For my followers here at Best Intentions Mom, I wanted to let you know that I have launched a new blog to fully document our family’s paleo/primal journey. Some information will cross over between the two, but this will better allow me to focus one blog on our primal lifestyle, and continue to focus this blog on our family’s variety of interests such as sewing, gardening, canning and cooking.
So please, come and check it out at:
http://ourprimalfamily.wordpress.com/
In the two weeks since our family went primal, the biggest surprise has not been the weight I have lost, the improved attention span and behavior of my children, or the increased energy I feel every day. The biggest surprise has been how much my taste buds seem to have changed. Even in such a short time, my sensitivity to sweet has skyrocketed and my sensitivity to bitterness seems to have decreased.
Yesterday I spotted my favorite treat at the store–cream-filled chocolate Easter candy eggs. The stores are at it again, pushing every holiday back. Shrugging it off as a “20%” indulgence, I decided to splurge a bit. The irony was, however, that I didn’t enjoy it at all. It tasted far too sweet, artificial, and almost overwhelming. It left a strong unpleasant aftertaste in my mouth that I couldn’t stand. I immediately ate some real food to offset the experience. And I was overjoyed–any craving I could have had to plunge myself back into sugary fake food indulgences was totally erased. The truth is, once you break the addiction to chemicals and sugar and additives, and once you get used to eating the food your body was designed to consume, it suddenly seems impossible to go back.
I realize this is only truly the beginning of my family’s journey, but so much has changed so dramatically in such a short time that it almost feels as if we have been on this journey for a long time. And perhaps we have, as we have read and read and learned about food production and nutrition and health. Learning how to can and preserve and trying to grow a patio container garden with a few herbs and vegetables were baby steps upon the journey, as well. Our desire to own some land and grow and raise our own food is also tied into this whole desire to return to what it really means to be human. Food may be only one part of that humanness, but I am coming to realize what a critical part of us it is. In one sense, everything pivots on the axis that is food–our health, our vitality, our relationship with the planet all revolve around the simple question of what we put in our mouth. Somehow everything is tied to this one aspect of life.
I have gotten the question several times now, for example, of what we are doing for our children in this lifestyle. The question is always posed as if we are on some diet and naturally we must still be feeding them according to the food pyramid, right? But if my body was not designed to consume processed foods, then neither were theirs, and we cannot, in good conscience, continue to feed our children the foods we know to be harmful to them. Oh sure, once in a while as a treat, but never as a matter of the normal menu of our lives. So suddenly our journey is their journey, too, and I am hearing them explain to their grandmother that sugar is not good for them but spinach is… And I am beaming with pride. Maybe our children are programmed to know what they should eat just as much as our bodies know what is ok. Maybe if we take them out of the huge cultural effort to socialize them into fake processed food products maybe, just maybe, they will gravitate towards real food. Just like it has suddenly become so easy for me…
My oldest asks me at every meal now what each vegetable on her plate does for her body. She is fascinated by nutrition and learning about what makes her body strong and healthy. I have watched her try foods she fought to try before just because she found out they were good for her skin or her eyes or her brain. She is cleaning her plate better after two weeks of real food than she ever did before. And her sister is slowly following suit. I am more convinced than ever before, our bodies want to be healthy.
If we give them a chance…
Friday i found myself sitting next to a box of cookies in the cubicle next to me, and I did not feel the least bit tempted. Less than a week after beginning to eat Primal, and whatever mild craving my body might have felt was totally overruled by how amazing I felt without eating all the junk our world has to offer. I felt, and continue to feel, energetic, happier, and (at the risk of sounding cliché) more alive. It is hard to describe how different I feel without sounding like a living advertisement. I literally had no desire to dive into the box of cookies next door, even though a week before I would have had little ability to control myself.
But after six days, here is a basic rundown of the effects I have noticed:
1) I have lost six pounds. Without exercising more than usual—in fact, given the holidays I have probably exercised less.
2) My skin feels better—smoother, softer, more moisturized. I have always struggled with very dry skin, but I have also always hated moisturizers. My skin feels dramatically different.
3) My double chin is beginning to disappear.
4) My body feels more “even-keel” throughout the day. When I get hungry now, there is no accompanying nausea or light-headedness. My lifelong battle with hypoglycemia appears to have vanished in a matter of a few days without grains or processed foods.
5) My head feels clearer. I am having an easier time concentrating at work. Obviously, this is huge.
6) My attention span seems longer. I am not finding myself so easy to distract, nor so desiring of a distraction.
7) I feel more alive. I don’t feel sickly. I don’t feel as if I’m on the verge of contracting something. I don’t feel weighed down and narcoleptic. I barely need any caffeine anymore, and when I do my small glass of green tea is more than enough.
8) At the end of the day, I find I can fall asleep with amazing speed.
9) I’m keeping up better with my children. I don’t feel three times my age anymore, struggling to keep up with two energetic toddlers. I am optimistic I will continue to see improvements in this area and maybe, someday, I will be able to give them a run for their money.
It sounds almost a little ridiculous, but everything seems better. Unlike every other diet or regimen I have ever tried, I am not hungry, full of cravings, or exhausted. It is remarkable. And the best part is, this is a family affair.
In addition to my husband’s gluten issues, we had begun to notice my oldest daughter complain of stomach aches after eating wheat heavy meals. My husband has a genetic pre-disposition for Celiac disease, so it seemed a likely cause of her discomfort.
I also knew, with certainty, that I was on the path for eventual diabetes. My first pregnancy I was gestation-ally diabetic, and coupled with my extra weight, hypoglycemia and insatiable sweet tooth
, it seemed somewhat inevitable. I also found myself getting sick frequently and feeling perpetually rundown. At thirty one, it just didn’t seem like this was how life was supposed to be. And truthfully, after reading and researching as much as I have on nutrition and food production in the last year, this path was probably inevitable.
A week before New Year’s Day, I cut off the soda. I knew that would be a difficult enough transition, and I was right. Thank God for being on vacation. Then, on New Year’s Eve, I made the full transition to my new primal diet:
No grains except a ten percent max cap on rice and rice noodles (no wheat, oats, barley, corn, etc.)
No seed oils (vegetable, canola, etc.)
No processed foods/sugars and as few chemicals as I can manage
Local/organic/pasture-raised sourcing to the best of my ability
The big exception: dairy. My family has no issues so we are not excluding it
My mother’s first question after a few days primal was how the kids were adjusting. Pretty well, actually… We have always cooked a lot of things that were low gluten, thanks to my husband, they love vegetables, they love the new juicer, and they are generally pretty good natured kids. (We won the battle over picky eating early, thank goodness). Time will tell how they fully adjust. For now it has been a wonderful adjustment.
I am so excited to begin this journey as a woman, wife and mom who has nothing but the best intentions.
Most of the time my household runs relatively smoothly. Oh sure, the sink is never without dirty dishes and the laundry gets put away less often than I would like to admit, but despite all of that for the most part this ship runs well. But there are days, every once in awhile, that could test the patience of a saint. Today was one of those days. The ironic thing is that those are the days that make me full of joy and contentment with my 9 to 5 and temporarily erase any guilt or desire I might feel over my inability to be a stay at home mom. Those moms should qualify for sainthood–every single one of them. Because at the end of the day, I get to escape for eight and a half hours, five days a week and only multi-task three or four things at once.
I don’t know who coined the term terrible twos, but I’m beginning to think they were off by a year. Two was no problem, but three going on four seems to be where the battle really is. Oh, my two year old is willful, but she’s handle-able for the most part. My almost four year old could drive someone to drink. It’s as if she was suddenly replaced by a miniature fifteen year old. Suddenly she knows her own mind, has all the wisdom of the world, and can do everything herself. Or so she thinks. Evidently I am but an accessory to her life–and an inconvenient one at that.
I’m trying to decide exactly where tonight went wrong, but I think the only thing that could have prevented catastrophe would have been to have put her to bed immediately when I got home. Not practical nor possible. The truth is, as much as we moms like to project the image that we have everything all together and perfect, the minute you involve the will of someone else, perfection becomes impossible.
But now, an hour later than I would have liked, both girls are laying in their beds quickly falling asleep (I think I already hear snores), and the furious part of my psyche is wearing off. The frazzled part will probably take a little longer to ebb. Even on the rare night like this one, I know that fifteen minutes from now I’ll want to sneak in and watch them sleep and I will be filled with the deep sense of gratitude I get every time I look at them. And maybe a little guilt that I haven’t yet succeeded at perfect motherhood. If I ever figure out how to chase that feeling away, surely I will have also discovered all the answers to life’s every question. For now, I am content to know that these nights are few and far between, and I am a long ways away from qualifying for any reality TV show. Everything else will work itself out…
I will have to beg the forgiveness of my readers for my lack of posting lately. The last week and a half has been filled with one or the other of my family (excluding my husband, of course) being sick. The consequences of this has left me sick and tired. I have been through two bouts of colds in the last week–getting it back just when I thought I was recovering. The problem with being a mom sometimes is that your kids’ illnesses become your own even before you begin to feel the symptoms yourself. That first day of runny noses for my oldest daughter foreshadowed the challenging days ahead.
When my daughters are sick I would rather be sick myself, with all of my heart, than see them suffer. I tend to throw myself into nursing them and no amount of precautions seem to prevent me from picking up whatever they have once I have done this. My husband seems so much more able to give them just the right amount of care without taking in diseases himself. So when they are sick I become exhausted, and then I become sick which makes me even more exhausted.
And now I am at the place in my cold where I am too tired and sick to do much of anything, but too well to be content with sitting there staring at the television. To put it mildly, I am sick, exhausted and BORED! Even as I write this, the edges of a migraine are creeping around the edges of my brain. Evidently even writing or reading is too much for my system at this point. But really, there is only so much television appropriate to 2 and 3 year olds one can take before losing one’s mind. I tried sewing yesterday, to no avail. I’ve been making my way through a paperback, about ten pages at a time (hardly worth the effort). And I’ve been cleaning in brief spurts which leaves me sweaty and dizzy and causes my husband and mother to yell at me. Truly, it is too much to bear. Once upon a time, I think I was capable of doing nothing for hours or end, or at least I imagine that I was capable of it. But motherhood has taken me far past that capability into the realm of “always being busy.” This relatively inactivity is truly too much to bear.
Did I mention that both daughters are recovered and full of normal toddler-level amounts of energy?
Before I tried a batch of nectarine jam, I thought I didn’t know what Ambrosia–the food of the Norse gods–tasted like. Now I do. This jam is hands down the most delicious thing I have made yet. It tastes almost like peach cobbler but with that distinctive nectarine tang to it. Utterly delicious…
It is a fairly simple recipe, although not quite as straightforward as some–such as a strawberry jam. But it is well worth the extra little bit of effort. In addition to the normal canning supplies (with about 8 or 9 half pint jars fully sterilized and prepped to be filled), you will also need the following ingredients:
6 cups skinned, pitted, chopped ripe Nectarines (mine were right at the peak of season)
1/2 cup packed, light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
5 cups sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 boxes pectin (1 box is sufficient if you want more of a syrup consistency)
1/2 teaspoon butter
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Mix the sugar and spices in a large bowl and set aside.
In your pot, mix chopped nectarine, lemon juice, pectin and butter.
Stir constantly as you bring it to a boil over high heat. When it is at a full, rolling boil add the sugar mixture and stir it well.
Bring it back to a full boil and let it boil hard for 5-6 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove it from the heat and “skim the scum”–use a stainless steel spoon to skim off the excess foam. Pour it into your jars leaving a 1/4 inch head-space and process in the water canner for about 15 minutes.
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This recipe had me not only licking the spoon when I was done but scraping out the bottom of the pot for every last drop of goodness. Slight modifications to this recipe would probably make an excellent pie filling or cobbler, which I will probably get around to trying if I can find nectarines or peaches this ripe again.
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Until then, I will be happily diving in to my new jam…
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I’ve done quite a lot of reading lately on food labels, such as organic or free range, and I thought this information would be valuable to share. Many of these labels do not really mean what they seem to intuitively mean and as a concerned mother on a limited budget, it is really important to know what is worth paying extra money for and what is not. I always try to feed my children the best food I can afford, but what can be really frustrating is spending extra money for a label that turns out to be meaningless. So, to provide some clarification based on my research:
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Certified Organic: 95% or more organic, not including water or salt and certified by the USDA.
Made with Organic Ingredients: 70% or more organic, also USDA certified.
Natural: Product contains no artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives. However, it can still be highly processed, and it does not have to have been grown organically. FDA regulated.
Naturally raised: Animals were not given antibiotics or fed animal by-products, etc. However, they could have been raised in cramped cages, warehouses, etc. on large mass-agricultural farms. Nothing in this label ensures any type of humane or organic farming practice.
GMO Free: Product has not been knowingly genetically modified. This is unregulated but is instead a voluntary labeling. Additionally, cross pollination could still contaminate products.
Fair Trade: Product was produced in a “socially responsible way” as determined by the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International. Products are certified by TransFair USA.
Cage Free: Egg-laying hens are not kept in cages. However, they could still be crowded inside barns with their wings, feet and beaks clipped, and no one certifies this label.
Free Range: The bird (only applies to poultry meat) had “access” at least once a day to the outdoors for an unspecified period of time. This could have been minutes, and they don’t have to have actually gone outside. The USDA certifies this label.
Certified Humane Raised and Handled: Meets the standards set by Humane Farm Animal Care, and is certified by inspectors.
Hormone Free: Animals were not injected with hormones, certified by the USDA. Again, this says nothing as to how the animals were raised or handled beyond that they were not given rBST, rBGH or Prosilac.
Free range, free roaming or pasture raised (beef, lamb or pork): Unregulated label, so meaning could vary drastically.
Grass-Fed Beef: 99% of animal’s food source is forage from pasture or harvested grass.
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This is a sampling of the most common labels, and does not even begin to address all the labels for cleaners or other household products. Unfortunately, our current food labeling process essentially forces everyone to become an expert or risk ingesting chemicals they do not want or eating food raised in conditions they do not support. Uniform, inspected and certified labeling is needed to change this.
For more information, check out the following:
http://www.examiner.com/article/as-seen-on-dr-oz-food-label-lies
Loux, Renee, 2008. Easy Green Living. Rodale.
This last week and a half was my first foray into the world of selling my preserves. When I started canning, I had no intention of trying to sell anything I made, nor had the thought even entered my mind. But I have received so much interest in what I am doing that I finally decided to sample some coworkers on a few jams, and I also brought some to a community yard sale I was taking part in on Saturday. The results exceeded my expectations and have made me rethink if canning might not be a way for me to, at least, fund my own pantry.
I guess I shouldn’t have underestimated the power of all-natural, no artificial anything added, home-made jams. The first time I tried canning, attempting strawberry jam but ending up with strawberry syrup, despite it not setting properly the flavor was so delicious that I declared then and there that I would never buy such things from the store again. And ever since that first attempt back in February, I have canned anything and everything I can get my hands on inexpensively (so long as it hasn’t required a pressure canner). Somehow, though, I had never quite connected that others would taste one spoonful of the way food is supposed to taste and find it irresistible to buy. And now I have people, after only a week and a half, quickly emptying jars and coming back for more. It is truly amazing.
It has made me think a lot about real food, and what food is supposed to be as opposed to what we have made food into. I have recently run across a quote by Sir Albert Howard from 1940 which I found very thought-provoking:
“Artifical manures lead inevitably to artificial nutrition, artificial food, artificial animals, and finally, to artificial men and women.”
Although my jams are full of sugar, they are also so full of flavor that it takes one fourth as much swirled into plain yogurt or spread lightly on toast. I am beginning to realize how totally artificial and over-processed our food is, just in the simple act of canning up a batch of my own cherry raspberry jam or sliced pineapple. And that is without even limiting myself to only organic (due to cost).
I am delighted in the jam sales not just because they are beneficial to my family’s finances, but because it serves as a small affirmation that I am not alone in being able to instantly taste and recognize the difference of what food is supposed to taste like.
I’ve always wanted a food dehydrator, although I have never gotten around to getting one and, in fact, do not have one to this day. Despite this, after reading about drying fruit in a few books I decided to give oven drying a shot and made my own apple chips. The process is incredibly easy. Simply slice fruit as thin as you would like (trying to get the same thickness), spread the slices on non-stick cookie sheets, and put in a pre-heated oven at 170 degrees with the oven door cracked open.
That having been said, here are a few thoughts that came out of the process of trying to do this myself:
1) This may be one of those rare occasions where it makes more sense to buy store-bought, high quality organic apple chips than to try to make them myself. A five pound bag of apples only yielded the equivalent of around $3 worth of store-bought apple chips, and the bag cost me almost $4. Doing it myself makes much more sense if I am growing the apples myself, u-picking them or buying them at a bulk discount.
2) It takes a very long time to oven dry and is probably a pretty inefficient use of resources. This project makes total sense in the dead of winter when the extra heat coming from the oven is heavenly.
3) A food dehydrator is definitely the way to go on this project. I will probably not be trying this again without one.
4) Despite the instructions saying that I would want them chewy, I ended up pulling them out too soon, so they are more mushy than chewy. Again, it takes a pretty long time to dry them properly, and patience is a virtue.
All of this having been said, they tasted delicious, although not necessarily better than a high-quality, organic store-bought bag. I’ll probably stick with buying those on sale for now.
I’d like to say I was surprised. But I can’t. There it was in pretty white lettering in one of the most influential parenting magazines in the country. Add sugar and your children will like vegetables. Oh sure, you can wean them off of it, but in the meantime, just add sugar.
I don’t usually editorialize anywhere, and certainly not here, but I just couldn’t help it. I look around at the ever expanding waistlines of our society, and even those of our children, and I wonder how anyone, in good conscience, can advise parents to just add sugar. Now, I know that the struggle over getting kids to eat good nutrition is difficult. And I know that I am far from having finished the race. But I also have two toddlers (two and a half and three and a half) who love vegetables, who eat virtually anything put in front of them, and who get excited on the three or so nights a week that dinner is an entree salad. They adore hearty soups full of nutrition, steamed vegetables, or omelets full of diced up goodness. They get more excited about a pile of raspberries in a cup than a spoon full of ice cream. Does this make me an expert? Absolutely not. But perhaps it gives me some small amount of credibility when I say that it is absolutely unnecessary to just add sugar to get kids to eat good food.
First of all, we (the parents) eat lots of good, healthy food. Kids do what they see, and we have always tried to model the nutrition we want them to have to the best of our abilities. And we have also always given them our food to share. We do not order them a fried chicken kids meal and then order ourselves a nutritious entree. Portions are big enough as it is–we share our food with them. Some day, when they get old enough to need their own plate I feel fairly confident they will order the same foods they happily dig into now. They have also been exposed to tastes from many different cultures, since we do not order them separate kid’s meals. They know flavors from every corner of the globe, and love them. My two year old is addicted to spicy foods. She adores anything with hot sauce on it. But most of all, there is hardly a food they won’t try and almost always do they enjoy everything they try. Their tastes are open and willing to experiment.
Now, don’t get me wrong, they love french fries. We do not ban any food, including ice cream, french fries, pizza or hamburgers. And I definitely depend on frozen pizzas to provide dinner once in awhile. But they eat far more entree salads and thick hearty soups than they do hamburgers or chicken fingers. We believe that the outright banning of foods makes them more appealing, so we strive to teach them by example that these things are occasional foods. And many of our “treats” are hardly lacking in nutrition. One of my daughters’ favorite desserts is organic plain yogurt mixed with some homemade, home-canned strawberry or blueberry sauce. Just a drizzle of homemade sauce is all that is necessary to add wonderful flavor, and the sugar content ends up being so much lower than any commercially sweetened yogurt.
Getting toddlers to eat healthy foods involves tremendous amounts of patience, perseverance and yes, that dreaded word, discipline. More than once my daughter’s received their untouched plates back for their next meal, instead of the next set of food. More than one snack was presented as the cold carrots still left from lunch. It didn’t take many times like this for our daughters to realize that we were serious, and we were willing to enforce. Serious battles only erupted about twice each girl. The storm of pickiness was weathered and the war was won.
And the rules didn’t change no matter where we were. Insufficiently eaten foods from restaurants were happily packed up and carted home for left-over snacks, reinforcing the idea that normal was to eat what is given to you. “If you try it, you’ll like it,” became the mantra of our household in those precarious times when our daughters were determining if they would become picky-eaters or not.
To this day, most vegetables in our house are served in a salad, in a soup, or steamed and plain on the side of the dish. No sugar, no extra butter, no cheese sauce, and no ketchup necessary. And they are happily consumed. My youngest has on many occasion even forgone foods one would think a toddler more likely to dive into for the joy of finishing her mixed vegetables. Watching her eat a few bites of dessert, then push aside the bowl to finish scraps of broccoli has filled me with more motherly pride than I can express.
I don’t mean to over-simplify or nullify the legitimate battles of well-meaning parents in homes all around me. Nor do I mean to make it sound like magic. It has been nothing like magic. It has been a deliberate, sometimes incredibly challenging, focused battle fought to indoctrinate our children with a few simple ideas:
1) good food is natural food
2) all food is worth trying
3) most food tried is well-rewarded by a newly acquired taste
4) pickiness will not be tolerated–food is to be gratefully received and eaten
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No sugar necessary.
