The question was: what kind of cookware is recommended for safe use?
Good question! At culinary school, we used stainless steel with heavy bottoms and clear glass lids. Stainless steel pans with a copper core inside the bottom of the pan are good conductors of heat. Most of the better quality pans have a 3-ply to 5-ply bottom, which holds and conduct heat exceptionally.
Other useful kinds of pans are anodized aluminum, which works similarly to non-stick; it has be used with a wooden spoon so that it doesn’t scratch and let any uncoated aluminum leach into food. Anodized aluminum is the only healthy, safe kind of aluminum to use, but can never be used with metal utensils.
At home I do like the “green”, environmentally (and health-) friendly non-stick pans such as the Green Pan or Ecolution pans, in addition to stainless steel. “Green” pans work just like other nonstick pans but aren’t toxic like all the conventional ones are. I’m trying to get more used to cast iron, too, as cast iron is really versatile, especially once it is seasoned. Mostly I use non-stick pans for cooking eggs, but a seasoned cast iron skillet works well, too.
I also have learned to like enameled or ceramic Dutch ovens that can go from stovetop to oven. Le Crueset has the classic type, that is ceramic-lined. Costco has nice, outer-enameled Dutch ovens for $80, and IKEA has neat, outer-enameled Dutch ovens for $40. It’s an investment, but very safe to use. I recently bought the IKEA version, and have enjoyed using it for stews and tagines, though it can be used for anything. It’s very easy to clean now that it is seasoned.
Basically, you don’t want to use aluminum or conventional non-stick, and better-quality pans are usually heavier and better conductors of heat. Try stainless steel, enameled cast iron, or non-toxic “green” pans.
The question was: what is the advantage of fermented cod liver oil, over regular cod liver oil?
If you have heard of regular cod liver oil, fermented cod liver oil (FCLO) is 1) made in the traditional way, 2) not highly processed like many other brands, 3) much higher in Vitamin A and Vitamin D, and 4) the fermentation adds additional probiotic and nutrient benefits.
Fermented cod liver oil is widely believed to be the #1 superfood/supplement. It contains 1) essential fatty acids often missing from our diet, 2) necessary fat-soluble, animal-sourced vitamins A & D that are highly usable by our bodies, and 3) it supports the body’s defense for just about every ailment.
Cod liver oil has so many benefits that we probably don’t fully understand. We believe in its use as much from the traditional heritage behind it, as from any studies of its nutrients or health benefits. Cod liver oil alone is a great source of the good fats and fat-soluble vitamins, but fermented cod liver oil is the purest, most traditional, and most nutrient-dense type of cod liver oil.
Green Pastures sells Blue Ice fermented cod liver oil in numerous flavors. Also, your local health food store or Weston A. Price Foundation chapter may sell it.
The question was: why shouldn’t we use white flour and white sugar and vegetable oil?
Read my answer here. {Flour, Sugar and Oil}
And more information here. {Sugar, Fat, and Salt}
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Carrot Raisin Quinoa Salad
Renee’s Taco Salad
1 T. butter
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic
2 Anaheim peppers
½ tsp. cumin
½ tsp. coriander
½ tsp. chili powder
½ tsp. dried oregano
1 head green leaf lettuce, or a bowl-full of garden lettuce!
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 avocado, cubed
1 cup chopped sweet mini peppers
Dressing:
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tsp. Spice Hunter Fajita Seasoning
1 ½ cups crumbled Queso cheese
2 cups broken tortilla chips, organic
Brown ground beef in saucepan with butter. When beef is 2/3 cooked, add onion and garlic, peppers and spices. Cook until the onions are soft and the spices aromatic. Set aside to cool slightly
In a large bowl, chop or tear washed lettuce into bite sized pieces. Add tomatoes, avocado, and sweet peppers.
Mix olive oil, lemon juice, and seasoning for dressing. Toss with lettuce and vegetables.
Top lettuce and vegetables with cooled meat mixture, and toss slightly. Top salad with cheese and chips.
Proportions of meat to salad, and cheese and chips to salad, can be adjusted as necessary to suit taste.
Serves 4-6 as a main dish.
Romaine Salad with Chicken and Fruit
When I first made this, a three-year old little girl who didn’t like salad, ate her whole plate before the rest of the family finished, and asked for seconds, and asked me to make it again the next week! I think the lemon dressing, and fruit, really dresses up the lettuce and makes it appealing to young palates. Let me know if it works in your household!
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It’s ironic what doesn’t happen, sometimes. Last week it was on my calendar to write about nutrition for the immune system, and 10 things to know about allergies. But I found myself quite ill with an allergic reaction to something in my new apartment, coupled with low immunity, awful congestion, and fatigue for over a week. It’s getting better now. It’s not that I didn’t want to write about the immune system–I didn’t feel good enough to write at all.
And now, Lord willing, I’m back on schedule with this article, to come back to the above subjects later on.
Mental and Nervous Health
Mental health challenges are a sensitive subject, but one which affects a lot of people and needs to be carefully addressed. Honestly, I don’t have much personal experience with things like depression, though anxiety has probably been a companion to us all. It breaks my heart to know that many people struggle with these things, and I want to be continually learning more and able to share with people that cross my path or read my blog.
As always, you’ll want to dialogue with your health practitioner, and try to find the root cause of why you (or whoever it is) may be experiencing symptoms. Hormones (at the root of many mental health concerns) are a very important and complex aspect to seek to understand and balance, and they are different in every case–in every person. The following things are a few therapeutic ideas that may help to support healing of the brain and nervous systems.
Let’s see, where to start? I believe there are a few things that have particularly led to the propensity for depression and other mental challenges, but, fortunately there are even more things that might be able to alleviate these things, depending on the individual and the situation. (And again, nothing I say is ever diagnostic, but simply educational.) In this article, I will hover mostly around the topic of depression, since it is common–though the same suggestions apply for many other issues of mental and nervous health.
While the next comments will sound over-simplistic, I think they are important to say because sometimes we fail to take the most basic influences into account. In this country, there has been a drastic rise in diagnosed depression and prescriptions for psychiatric drugs since the middle of the 20th century, around the 1940′s and 1950′s. These dates closely parallel the refining of foods, specifically the stripping of B vitamins from whole grains and sugars, and the manufacturing of polyunsaturated vegetable oils. I don’t want to sound like there is a one-to-one correlation, but I don’t want to ignore it either. It’s really significant, if you understand what has happened to our food. B vitamins and healthy fats are two of the very most important nutrients for proper mental and nervous system function. Without them, well…problems are bound to arise–and they are.
Also since the middle of the last century, there has been a growth of post-Christianity and a loss of the gospel’s prevalence in society, coupled with more stress as industrialization and commercialization have increased and have caught us up in their sweep toward more busyness, more materialism, and more chasing after the next best possession or the next best job. Again, this is a broad generalization but I think it should not be ignored. These influences affect everyone very differently, but they do affect most of us, leaving us discontent and either depressed or stressed.
What to do…actions to take
- Seek peace with God. This is huge! Seek God’s will for your life, and not what other people think you should do. Rest in Him as your Father and comforter, and as Emmanuel, “God with us.” Know His love for you, as a Christian. He gives peace that passes understanding, and His “yoke is easy and his burden is light.” Seek biblical counseling from Christian leaders and friends, to get to the root of thinking patterns or sinful behaviors that may affect how you feel and function. Appreciate the unique person that God made you to be, yet don’t focus on yourself but on glorifying God and serving others. Build in times of relaxation into your lifestyle, and reduce times of stress or overexertion.
- Address possible allergies, digestive health, and nutrient deficiency. Conditions from autism to schizophrenia have been linked to deficiencies in B vitamins, imbalance of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids, a leaky gut, and allergy to wheat or gluten. Improper gut flora can leave people feeling irritable, moody, and depressed. Healing the gut by going on a diet protocol such as GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) has proven to be very helpful in many instances. When the body isn’t constantly reacting to allergens that it isn’t digesting properly, the nervous system can function at a much more even, constant, balanced level. If the body is deficient in B vitamins and essential fatty acids due to a poor diet, this will likely and eventually manifest in mental or nervous system issues. The body needs proper nutrition to function properly, and depleted foods cannot provide proper nutrition.
- The oils that are nourishing for proper nervous health are clean saturated fats such as organic butter and coconut oil. The cells in our nerves are literally made from the fats we eat. Good fats, that don’t oxidize or cause more damage, are essential. Also, our mental health is dependent upon a proper balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. An ideal ratio is 1:1 – 1:4. However, the standard American diet provides a ration of about 1:20 – 1:30! Essential fatty acids are found in cold water fish such as cod and salmon; in the meat of grass-fed beef; in cold-pressed plant oils that are stored properly (without going rancid) such as flax oil, walnut oil, or avocado oil; and in nuts and seeds that are eaten fresh without going rancid. Many diseases are linked to insufficient intake of omega-3 fatty acids. Clean saturated fats are slowly coming back into recognition and approval, but they have always been the most stable, nutritious fats for consumption. Processed vegetable oils (different from cold-pressed oils taken for supplements) used in cooking turn toxic and damage our nervous system; they should be avoided as much as possible, and counteracted with many other good fats: saturated fats, and oils high in omega-3 fatty acids.
- B vitamins and minerals are really essential for nervous health. They are precursors for neurotransmitter conversion. Particularly, the B Complex vitamins convert amino acids from protein consumption, into neurotransmitters. B6 and magnesium are two nutrients that work closely together and are often deficient in people with neurological complaints. B vitamins can be easily deficient in our diets wherever there is consumption of refined flour and refined sugar, since the processing strips the wheat and sugar cane completely of these vitamins. We should eat only whole, unprocessed foods to ensure getting adequate B vitamin intake. In addition to B vitamins, minerals tend to be deficient in our diets–especially magnesium and potassium. These nutrients, along with sodium and calcium, are integral electrolytes in intracellular and extracellular fluid balance. With conventional agriculture, there is little place for minerals to come from, and much of our food is deficient in minerals.
- Ensure plenty of good quality protein in the diet (grassfed meat, organic dairy, organic legumes, soaked nuts), for several reasons. Protein foods provide a good portion of bulk for the diet if you are trying to avoid refined flours and sugars–and also keep you from craving refined flours and sugars, the foods which are stripped of nutrients and have a negative influence on depression. Most importantly, the brain needs amino acids in order to function properly (the amino acids converted by adequate B vitamins and minerals!). High-carb or low-calorie diets can sweep amino acids out of the reach of the brain, leaving them for other places in the body to utilize, but leaving the brain without enough nutrients. Supplementing with amino acids can be a good method as long as the person is NOT on prescription drugs for mental health. In this case, as in all cases, eating adequate protein foods is the best option. Lastly, tryptophan in protein foods converts to the hormone serotonin, which produces a calming affect on the body. Protein foods are very necessary for the nourishment and conversions of hormones and the endocrine system, which all have a strong relation to feelings of energy, capability, and happiness (things often thought of as mostly emotional, coming from the mind.) Balance the glycemic index of your meals so that your meals don’t cause rapid rise and drop of blood sugar, which, when it happens, drastically affects moods, irritability, hormones, and the endocrine system.
- Vitamin D is essential for mental health. We can convert vitamin D from time in the sunshine. The sun is good for many more reasons, I think, in addition to vitamin D. Time in the sunshine and God’s creation helps us to think of things beyond our own little world, warms us and helps us to sleep better at night, and is just elementally natural in a way that can’t help but be good for our souls. Sunshine should have a very prominent place in a holistic, healing lifestyle. It connects us to creation and to something bigger than ourselves, yet penetrates us in the giving of necessary vitamins. Vitamin D can also be received from the oil or flesh of cold water fish, who also received it from sunshine. Exercise in the sunshine (or any exercise) creates hormone connections in our brain and body that are very helpful for counteracting issues like depression or anxiety.
- BACH flower essences, developed by Dr. Edward Bach in England, are mild homeopathic remedies that are easily self-prescribed, harmless, and non-toxic. If care is taken to discern one’s own emotions and feelings, and choose the right flower remedies, they can be wondrously helpful to balance out one’s attitude and behavior. Several drops of up to 5 different kinds can be used simultaneously, and results are often noted within a few days or a few weeks. There are remedies of which Dr. Bach noted affinities for those living in the past, those feeling overwhelmed, those feeling a lack of confidence, those having trouble making decisions, those feeling critical or intolerant, and about 35 more. Some of my friends, as well as I, have noted the Bach remedies as being very helpful for minor little adjustments to mood and emotions. They also have a “Rescue remedy” that is a blend of numerous essences, and is for general use for more acute conditions. They are relatively inexpensive if ordered via Vitacost, and are odorless and tasteless (other than a possible faint flower fragrance.)
- The book Rebuild from Depression is not actually one I have read, but was highly recommended by a friend who was familiar with it. The author recommends a very traditional, nutritional, healing diet, with healthy meats and fats, nutrient-dense vegetable preparations, soaked grains, and more. She writes in the vein of the Weston A. Price Foundation diet, a style of eating which provides plentiful nutrients for mental and nervous health. If you want a book delineating a dietary protocol to follow, while seeking to reverse depression naturally, you’ll want to take a look at Rebuild from Depression. This book is suited especially for postpartum depression, but its principles apply to other types of depression or mental conditions.
- Good chiropractic care (Gonstead and Chiropractic BioPhysics are two good types, usually) treats the nervous system. That’s its forte! More than helping your spine, or your back, or your bones, the purpose of chiropractic care is really to remove interference (or “subluxations”) to the nerves. Injuries or improper vertebral alignment interfere with proper nervous function. Given that most of us have improper neck curvature due to years of sitting and looking down, and given that all of the nerves in the spinal cord pass from the head to the rest of the body through the neck, there’s a lot of damage and impaired function that can be present in the neck area. Good chiropractic doctors will evaluate the upper cervical area closely, even taking xray films to determine the exact situation for an individual’s health. Considering chiropractic care is an excellent option in addressing any issues of mental health.
- Well, those are the main things I wanted to discuss, though much more could be said. Other nutrients to consider in treating conditions that are mental or nervous in nature, are the following. Look them up or talk to your healthcare provider about them. Consider supplementing with St. John’s Wort, cod liver oil, magnesium, whole-food-based B vitamins, and amino acids such as L-glutamine. Avoid vegetable oils and eat plenty of healthy fats. Avoid caffeine, chemicals, and any other strong stimulants.
- Dear readers, I hope some of these ideas are beneficial to anyone you know who may need them. It burdens me that Americans are so beset by types of disorders which are virtually non-existent in other parts of the world. For instance, East Indians have the lowest rates of depression and bipolar disorder in the world, and also, I believe, multiple sclerosis. Their diet is full of healthy spices and dense in nutrients, and their Ayurvedic approach to medicine seeks holism and balance far before things get out of kilter or out of control–like they do in America before we treat anything. Here, we wait until it’s bad enough to need medication. What about fine-tuning our diets, or using herbs or flower essences at the first signs of imbalance? May we all use more wisdom as we seek the health of our whole bodies, and the health of our lifestyles as they relate to those around us.
First principle: Your chef’s knife and cutting board are your most essential kitchen tools for the preparing of whole foods. The knife is an extension of your hand, and the board protects your counter and holds food.
Second principle: Choose a knife and cutting board of healthful composition, durable quality, comfortable feel, and aesthetic value to you personally, since you will be using them all the time.
It’s incredible how many people try to make do without a good knife or a good cutting board in their kitchen. Making do with a cutting board that is too small, or too misshapen and bowed, or too old/sliced up/unsanitary is not good. Making do with knives that are too small for the job, and hurt your hand, and don’t chop easily or neatly, is not good. Buying a knife and board that works, that you like, and that you will use, is one of the best investments ever. Having the proper tools will do wonders toward your propensity to get in the kitchen and cook.
Types of cutting boards
The two basic categories of cutting boards are wooden/bamboo and plastic/synthetic. Various arguments can be made for the sanitation of either style.
Wooden/bamboo cutting boards have natural antibacterial qualities that help to kill bacteria from raw foods and raw meats. However, they can become covered with miniature grooves after much use, which may harbor more bacteria. The antibacterial quality is wonderful, but wood can’t be sanitized with vinegar or bleach water as plastic boards can, giving one small reason against their use (particularly in commercial kitchens.) Wooden boards require some upkeep in the form of oiling, and should never be put in the dishwasher.
Plastic boards are more impervious to bacteria unless they become covered with little cuts, and they can become stained. Generic plastic boards (especially flexible ones) are likely to be made from toxic plastics that will leach into food when contacting acidic foods or when washed in very hot water in the dishwasher. However, they are easy to sanitize with vinegar or bleach water after having raw meat cut on them.
Both plastic and wooden boards are friendly to knives, without dulling them prematurely. Glass boards are very harsh to knives, and are also extremely loud if you are doing any serious chopping. Glass cutting boards seem to be more of designer things and are breakable, not really a great asset to a hard-working chef either at home or in a restaurant.
Wooden boards are sturdy but heavy. While it’s good exercise to constantly lift them, I was ready for a change from 2″ thick bamboo boards, and decided to try a different kind for my new kitchen. At first I looked at the Epicurean-brand recycled boards which seem to be professional and attractive. However, they seemed too hard of a surface for me, as if I would be afraid of really putting weight into chopping on it, lest I would harm my knife.
Not wanting white plastic or any type of generic board, I kept looking at other types of recycled boards. I chose an EcoSmart-brand board that has a handle in it, and has a great surface. It’s smooth, but not overly hard and dense. It is made of flax fibers and recycled food-grace plastics, and is 12″ x 16″, a good average size that is easy to handle but large enough for most tasks. I really like it so far. Have at least one board this size. You’ll use a better chopping motion if your board is large enough to handle it!
Whatever you do, choose a cutting board that you like, that’s large enough, and that you’ll want to leave out on the counter and use often.
Storage of cutting boards
Keep cutting boards flat on the counter, ready to use, or lean them against the wall under the upper cabinet. It takes a lot of extra steps, cumulatively, if you have to reach into the cupboard every time you want to cut something. It’s my opinion that people are more likely to cut up an apple or vegetable for a snack if the cutting board and knife are ready and easy to use.
After using the board, wash it off and put it right back where it goes. I wouldn’t put mine in the dishwasher even if it’s dishwasher-proof, because I use it far too often. Again, you’ll prepare whole foods and healthy snacks more often if your best tools are clean and ready to be used.
Types of chef knives
My knives above are 5″ blade and 8″ blade J.A. Henckels made in Germany, and a 10″ Wusthof blade made in Germany.
You want a real chef’s knife–one that has at least an 8″ blade, has a full tang (the metal piece) extending all the way through the handle, and has a wide bolster (the distance that the knife extends below the blade) to protect your hand. Knives with full tangs are by far the sturdiest; the blade can’t loosen from the handle. Knives with wide and thick bolsters allow plenty of room for your hand to fit on the handle, without your hand hitting the cutting board as you chop. The bolsters, as you can see in the knives in the above picture, are also thick enough that if you hold the knife with your hand slid against the bolster, it will be comfortable; you won’t feel a sharp metal edge.
Choose a knife that is weighted comfortably for your hand. You want to be able to hold it in the middle, loosely, and have it balance easily. This will allow you to chop easily, without having to lay a lot of pressure into the knife.
You want a good quality knife, because these are the kinds that have full tangs and comfortable bolsters, and are sanitary to clean (no crevices or rivets which look like they will collect food). Typically, the best quality knives are made in Europe or Japan. J.A. Henckels and Wusthof are excellent brands that are sold in many kitchen stores.
Yes, they are expensive ($50-200+ depending on the length of blade) but think of this as a primary kitchen investment. Food processors cost that much; having an array of cutting and slicing machines (salad shooters, nut choppers, etc.) might come up to the same sum. But a good knife and board is the simplest, most versatile pair–able to do almost anything that an electric machine can do.
If you don’t have a good chef’s knife, I highly recommend that you go purchase one, and learn how to use it. An 8″ blade is the best average size. Other than things you would use a paring knife for, the 8″ blade is perfectly fine for small tasks or small pieces of food, as long as you use it carefully and skillfully. I hardly ever use my 5″ blade. In culinary school it was recommended that we purchase a 10″ blade, and it is what I primarily used all through the remainder of the class. With a knife that long, your hands have to do hardly any work, and chopping is almost effortless. The weight of the knife does most of it. Long knives are very useful for slabs of meat, huge squashes, or any other large item.
To chop food with your chef’s knive, always keep the tip down on the cutting board, and pivot the blade from the tip. Always keep the fingers of your opposite hand together and on top of the blade, or curved (with only the fingernails able to contact the knife, if it got too close) and pinching the food you are cutting. Place your knife on your cutting board, when not in use, on either side of the board or on the top edge, always with the blade facing out from the middle of the board. Never place it where it could be bumped or fall onto the floor. It is wise and professional to wear enclosed shoes in the kitchen while cooking and chopping with a chef’s knife.
And remember, for both knives and boards, larger sizes can be used for small tasks much more easily than small sizes can be used for large tasks: so err on the side of large boards and long knives.
Storage of chef knives
You don’t want good knives to bump up against each other or have their blades nicked, either in a drawer or in the dishwasher. Always wash your chef’s knife by hand then place it where it belongs.
Good places to store knives are on a magnetic strip on the wall, or in a knife block that has slots for each knife. Without either of these currently, I actually do have mine in a drawer, but they each lay in their own space on top of rubber matting so there is no potential of sliding into each other or becoming dulled by banging against the edges of the drawer.
Being stainless, knives don’t really have to be towel dried, but I often like to dry them so that water isn’t sitting on them, and so that my dish drainer doesn’t have a danger zone in it. :) Plus, they look so nice and shiny if you dry them with a tea towel!
Read these other Culinary Reformation posts:
Knife skills–first day of culinary school
Organization of kitchen work stations
Kitchen equipment list–complete
Kitchen equipment–larger items
This is the first in a new series on “10 Things to Know About _____”. This one regards a common malady, acid reflux, in keeping with the topic of digestive health this week. In future weeks, I plan to cover various subjects from specific health conditions, to alternative therapies, to elements of a non-toxic home.
1. Acid reflux, or Gastroesophageal Reflux Disorder (GERD), is a condition, whether occasional (acid reflux) or chronic (GERD) where the lower esophageal sphincter below the throat does not close sufficiently, allowing stomach acid to come back into the throat, giving a burning sensation. Many people are afflicted by acid reflux either when they eat certain foods, or when they eat any foods.
2. Conventional treatment of acid reflux includes prescription of antacids to theoretically lower stomach acid and prevent the burning in the throat. Also recommended is to avoid commonly irritating foods such as alcohol, caffeinated beverages, citrus, tomatoes, and spicy or fried foods. However, neither of these “solutions” really get to the root of the problem.
3. In reverse of popular belief, acid reflux is usually caused by too little stomach acid, rather than too much stomach acid. Sufficient stomach acid causes the sphincter to work properly. The sphincter will weaken and not work correctly when there is too little stomach acid. Taking antacids only prolongs the problem. Optimal stomach acid pH is 1.5 – 2.5. Antacids raise it to 3.5, or less acidic.
4.Citrus foods, contrary to popular opinion, are acidic in open air, but do not make the body more acidic. Lemon, especially, is a great alkalizer in the body. However, citrus foods may aggravate acid reflux since the problem is too little acid, not too much acid.
5. A better remedy is to sip apple cider vinegar in a little water, before each meal. Providing enough acid to help the stomach digest the food, should be the answer to improper stomach and sphincter function. In the case of acid reflux, the body is not generating enough stomach acid and providing more will usually help to alleviate symptoms of heartburn.
6. Antacids block digestion, which ultimately really hurts digestion even further. A better answer, in addition to sipping apple cider vinegar for temporary relief, is to work on healing the entire digestive system, from beginning to end. Chew thoroughly. Eat calming foods. And follow a protocol such as from clarinetist Kathryne Pirtle’s book, Performance without Pain, wherein she describes how she healed severe acid reflux (and therefore a severely-compromised digestion) with a traditional nutritional diet. Healing the whole digestion should prove to be much more lasting than merely avoiding certain foods.
7. Performance without Pain is an excellent, short book which delineates a diet that avoids common digestive offenders (grains and sugars) for a time of healing. She recommends many healing, replenishing foods such as bone broth, kefir, slow-cooked meats, and cooked vegetables. These foods calm the digestive system and are easy to digest.
8. Adequate protein intake is necessary for the production of the hydrochloric acid in the stomach. If you suffer from acid reflux, you might try increasing protein amounts in your diet to enable the increase of stomach acid–which, as we discussed, is necessary for proper stomach activity.
9. Some helpful supplements to aid in the healing from acid reflux include the following: licorice root capsules or tea; slippery elm bark capsules or tea; peppermint capsules or tea; aloe vera juice; probiotics and probiotic-rich foods; digestive enzyme tablets; gelatin; and digestive bitters/Swedish bitters.
10. Standard Process-brand Zypan is a very potent digestive enzyme, help to hydrochloric acid production, and provision of necessary nutrients for stomach and esophageal sphincter strength. Standard Process whole-food supplements are sold by certified health practitioners. As with bascially any ailment, it is wise to heal and strengthen the bodily systems rather than covering them up with medications, or even providing only temporary relief from natural remedies.
My friend, who is currently following the GAPS diet, came over for lunch last week, and this is what I made from some bits and pieces in my fridge.
I thawed out a lb. of ground beef that was raised on my mother’s property–so it’s entirely wholesome and grass-fed. I started it cooking in an environmentally-friendly non-stick pan. (Environmentally-friendly in this case doesn’t mean it’s biodegradable, but that its composition does not include chemicals which are harmful when cooking and breathed in, harmful to ingest if bits of the pan flake and come into the food, and able to remain in human blood or fat perpetually.)
While the beef was cooking, I washed some organic spinach and made a layer on a serving platter. Then, I shredded organic carrots in my food processor, and laid those on the spinach, dousing the carrots with extra virgin olive oil and sea salt.
As the beef kept cooking, I added several handfuls of chopped red onions, to allow them to soften. Toward the end of the cooking time for the beef and onions, I added a cup or two of thawed bone broth, probably 1/4 cup of cultured butter, and salt and pepper.
The three fresh items in my fridge that I wanted to use up were zucchini, olives, and fresh mint. With this flavor profile, I had to be careful how I seasoned the meat. I decided on using dried savory and dried tarragon–two of my favorite herbs–so that they would complement the fresh mint. Mint and olives go well together, and zucchini is mild and can be adapted to almost any flavor. 
Once we were ready to eat, I spooned the hot beef mixture onto the bed of carrots and spinach. We ate the meal in my favorite new wide bowls from IKEA, that can function as either a plate or a bowl. My friend brought homemade fermented sauerkraut to accompany the meal, and I poured some coconut-water kefir to drink. The meat and vegetable combination was quite tasty and comforting, we agreed, and very satisfying and filling.
This meal included a good amount of a nutritious source of protein; healthy carbohydrates in the carrots–which also doubled as a showcase for the meat (in place of the traditional rice); and I made sure to use plenty of olive oil (cold on the carrots) and butter (in with the meat)to provide healthy fats even though they blend in and aren’t as obvious. And it’s great to have one or two cultured items (the sauerkraut and kefir) at every meal, to provide good flora to the body.
Digestion and assimilation of nutrients is one of the several vital roots of health, paralleling the importance of the immune system and nervous system. Of course, every part is vital, but these three systems especially influence the whole body to a huge extent.
In every condition studied at the Nutrition Therapy Institute, digestive health was forefront and fundamental; what good will nutritious foods do, for any condition, if they are not being digested? My particular subject to research and relate at school was digestive health, a subject I have much interest in, having tried numerous different protocols personally for my own health.
Below the graphic is the text from a handout I made for school, as well as lists of helpful supplements and foods to consider while doing a healing diet.
Please refer also to my other post about digestive health, and my post about grain-free eating and healing the gut.
Important concepts:
- We aren’t merely concerned with foods that might be easiest to digest. We are mostly concerned with eliminating triggers to poor digestion for a time, so that the gut lining can truly heal and become stronger and less permeable. There are many books which promote this style of temporary diet.
- These include: Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Campbell-McBride, Recovering Your Digestive Health by Jordan Rubin, Performance without Pain by Kathryne Pirtle, Practical Paleo by Dianne San Filipo; and Specific Carbohydrate Diet by Elaine Gottschall. They all concentrate on healing foods such as in Nourishing Traditions, and carefully watch the amounts and types of carbohydrates consumed (without necessarily being a low-carb diet at all).
- Mainstream, conventional nutrition advice says whole grains and extra fiber help digestion. I think a much better approach is using healthy fats, healthy proteins, and fermented foods high in probiotics, to heal the gut. Extra-fiber foods continually irritate the gut, and in the case of a compromised gut lining, will do more harm than good. I really want to read the book Fiber Menace soon; has anyone read it? …as well as Matt Stone’s books on digestive health, to see what he says.
- Even some “health” type dietary advice will recommend raw diets or mostly vegetarian diets for helping digestion. In some cases these may be helpful, but I believe that most of the time those are not best for healing a very damaged gut. Cooked vegetables, and healthy fats, and soft-cooked meats are easier to digest than are whole grain wheat flour or raw vegetables.
- The American diet is so full of foods that are hard to digest, and depleted of nutrition that could nourish the gut, that it is no wonder that digestive problems–and issues that spring from malabsorption–are rampant. We need rich animal foods and animal fats such as meat with collagen in it, meat on the bone, bone broth, and butter. We need cultured foods such as yogurt and sauerkraut and fermented relishes, instead of pasteurized milk and potato chips and sugary ketchup.
- It is recommended that cultured foods be eaten at each and every meal. I admit that I have gotten away from this practice recently, but still drink kombucha and kefir often and try to eat yogurt daily. Probiotic-rich foods will help digest any food they are eaten with for constant encouragement of good gut health, rather than providing a constant barage of lifeless foods–with which the gut usually declines in health after a time.
RUDIMENTS of digestive disorders
Digestive disorders are thought to affect at least 30% of the population, with Irritable Bowel Syndrome diagnosed as plaguing 20% of Americans.
“Leaky Gut” is an overarching, loosely-descriptive term for what happens with many digestive conditions: improperly-absorbed nutrients that pass into the bloodstream via a compromised gut wall, causing allergies and digestive trouble.
The intestines become leaky; the colon becomes misshapen; good bacteria are conspicuously absent; bowel movements can be either too soft or too hard, or alternate between the two. Problematic intestinal health can affect not only the intestines, but everything above and below, from acid reflux to bloating to constipation.
Terms for the different diseases include Irritable Bowel Syndrome; Inflammatory Bowel Disease (classified as either Crohn’s, affecting the small intestine where nutrients are absorbed, or Colitis, affecting the colon where waste is transported); Celiac Disease, and Dysbiosis.
TREATMENT of digestive disorders
Conventional treatments range from prescribing antacids, anti-inflammatories, and laxatives, to surgery to remove parts of the intestine or colon. Other suggestions from medical doctors may include “living with it” or going on a high-fiber diet.
While more fiber can help in some cases, it doesn’t truly heal the gut wall to reduce inflammation, or restore beneficial bacteria to aid in digestion. Fiber can help to get things moving if the problem is bulk in the colon, but it seems that in many cases of more severe digestive diseases, fiber is not the primary answer. Even more basic than fiber, it seems that “flora”, or good bacteria, is the primary need.
As Dr. Thomas Cowan has described, the gut wall is like a grassy meadow, where the grass is the good bacteria and the fertile soil is the villi and microvilli—the little brushes that comprise the edge of the interior gut lining. Just as if grass is destroyed, the soil erodes too—so if the flora is not present, the villi will come in too close of contact to bile and will become damaged as it tries to absorb and assimilate it.
Eating foods that don’t replenish good flora, and that feed the growth of bad flora, leads to an imbalance of flora, which then inhibits the smooth and timely digestion of food. Carbohydrates ferment; fats go rancid; and proteins putrefy in the gut.
Eating inflammatory foods, such as gluten-containing grains or vegetable oils or alcohol, can damage intestinal villi. Chemicals such as in medications or preservatives can damage villi by causing inflammation, as can stress, environmental toxins, and alcohol.
Allergies and autoimmune diseases are sometimes brought about by improperly digested food which passes through the gut wall. The body treats these substances as invaders, which is manifested in allergies.
Anyone eating a modern Western diet high in refined starches and sugars, processed foods and artificial ingredients, is at risk for digestive diseases. These foods are hard to digest and are inflammatory to the gastrointestinal tract.
In the past, traditional indigenous cultures in other parts of the world have not complained of digestive diseases. They are a blight caused by the foods of industrialized civilization.
Our body knows how to digest the food it was created to digest; despite its marvelous innate wisdom, the body does not know what to do with food made by man. The digestive system reacts!
NUTRIENTS TO SUPPLEMENT
L-Glutamine
Digestive Enzymes
Live Probiotics
Aloe Vera Juice
Essential Fatty Acids
Whole Food Fiber
Gelatin
Digestive Bitters
Licorice Root Tea
Artichoke
Slippery Elm Bark
Apple Cider Vinegar
Chlorophyll
Cinnamon
Ginger
Peppermint
FOODS TO FOCUS ON
Grass-fed meat
Bone broth
Omega-3 eggs
Legumes and lentils
Cultured dairy
Fresh fruit and berries
Raw honey
Nuts and their flours
Non-starchy veg.
Lacto-fermented veg.
Butter
Coconut oil and milk
Avocadoes
Cod liver oil
Flaxseed oil
Water
Fermented beverages
Vegetable juice
Herbal teas
EAT LITTLE TO NONE, FOR A TIME
Grains
Sugars except honey
Potatoes
Refined starches/flours
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Some friends have told me that I’m the cleanest cook they have ever seen. I was honored.
That is quite a compliment, but really I can take hardly any credit, as I learned from my mom and I do have a penchant toward organizing and cleaning up, which only naturally extends into the kitchen. (My brother says I “organize on accident”.) It’s not as if I have given a lot of effort to being a clean cook, though I do enjoy the process and the results. It just happens.
However, I wrote down what I do, in case others want to know how to do it.
- My mom never used a dishwasher, preferring to wash dishes by hand. I don’t know that this point really helps keep the kitchen cleaner, but it definitely gets your hands in the soapy water to wash up the dishes! Hot, soapy water is one my favorite things.
- She would wash all the cooking dishes before the meal, while the meal was cooking, except for the couple things that the food was actually cooking in. This left only those couple dishes, and the serve-ware and utensils, for afterward.
- My mom always changed the dishcloths, hand towels, and drying towels every day, and washed them. You need a good stack of towels to make this work, but it’s so refreshing and sanitary, to use clean towels every day. Getting nice, new towels that appeal to you can be an incentive to keep them clean and exchange them for fresh ones every day or two.
- Use one towel for hands and one towel for drying dishes, so as not to cross-contaminate. Hand towels inevitably get dirty, and are not for drying dishes.
- First of all, right now, deep clean everything in your kitchen, with hot water, a clean rag, and non-toxic cleaner. Scrub the fridge, the appliances, the kitchen equipment, the sink, the backsplash, the canisters, the top of the fridge, the decorations, the cabinets, behind and under everything on the counter, and lastly the floor. This is your foundation, which you will now clean back to all the time–but it won’t take nearly as long.
- Hot, soapy water is your best friend. Some ladies say to fill a sink full as soon as you enter the kitchen. At least, get the water hot, and have a supply of soap and clean dish cloths to be ready to wipe up spills and wash the dishes. I love washing everything in sight with hot soapy water–from the fridge shelves, to the stovetop, to the dirty dishes. Hot water and generous use of soap makes everything feel and smell so much cleaner.
- Again, as I said above, use a fresh dishcloth every one or two days. Smell it to check how fresh it is. Wringing it out between uses, especially when done in the kitchen for a few hours, helps to prevent a moist environment for fast bacterial growth, and allows it to stay fresher longer.
- This is the big point. Clean back to your foundational base line after every task. After using the sink after a meal or cooking session, do a quick wipe with the hot soapy water behind the sink and across the soap dish. Wipe up any spills on the floor (with a paper towel, not with your clean dishcloth) right away. If you wipe up the sink three times a day, it won’t get grimy. If you clean up spills right away, they won’t accumulate until the floor is in crisis mode.
- If any part of the kitchen gets really dirty again and remains dirty, it seems to be kind of contagious–so this is what you are trying to avoid. When bottles go back in the fridge dirty, the fridge gets dirty. When the counter stays dirty, the underneath of dishes get dirty, then the floor gets dirty when you transport them to the table. When the floor is dirty, crumbs get spread to other areas of the house where they rot or attract mites and ants. But if the bottles are clean, the fridge stays clean. If the counters are clean, the floor stays clean. If the kitchen floor stays clean, the house stays cleaner. If you keep every part clean, the whole kitchen stays clean much longer.
- This is another big point: Clean between every different preparation. Wipe off the counter, and the cutting board, and wipe off and clear away ingredient bottles and packages. After you shred the cheese, brush off the cutting board and wipe off the counter. Move the dish of shredded cheese to the side. Now you don’t have the potential for cheese to stick to more surfaces or fall to the floor as you work. Get the cutting board in place again to slice lettuce–perhaps for tacos. Do that, then wipe up the counter again. Move all the food waste to one container or directly to the compost or trash. (It’s helpful to have a waste bowl while chopping vegetables, instead of letting the odd pieces or spoiled pieces clutter and dirty the counter.)
- Cleaning this way is also very wise for cross-contamination. In case one food is spoiling (without your knowledge), you don’t want it to contaminate anything else. In case one type of food doesn’t have as long of shelf life as another, you don’t pieces of it stuck to other food as you put it back in the fridge. We mix food together on purpose for a finished dish, not accidentally when forgetting to wash knives and cutting boards.
- As I wrote about my mom doing this, clean up the kitchen while the meal is cooking. Usually there is time. Get something in the oven, then clean up everything. Get things simmering on the stove, then clear the counters of dishes, and stack them next to the sink. Give the food a stir, then wash that pile of dishes. It really only takes about six minutes, if you do it before the food hardens on the bowls and utensils. Almost any food has to cook (or can rest) for six minutes.
- Even if dinner is a cold salad, there’s no reason you can’t let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes while you put all the ingredients away, wipe off the counters with a hot soapy dishcloth, and place the cutting board and knife next to the sink. Four things this does: cold foods will be kept cold for best sanitation; bacteria doesn’t have a chance to grow in food crumbs on the countertop; everything cleans up so mu
ch faster without getting crusty and stuck on; the kitchen is visibly appealing and your meal can be more relaxing.
- This isn’t law, but I think it’s a lot easier to clean up any remaining dishes right after dinner, and not wait until bedtime or the next morning. Food that is stuck to counters or dishes has to be scrubbed and scrubbed; food that was freshly made merely has to be wiped up (with your hot, clean washcloth) or rinsed off. Just don’t procrastinate, and spend that six or ten minutes washing up the kitchen while you are cooking, instead of spending 30 minutes hours later.
- When you clean the counter between each preparation (between shredding cheese and lettuce, or between making a sauce and making a salad), you can now use anything that spills. I’d only pick up spilled shredded cheese from a counter that was thoroughly washed after having raw chicken cut on it. If I’m making cookie dough, and some drops on the counter, I’ll put it right back in the bowl–but only if I know that I started with a clean and sanitary counter, not a counter that has food stuck on from the last three meals.
- A clean kitchen is not only more sanitary, preventing widespread, unwarranted growth of bacteria, but it’s also more beautiful and orderly. And it feels nice. There isn’t grease or grime on the fridge door handle or in the sink disposal. The kitchen smells fresher. And it is just good to know that it is really, truly, clean–and that you have a method for keeping it that way.
- Cleaning back to the clean foundation really doesn’t take that long. It takes seconds between each little task–and saves time and hassle in the long run. So, after washing a pile of dishes right after cooking with them, you would scrub down the sink with the soapy washcloth, wash behind the faucet, wipe off the soap dispenser, wipe all the counters, and wring out the dishcloth. Now, it’s totally clean again! Doing the complete task each time does wonders for maintaining a clean environment. Take those extra 2 seconds to wipe off the bottle before putting it away, or wring out the rag, or put that container back into the fridge in an orderly, stackable fashion.
- If something (say, honey) gets on the outside of the bottle and on the counter, what do you do? Three things: Wipe down the bottle with a hot washcloth; wipe down the counter with the washcloth, then rinse and wring out the washcloth. Now the honey bottle is clean for the next use. The counter is clean and nothing else will get stuck to the honey residue. Also, the washcloth is ready for the next use. It really doesn’t take that long if you get in the mode of thinking this way. Isn’t this better than having the cabinet get dirty from the honey bottle, the bag of flour get grimy with the sticky honey that you accidentally set in it, or the washcloth remain sticky for wiping down the table after eating? Get back to clean at every stage, in every area, and everything will stay clean. I almost promise it will work for you. It does work.
- You have to really want the kitchen to be clean, and then make it a habit. Review: Always clean as you go, back to the foundation cleanliness. Clean up the counters after/between every task. Clean up the kitchen completely after each meal or cooking session. Sweep the floor as soon as you can see debris on it. If you start fresh each and every time you use the kitchen, there is literally no chance for buildup of grime, or crusty food, or bacteria, or piles of dirty dishes.
- Yes, it takes lots of washing–washing surfaces with hot soapy water or natural cleaners, washing dishes during the cooking of every meal, and washing the towels and washcloths every day. But nobody’s afraid of soap and clean towels, are they? Washing is a pleasure when you are using clean, fresh smelling towels and comforting warm water, and when the food wipes up easily (before it gets crusty or grimy).
- Try to be clean when you cook, too. Take the extra second to be careful with pouring liquid, or transferring items between pots, or measuring dry ingredients. Be conscious of where you cook–not over the gap between the stove and the counter; not over the floor; not over a cookbook.
- Try to be organized when you cook. Make one dish in one part of the counter, and the other dish in another place. Or finish one before starting the next. Try to come up with a system so that there are regular achievements of completion–those are the same times that will correspond to wiping up the counter and starting the next project. If you are making several dishes, figure out which one needs to cook the longest, then get that on the stove or in the oven. Clean up quickly, then start the next dish, and so on. Reaching little milestones in a cooking marathon (either making dinner or a morning of cooking for the week ahead) will help you to stay organized. Remember mise en place, but keep it clean and organized.
- I know I don’t have children in the house, which probably would tend to less control over cleanliness. But I have seen it work and know it is possible to maintain cleanliness with children around. Keep the same guidelines: clean after every kitchen activity, back to the foundational level of convincingly “clean”. I guess in addition to cleaning the counters and dishes, you’ll be cleaning high chairs and children. : ) But the same rules apply: start the children off clean, and clean their hands and faces and high chair trays before they leave the kitchen.
- One tip I have heard is to “open” and “close” the kitchen, especially where there is a large family involved. You can be in charge (granted what your husband likes) of starting meals, completing meals, serving snacks to children, and closing the kitchen at the end of the evening. Take dominion over the food and mealtimes in your kitchen.
- Simplify what you have in the cupboards and on the counters, to make cleaning and organizing easier. Reduce the single-use tools you may have. Have a designated, large space for easy food preparation–and leave any decorations to a separate counter space so that you aren’t constantly having to clean around or under them. Consolidate packages in the fridge or cupboards so you can see what you have, and so that containers are able to be stacked or arranged in an orderly fashion.
- Some of this may sound overly fastidious as I try to explain it, but it’s actually pretty simple if you just start using these methods all the time.
- Caveat: when I say “clean”, I often mean sanitary. Technically, clean means free of visible debris, while sanitary means free of bacteria. I think hot, soapy water is a good everyday cleaner, with bleach water or white vinegar used to disinfect after handling raw meat, and non-toxic cleaners used occasionally for deep cleaning.
- P.S. I guess I also wash my hands all the time, while I’m cooking. It helps to keep everything else clean!
Comment and let me know if this was helpful, or share what other cleaning solutions you have put into practice.
Thank you for reading, friends.
{picture is of the kitchen at my old home, my mother’s house}
Super Nutrition for Babies: The Right Way to Feed Your Baby for Optimal Health
My sister-in-law is a great cook! For Houston’s first birthday, she made the cake “Birthday Bash without the Sugar Crash” from the above book. Let me tell you how good it was! Why everyone doesn’t always eat this kind of food, I don’t know. Made with cocoa powder, butter, honey, eggs, and almond flour, and a frosting of cocoa, cream cheese, banana, and honey–it makes for very happy bellies for both babies and adults. The cake was served with Alden’s Organic Cookies & Cream Ice Cream, which is quite luxurious–so very creamy and tasty.
The idea of the ingredients in this cake is to avoid common allergens and toxins in children’s food–but we all should be eating as healthfully as we can, right? Let me say again how good this cake was! Sure, it tasted great, but even better was knowing there wouldn’t be a sugar crash, or an inflammatory reaction–or sleeplessness.
I really need to learn not to eat gluten and sugar late at night, because last night with friends, at a different place, I did, and now I’m awake all night! (There are many reasons I’m trying to avoid gluten, but being wired and tired all night has to top the list–if I only remember ahead of time…).
Here is another healthy chocolate recipe I like to make, which I served earlier in the day yesterday. It feels SO good to eat nourishing food, and have a happy belly all day long and a sleepy head all night long. And Houston and his brother, and the rest of the guests, surely liked their cake at last week’s meal. Unrefined ingredients make for calm children at a birthday party, too–which is another benefit. Enjoy the following pictures of healthy food and happy little boys at a birthday party!
Chicken and Cabbage: This meal was created from some leftovers… One night I had made honey-rosemary chicken, baking chicken breasts with a sauce made from mostly honey, a bit of oil, and seasoned with garlic powder, white pepper, sea salt, and rosemary. I had also made a white bean-and-cabbage recipe from Heidi Swanson’s recent book Super Natural Every Day. I just borrowed it from the library and have tried about 7 recipes from it this week! I heated the cooked white beans in butter, garlic, salt, and pepper, then added the cabbage, and let it saute for about 5 minutes.
We had the chicken and cabbage dishes separately that night, with other accompaniments. But the next day, when I wanted a quick meal, I heated it all up together. I really like one dish meals, and I like heating everything in one frying pan instead of in several! So, for this dish, I chopped up the chicken, heated it, and added in some leftover white beans-and-cabbage. I also added some white miso paste, which gives tons of deep, tangy flavor to anything. I discovered miso paste at culinary school; it’s fermented soybeans (the only healthy kind of soybeans) and contains lots of minerals and B vitamins.
I added a couple tablespoons of organic butter, to melt as a moist sauce over everything. Then at the last minute, I sprinkled it with grated romano cheese and slid it all onto my plate. I like to buy a wedge of Italian-made Romano cheese from Costco (which is made from sheep’s milk) and grate it in my food processor then store it in a ziploc bag in the freezer.
This is my favorite kind of meal: dressing up whole-food leftovers with a new look and taste! Honey-rosemary chicken; white beans-and-cabbage; miso paste; butter; romano cheese.
Baked potato salad: I got this idea from several recipes I have pinned on Pinterest, but it’s often easier to make things how I like them, than following a recipe. I sliced some small red potatoes then steamed them until fork-tender. After they were cool, I dolloped them with Organic Valley sour cream. I like Organic Valley because the milk comes from small family farms and all of their products taste really rich and delicious.
I seasoned them with about 1/4 tsp. each of sea salt, garlic powder, mustard powder, and paprika–all freshly-bought, high-quality seasonings which pack a lot of flavor and nutrition.
Other additions were sliced black olives, sliced green onions (from the freezer–I like to keep a box of green onions there for quick use), cubed Tillamook Colby Jack cheese; and a bit of spicy whole grain mustard. Bacon sounded good to me, too, but I didn’t have any naturally-raised, naturally-cured bacon on hand, so I didn’t add any.
I brought this with me to lunch at my brother’s office, and he said he liked it (despite his not being partial to olives or mustard). In trying to keep it cold all morning in the car, on ice packs, I almost froze it, so we kind of had to let it thaw out before eating it! It was still good, though. It was fun to be creative with this recipe idea—baked potato flavors which store well in a cold salad.
Is White Flour Really All That Bad?
You’ll want to go read this article at ButterBeliever.com. Emily shares things that I have started to think and believe for a while now. She says it all exceptionally, so go read her article. Thank you, Emily.
She shares how white flour can be more easily digestible particularly if it’s unsoaked, and it doesn’t go rancid like unrefrigerated whole-grain flour does: two very important points.
She shares that yes, it surely is wise to buy unbleached, organic white flour!
Here’s why I agree with the article at the above link, and with this one about brown rice:
- When we started making whole-wheat bread for our family years ago, I always wanted to believe that it was healthier, but all the extra fiber honestly never helped anything, including my digestion. The bread seemed basically indigestible, though it was supposed to be so much healthier. Proof number one. Well, whole wheat bread technically does have more nutrition present–but not if it doesn’t get digested! All the good vitamins and minerals that are supposed to be present, are blocked by enzyme-inhibitors that aren’t neutralized unless soaked for hours in liquid and an acid. (Recently I’ve been enjoying the sourdough bread–no commercial yeast involved–that my mother makes, and it seems very digestible.)
- White flour products, despite spiking blood sugar a little faster, don’t seem to cause me as much “gluten-intolerance” symptoms as whole wheat flour does. Whole wheat products honestly can make me feel clogged, itchy, and inflamed. With white flour I can tell a rise in blood sugar, and it’s still pretty starchy so doesn’t digest the best, but it’s better than whole wheat–in my opinion because of the many digestive inhibitors in the whole wheat kernel.
- The bottom line is:If you don’t soak whole wheat flour for whole wheat pastry products, it’s not necessarily better (i.e. healthier or more digestible) than white (wheat) flour.
There are many, many reasons to not just go out and fill up on white flour products, though.
- Whole grains, properly cared for (kept from going rancid) and properly prepared (soaked before cooking) are still the very most nutritious way to eat grain. They have a lot of vitamins and minerals that are essential for health–whether we get them from grain or from other foods. Gluten-free whole grains, especially, seem to be more digestible and nutrition than wheat of any kind.
- White flour doesn’t really have much nutrition to it other than its caloric content and empty carbohydrate content. It’s much better to focus on nutrient-dense, colorful foods like vegetables and grass-fed proteins. Just because a few bites of white flour might be fine, doesn’t mean it should comprise your diet. It most definitely shouldn’t. It’s hardly nutritious at all. What I’m saying here is that it might be more digestible than whole wheat flour, for many people.
- White flour is kind of a magnet for other junky, unhealthy products. Avoiding white flour products in general is a simple way to avoid lots of things you don’t want to be eating: processed vegetable oils, white sugar, artificial ingredients, preservatives, and more. When eating out, my method for eating healthier and avoiding lots of artificial and chemical ingredients is this: avoid conventional bread and crackers and pastries!
- White flour has a high concentration of gluten, which many people are knowingly or unknowingly intolerant to. Regardless of whether you think gluten is allergenic for you, gluten is inflammatory and we all should probably try to restrict it’s use. The main benefit of gluten is that it makes appealing baked goods–but otherwise it’s not very useful in a healthy diet.
- Also, yeast bread made with white flour still has the unwanted aspect of commercial yeast which imbalances the acid-alkaline balance and gut flora. White flour baked goods made with non-aluminum baking powder, or baking soda, or sourdough, would be much preferred. So, no…white sandwich bread from the supermarket is really not anything I am trying to promote eating!
- White flour still drastically spikes blood sugar, since it converts to sugars so quickly during digestion. It’s wisest to eat it with plenty of fats, fiber, or protein. So, eat your homemade crackers with lots of cheese, celery, or almond butter…
I have read part of the book Cure Tooth Decay that Sarah at Healthy Home Economist talks about (at link about brown rice, above) and really want to read Fiber Menace soon too.
So please make sure you read this article at Butter Believer.com:
Is White Flour Really All That Bad?
Then tell me what you think!
~Renee
I like to develop salad recipes that are hearty and flavorful, can comprise a whole meal, and include some meat or poultry or legumes for protein. Here’s the first one that I actually wrote down ingredients and photographed while I made it.
This salad has a flavor profile that I compiled from several different ideas, one of which was a California Pizza Kitchen salad years ago, as well as typical Moroccan flavors such as dates and olives. I want to careful about saying it’s a Moroccan salad, though, since it probably isn’t!
A repeated note that came up in culinary school was not to use food terms as buzz-words, but to stay authentic. So, that’s what I plan to do: be authentic about my recipes as well as respecting the traditions and cultures which have led to their own authentic dishes.
Also, my salad recipes are not as exact as say, a pastry recipe would be. Feel free to adapt the proportions as you see fit, and to read into my rather loose measurements.
Moroccan-Inspired Salad with Chicken, Squash, and Fruit
For the chicken:
2 chicken breasts, cut into pieces, or 4 thighs, deboned and cut into pieces.
Heat a generous tablespoon of coconut oil in a saute pan. Cook and stir chicken pieces until thoroughly cooked. While cooking, sprinkle liberally with 1/2 tsp. each of sea salt, cinnamon, coriander, paprika, and garam masala.
For the dressing:
1 T. white wine vinegar, 2 T. orange juice concentrate, 3 T. olive oil, 2 tsp. water, and 1 tsp. organic lime juice.
Whisk together and season with salt and pepper.
For the rest:
1 head romaine lettuce, washed, sliced lengthwise, then chopped crosswise
1 very small butternut squash, or half a larger one, peeled and cubed and steamed until just soft. Season with butter, sea salt, and garam masala
1 box fresh mint–or a generous handle of sprigs from your mint plant–sliced into chiffonade (roll up the leaves and slice very thinly into strips with your chef’s knife)
1 or 2 navel oranges, supremed (ends cut off, peel sliced off, then sliced carefully halfway between each membrane)
1/2 cup pitted chopped dates
1/2 cup pitted sliced olives (should use fresh, marinated olives for the best flavor)
Optional:
2 red beets, peeled and cubed and steamed until just soft, and seasoned with sea salt and butter
1/2 cup shelled pistachios, roughly chopped
1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese
(These three ingredients I didn’t have on hand, so they weren’t in the salad pictured, but were part of my flavor-profile plan.)
Directions:
Cook the chicken and the squash, separately (and the beets, if using.) Prepare the dressing. Wash and chop all other necessary ingredients.
Mix the mint with the romaine in a large serving bowl. Toss with dressing. Top with chicken and squash. ( I had actually mixed these together briefly, so that the squash was coated with all the nice, spicy chicken sauces.) Top with oranges, dates, olives, a bit of mint for garnish, and the pistachios and goat cheese if using.
Serves 4-6.
