me money on food in the long run.
B. Further our quest for healthy eating/living

10 things you could buy with your return:

Bulk meats – we usually save some money for both my husbands hunting costs and for part of a cow in the fall.

Bulk baking supplies – flour, sugar, grains, etc.

Buy some fat – stock up on coconut oil, EVOO, organic butter

Freezer – a great spot to put summer produce!

CSA membership – find a local farm that offers a CSA and you’ll receive produce all summer long

Seeds – try planting your own garden, even if it’s just a few pots on your patio

Chickens! – not for everyone of course, but hopefully this year we’ll be buying chicks for eggs and meat

Kitchen gadgets – a nice mixer is such a help in the kitchen! This year I hope to get a grain mill.

Non-toxic pots and pans – go cast iron or enamel

Glass containers – ditch your plastic and buy some glass storage containers

What’s on your list to buy this year?

I have a lot of new and exciting things coming up here this fall, so make sure you add my blog's RSS Feed to your reader or you can sign up for free updates by Email. I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter! **

My Personal 12 Week Challange

donielle — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:02:54 +0000

The sun has been out for the last couple weeks here in Michigan (well – minus the last 2 days!), it’s getting warmer, my treadmill was delivered last week, and I’m fed up.

It’s time to do something and with my husband setting his own workout goals for the next couple months, I’ve decided to join him. Plus, it makes it so much easier if we’re both on the same page! And after the crummy eating we’ve done the last week or so, the feeling sick is definitely enough to feel the kick in the behind.

I’ve printed out a goal list for each week, and marking what I do daily. I’m also focusing on health, not weight.

On my “do not eat list”

refined sugar and flour

no eating out

no junk oils (corn, canola, soybean, etc)

no coffee

no grains (I’m wanting to be able to mark this one a few times a week – not everyday)

no unsoaked grains (again – a few times a week, not everyday)

My ‘must eat” daily list:

3 tsp cod liver oil (going to be hard as I’m trying the oil and not the capsules *gulp*)

probiotics

1 Tbsp coconut oil

1/2 cup yogurt

2 eggs

a raw food with breakfast

a raw food with lunch

a raw food with dinner

2 quarts if water

I also have rows for the treadmill, weights, and aerobics.

By the end of 12 weeks I’d love to fit into my “thin” clothes (possible without having to go crazy), be able to run at least 2 miles at a time, and overall be in a healthier frame of mind.

What I’m not doing:

Counting calories

Eating low fat – cause you know…..I actually like my body.

Weighing myself until the 12 weeks are up

Why do I tell the whole world? Cause now I’ll look like a dufus if I don’t do anything! Accountability folks, accountability.

So do you have goals for this spring? What are they, and how are you going to meet them?

Gonna join me?

I have a lot of new and exciting things coming up here this fall, so make sure you add my blog's RSS Feed to your reader or you can sign up for free updates by Email. I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter! **

A Food Bloggers Kitchen

donielle — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:00:29 +0000

Wordless Wednesday!