Training Our Bodies To Accept Poison

Recently I was pleased to see the latest copy of Wise Traditions appear in our mailbox. Wise Traditions is the quarterly periodical that is distributed by The Weston A. Price Foundation. At the front of the publication are several letters sent in by readers. One of the letters was from a lady in Canada. In her letter she explained that in the last three years her family has switched over to a diet consisting of whole, unprocessed foods. Prior to making this dietary change, the family ate processed foods on a daily basis with no ill effects. However, since improving their diet three years ago, her family can no longer consume processed foods without having adverse reactions such as nausea, vomiting, flu-like illnesses, and behavioral issues. The letter's author then goes on to explain why she believes that her family is now having these reactions.

This letter got my brain churning and I've been hashing out a post for several days now. Shawn and I have noticed that we now have reactions to processed foods similiar to the author of the letter. We've often wondered why this occurs now when it did not when we were eating the Standard American Diet, so it was interesting to read the letter in Wise Traditions and see her ideas.

Here's our belief as to why we're now sensitive to processed foods:

We believe that processed foods are loaded full of poisons that God never intended for us to consume. We believe that Americans have done a superb job of training their bodies to accept these poisons, even to the point that our bodies now crave the substances that ultimately harm them. Just as an alcoholic can train their body to accept poisonous levels of alcohol, the average American has trained their body to accept poisonous levels of food additives and chemicals. A couple of years ago when our diet was almost 100% processed food, our bodies were so used to accepting poisons on a daily basis that they no longer sent out warnings that we were doing something harmful. Now that we've changed our eating habits and allowed our bodies to heal, they are now capable of sending out distress calls when we put a poison into them. For us, those distress calls include nausea, eczema, fatigue, weakness, and dehydration. I think that when we consume foods that God put on Earth for us to consume, then our body works the way He designed it. Likewise, when we misuse God's creation, our bodies cease to work in the way He intended.

Some may say, "Well, when you break everything down, EVERYTHING is created from something that God created, so how can it be bad?" I agree that everything in existence ultimately came from something God created. However, just because God allows something to exist doesn't mean that He approves of it. Man was able to discover a process to murder unborn children. Everything involved in that process is derived from something that God created. I would argue that abortion is a misuse of God's creation. Likewise, I would argue that the chemicals put in processed food are perversions of God's creation. The easiest example is artificial food coloring. Did you know that artificial food dyes are made from petroleum? Yes, petroleum that God placed deep within the earth. The same stuff that was floating all over the ocean in the Gulf Oil Spill. Would you allow your child to jump into the Gulf of Mexico and swallow up some of that crude oil or drink a spoonful of gasoline? Of course not! Why is it ok for us to give our children petroleum in processed food, but it's not ok to give them a spoonful of gasoline? I cannot come up with a reason as to why gasoline is harmful to drink, but petroleum-based food additives are perfectly safe.

Some others may be saying, "But there have been studies that have shown that these products are safe to use in food, so they must be safe." I would say that just because "they" say that something is safe doesn't mean that it is. Look back at all the pregnant women that took thalidomide to help alleviate their morning sickness. We now know that thalidomide caused those women's babies to be born with serious physical birth defects. That drug was once deemed safe for use and we were shown that that position was wrong, wrong, wrong. Man has been proven wrong time and time again. I believe that God has always been right and will always be right. I am not willing to let my children consume petroleum-based food colorings and thereby allow them to be guinea pigs in the next thalidomide science experiment. We will stick to eating God's food because I trust that God knew what He was doing when He created all.

I want to close by saying that, if any of this makes sense to you and you desire to rid your body of the poisons that man tells you are safe...please don't be discouraged if it takes you a while to achieve it. In today's society, having the desire to make that change is a big deal in and of itself. Baby steps have helped our family achieve so much and I highly recommend the effectiveness of taking those baby steps. It's unfortunate that training our bodies to live without daily poisons is such a difficult process, however I believe that it will be worth it in the end. Just take the baby steps to get there and see how much better you feel once you've rid your body of the man-made poisons that are in it.

Shawn's Favorite Meal

Last night I made Shawn's favorite meal for supper. I figured I'd share it with you all today since it's such a big hit at our house. I enjoy serving this to my family since it employs so many aspects of a healthy, traditional diet: grassfed beef, animal fat, soaked rice, soaked beans, organic vegetables, etc.



Shawn's favorite meal consists of Spanish rice, refried beans, and guacamole with tortilla chips. A disclaimer on the Guacamole recipe though...I don't use a recipe to make the dip. I just throw everything into a bowl, so my measurements on the recipe are just estimates where I "eyeballed" what I seemed to be putting in the bowl.

Spanish Rice

1 cup uncooked brown rice
2 cups warm water
2 Tbsp. acidic medium (whey, yogurt, kefir or buttermilk)
2 Tbsp. lard or tallow
½ cup chopped onion
½ cup chopped green pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound ground beef
1 cup frozen corn
4 medium tomatoes, chopped
2-3/4 cups water
Chili powder, salt, pepper, and cumin to taste
Fresh cilantro, chopped

Place rice, 2 cups warm water, and acidic medium in covered dish and leave in warm place for at least 7 hours.

Later, after soaking time has finished:
In large skillet over medium heat, heat fat until melted and hot. Strain rice from acidic water. Add rice, onion, green pepper, and garlic to hot fat. Saute for 5 minutes or until onions are tender. Add the ground beef and cook until browned.

Add corn, tomatoes, and water. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 50 minutes or until rice is cooked. Season with chili powder, salt, pepper, and cumin to taste. Add freshly chopped cilantro and stir.

Crockpot Refried Beans

3 cups pinto beans
8-1/2 cups water
1 onion, diced
1/2 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. cumin
2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper

The night before, place 3 cups dry pinto beans in a pot. Cover beans with warm water and allow to soak 12-24 hours. After soaking, drain water, rinse, and place in crockpot. Add all other ingredients and cook on high for 8 hours. Drain out most of the water. Mash beans, adding some liquid back in if needed. Can be portioned out and frozen for later use.

Guacamole

4 ripe avocados
1 lemon or lime, juiced
1 tsp. sea salt
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 c. onion, minced
1 Tbsp. cumin
1/3 c. fresh cilantro, minced

Combine avocados, lemon/lime juice, and sea salt. Mash together with potato masher. Add other ingredients and mix well. Refrigerate one hour for flavors to blend.

We add good, pastured, raw cheddar cheese to the crockpot refried beans. We do eat our guacamole with tortilla chips purchased from the store. The best that we are able to find are organic, non-GMO chips that are fried in sunflower, safflower and/or canola oil. I'm not to the point of making my own tortilla chips yet, so this is what we use now!

I hope you enjoy this meal as much as my family does!



This post is proud to be a part of Real Food Wednesday with Kelly the Kitchen Kop
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2010/09/real-food-wednesday-9810.html

A Fermenting Party...What's That?

So, yesterday I had a great time when some friends came over here for a Fermenting Party. What's a Fermenting Party you ask? Well, according to us, it's when a group of crunchy-granola ladies get together to make sauerkraut, ginger carrots, and ginger beer. Foods served during the party included grassfed beef stew, black cherry kombucha, organic blueberries from the garden, and 70% Lindt chocolate. Talk during the Fermentation Party included words like: probiotics, bacteria, and yeast.

You know, when I go back and re-read the above paragraph it sure makes us sound a little nerdy or wierd or something, but that's ok...I had a great time. Oh, and of course I took pictures specifically for this blog post, so that adds to the nerdy factor too I suppose...oh well.

We started off by dragging in all the supplies that they brought along with them. Here Rachel and Amanda are starting to research the process we're about to start.


Here's our huge box of organic cabbage that we all went in together to purchase. A total of 21 heads of cabbage that travelled all the way from Oregon for us to enjoy.


We decided that it was good organic cabbage when we saw this healthy worm feasting on it. Surely, if it were doused in pesticides this little guy wouldn't be around.


Then we got to work processing the cabbage. Amanda worked nearly all day long with an adorable bundle of extra weight strapped to her back. Ava was so content throughout the whole process.


The food processor that Amanda borrowed from her Mom was a HUGE blessing. I can't imagine how long it would've taken us to do all that work by hand.




My job was to be the "sqoosher." This involved me adding sea salt to the cabbage and squeezing it to break down the fibers. At this point, Rachel went insane and decided that a picture of me had to be on the blog. So, here I am, in all my non-photogenic glory in the process of "sqooshing."


The kids enjoyed the party too.


More processing


More sqooshing


After all the hours (yes, hours!) of processing and sqooshing, getting to the point of filling our jars felt like a huge milestone for me. I thought the green cabbage, purple cabbage, and carrots all combined made it turn out real pretty.


When it was all said and done we had a total of 4 gallons of sauerkraut, 4 batches of ginger beer, and some ginger carrots. I'm really looking forward to the ginger beer. It certainly doesn't sound appealing to me, but the ladies assured me it's not really beer...it's more like ginger ale.


Then we had to take care of the clean up, but I'll spare you pictures of that. Take my word for it though, my kitchen wasn't pretty after the Fermenting Party.

Lessons learned for next time:
1) Start earlier! They arrived at my home around 1pm and we didn't finish until after 10pm. Granted, we did visit while we were working and that added to our time, but it also made it much more enjoyable and I wouldn't change that a bit. Next time though, I think I'll invite everyone over and just make a day of it.

2) Only use wide-mouth canning jars. It was harder to tamp down the sauerkraut in the regular-mouth jars. The wider opening allowed us to use our hands to tamp.

3) Bring more lids. We started getting creative at the end with finding methods of covering the jars for travelling home. We foraged for lids and once those were all gone we had to resort to plastic wrap and rubber bands!

We had such a good time that we're already planning another Fermenting Party for the fall. We'd also like to get together to make soap and process apples (assuming Shawn and I manage to keep everything alive until harvest!). Thank you ladies for coming over. I loved it and cannot wait to do it again!

This post has been linked to Real Food Wednesday. To get more information on preparing healthy foods for your family, click here.
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2010/06/real-food-wednesday-6910.html/comment-page-1#comment-69125

My Thoughts...Take Them For What They're Worth

Once again, Rhyah has been an inspiration for a post. She posted a question on Facebook about cavities and the wheels in my simple mind started turning. As I fed the kids lunch I thought on it and decided to just write out my thoughts in a blog post. I hope this comes across ok because right now I'm just trying to put my jumble of thoughts into some sort of logical order.

First, a disclaimer...I have absolutely no training in dentistry or any type of medical field whatsoever. That's why, in the title, I advise readers to take my thoughts for what they're worth. I am just a mother that has done a lot of reading. Based upon the books that I have read, these are the opinions that I believe are accurate.

I believe that today's children suffer from a lot of maladies that children of previous generations did not. When I look back at my own childhood, I cannot name a peer that suffered from autism, ADHD, cancer, or even food allergies. However, when I look around my children's peers it's easy to lose count of the number of children suffering from these afflictions. Some might write that off as me simply being blessed with healthy peers. While that could be the case, I think there's more to it.

I believe that each generation is becoming more and more sick. I believe that those illnesses are exhibited in different forms. For some it might be simply an excessive amount of tooth decay or ADHD and in others it could be seen as cancer or autism. I believe that there is a direct relationship between proper nourishment and the severity of the malady.

I believe that there's a "snowball effect" when it comes to nutrition and health. With each generation the quality of our food becomes poorer and our health suffers. That poor health is passed on to the next generation and then worsened further when that generation continues to make even poorer food choices. So, with each generation, overall health is decreasing at an amazing rate.

I don't know enough about my own family's history to get this next statement accurate. I don't know if it was my grandmother or great grandmother or great-great grandmother that started choosing unhealthy foods. I do know that, at some point in my family's history, God-given whole foods started to be served less frequently and new, man-made processed foods started becoming more the norm. At some point my ancestors were eating food that God put onto this earth: fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, milk straight from the family cow...foods in their natural state without anything added or taken away. Then slowly we evolved into the Standard American Diet of macaroni and cheese, boxed cereals, fast food, and soda.

My children suffer from mild autism and eczema. So through the generations, my family's health has reached a point where my children are afflicted with these maladies. If I were to continue in the same direction, who knows what my daughter's children will suffer from. Will her children, my grandchildren, develop cancer or severe autism? What is the next, more severe, step if this cycle continues? I know how stressed I am in dealing with a child that is mildly autistic. I would do anything to spare my daughter that stress and I cannot even bear to think about her children suffering from a malady even more severe. So, the next question is..What can I do now?

While I can't go back in time and change my eating habits or the eating habits of previous generations, I can make a change now. My children already have the genetics that myself and previous generations have supplied them with. I cannot change that. However, I can try to feed them God-given foods instead of man-made processed foods. I can limit their exposure to environmental toxins. I believe that doing this will help my children now and later in life. I believe that providing my children with healthy foods and teaching them how to eat God's provisions will also benefit my grandchildren and great-granchildren. Instead of adding to the problem and causing further harm to future generations, I am choosing to make a change now and try to reverse the damage that's been done.

Some may read this and say, "So, you're blaming your Mom and Grandma for your sons' autism and eczema?" Yes, I believe their damaged genetics and poor food choices contributed to my sons' autism and eczema. My Father and Grandfather and Great-Grandparents also contributed. Likewise, I believe my own damaged genetics and poor food choices added to the problem. But...do I fault my Mom and Grandma or myself for making those poor choices? No, I do not. Neither Mom, Grandma, nor myself knew what long-term damage we were doing when we sat down with our meals of processed foods. We may have worried that the food would make us fat, but that was the extent of our food worries. Actually, if our son hadn't started exhibiting autistic behaviors, my research on how diet affects behavior may have never started. We would probably still be eating the Standard American Diet.

So, I am asking you to look at your own family. Whether your loved ones suffer from tooth decay, chronic ear infections, ADHD, food sensitivities, eczema, allergies, diabetes, autism, cancer...make a change now so that you can at least TRY to prevent the problem from escalating. The results may not become evident immediately, but I do sincerely believe that a positive change now will benefit future generations. If you are fortunate enough to not see any negative effects to your health while you continue to eat a diet high in processed foods, then I believe that you are just living on borrowed time.

Ok, you may commence with calling me crazy, uninformed, and overly dramatic. That's ok if you think that. Maybe I am wrong. Actually, I hope I am. It would be really nice to believe that my past actions have had no effect on my children's health. Shawn and I are at peace with how our family's diet is improving. We believe in it so much that we sold our home and bought a 30-acre property where we could grow our own fruits and vegetables, raise chickens and cattle, and hunt deer and turkey. Shawn reminds me on occasion, when I feel like others are judging us, that we don't have to justify our actions to anyone. So, even if you don't agree with me, don't worry, you don't have to justify your actions to anyone either. I just feel really strongly about this and wanted to share.

If you're interested in further reading, a great place to go from here would be http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2010/04/real-food-wednesday-4710.html

A WAP Birthday Treat

Yesterday was Sam's 5th birthday and also the first time I had to consider incorporating the Weston A. Price food guidelines into our menu. I did find a wonderful recipe for a Brownie Pudding Cake (you know, the brownie with the gooey fudgy chocolate sauce underneath...yum!) that called for soaking the grains and used real food in the ingredients. The recipe can be found here:

http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2009/06/brownie-pudding-cake-dairy-free-and-soaked.html

The only alteration I made was, in the first six ingredients when it calls for 1/2 cup of non-dairy milk, I just used 1/2 cup plain 'ol raw milk. It turned out wonderfully! I purchased some Breyer's All Natural French Vanilla ice cream and served it with the warm brownie pudding cake. Sam was excited with his birthday treat. Andrew loved it. The messy picture on my previous post is Andrew after devouring the brownie pudding cake.

My dilemma now is that we're supposed to have an informal birthday party for Sam this weekend. I'd like to make him a traditional birthday cake, but I haven't found any recipes for a cake from soaked grains. I'm so new to soaking grains that I don't feel confident in converting my tried-and-true non-soaked recipe. Does anyone know of a good cake recipe using soaked grains? Or can you give me a simple tutorial on how to convert my tried-and-true non-soaked recipe into a healthy soaked recipe?

Here's my non-soaked recipe in case it helps:

2-1/4 cups freshly ground soft white wheat
1 cup raw honey
3/4 cup cocoa
1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs, well whipped
1 cup milk
1/2 cup melted virgin coconut oil
3 tsp. vanilla
1 cup boiling water

Combine all ingredients except boiling water. Beat for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). In greased 9x13 pan, bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes. Frost with your favorite frosting.

Oh, I guess I also need to research frosting recipes that don't include powdered sugar!

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2010/03/real-food-wednesday-3910.html

The Gradual Change

Rhyah's comment in my last post got me to thinking..."How did we get to the point that we're at now?" I know that our changes in eating habits didn't happen overnight and Shawn certainly wasn't turning down Doritos at the beginning of this food conversion. So, I've been trying to think back...

I would have to say that our food conversion officially started on Christmas 2007. From my parents, I received the NutriMill grain mill, hard white wheat, hard red wheat, soft white wheat, Sucanat (to replace brown sugar), Sucanat with Honey (to replace white sugar), and some raw honey. Prior to receiving the grain mill, I would bake cakes, brownies, and waffles from scratch on occasion, but I was using bleached flour and white refined sugar. If I made pancakes it would've been from a box of mix bought from Aldi. I started playing around with my recipes and converting them over. After much trial and error, I eventually found a bread recipe using freshly ground hard white wheat that we all really enjoyed.

Shortly after that, I stopped purchasing artificially flavored pancake syrup and we started only using real maple syrup. Also, around this time (early 2008) I stopped purchasing margarine and switched over to plain ol' butter. At this point we were still eating boxed scalloped potatoes, boxed breakfast cereals, Hamburger Helper, canned beans, canned cream of mushroom/chicken soups, canned chili, Velveeta... There was still a lot of processed foods in our diet, most were bought from Aldi because I was trying to keep our food budget down. Later that year, I stopped purchasing microwave popcorn. Instead, we purchased a big bag of popcorn from Sam's Club and borrowed an old popcorn popper from my mom. The baby steps happened little by little.

We kept this pattern of eating for quite a while. I continued to bake a lot and alter my recipes to use freshly ground flour, Sucanat, and Sucanat with honey. I would make small changes..like making my own spaghetti sauce instead of buying it ready-made in a jar or finding a local source of raw honey instead of purchasing it online from another state.

When Andrew developed eczema around three months of age (around February 2009) I started researching how my diet could be effecting him. I was exclusively nursing at the time. Up until this point, I had never really thought about how the food we ate effected more than just our waistlines. I soaked up every bit of knowledge I could find on food allergies and food sensitivities. I started omitting certain foods from my diet in order to try to give my baby some relief from the itchy rash. First I gave up wheat, then I gave up wheat and dairy. I was willing to do anything to keep my baby from scratching himself until he bled.

So, while I was doing this trial and error change in my diet, the rest of the family kept on eating as normal. One day a friend of mine (Hi Amanda!) witnessed one of Sam's awful meltdowns. She knew that we had issues with Sam exhibiting autistic-like behaviors, one of which was the "meltdown over nothing" behavior that came on a daily basis. She recommended that we look into the Feingold Diet. I did, and when I read about the symptoms that could be helped, I cried. This diet gave me hope that I could help Sam through changing our eating habits.

So, in July 2009 the whole family switched over to the Feingold Diet. The Feingold Diet eliminated all artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, and preservatives from our diet. In the beginning stages, it also eliminated salicylates. The changes we saw were amazing! We saw an immediate improvement in Sam. He no longer would wake up screaming from his naps and he was finally able to be fully potty-trained. The autistic-behaviors did not go away entirely, but they did noticably improve. Drew's eczema, however, went away totally and completely! We were only on the diet for a week before his skin was beautiful and clear. This was my turning point. It was easy for me to see how the food we eat can drastically effect so many aspects of our lives.

I became a woman on a mission. In the week before beginning the Feingold Diet, I was serving the kids Froot Loops and Sunny D Smoothies for breakfast. I'm not exaggerating at all here. I remember serving it to them and being proud that I had gotten the Froot Loops for free with coupons and I actually made money, using coupons, by buying the Sunny D Smoothies. This is when our family's eating went through drastic changes. I had made a lot of food from scratch before, but I did even MORE now. I started trying out recipes for homemade granola instead of purchasing boxed cereals. I started making our own lemonade instead of using the CountryTime drink mix. I stopped using the cream of whatever soups and started making my own. I stopped purchasing cans of chicken broth and made my own. I tried and succeeded in making homemade marshmallows so the kids would fit in at Vacation Bible School. I found organic lollipops online to have on hand for spur-of-the-moment treats. We ate out so much less since there were very few restaurants that offered food without artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, or preservatives. Home-cooked meals that were made from scratch became our new normal.

After being on the Feingold Diet for a month or two, I also decided to remove MSG, corn syrup, and sodium benzoates from our diet. In my mind, it just started to make more sense to eat foods that had been messed with as little as possible. I could see that, when our family ate foods that were closest to God's design, we felt better and were healthier.

Around September 2009 I found a farm two hours away that offered raw milk. We started making the trip there and began purchasing raw milk, farm fresh eggs, and free-range antibiotic/hormone free chickens.

In October we purchased our first grass-fed beef.

In November I started purchasing things with the organic label...organic fruits and vegetables, organic coconut flakes and I made my first purchase of unrefined coconut oil. Up until this point I still considered and regularly used canola oil as a healthy oil. I also purchased some cod liver oil at this time.

In January 2010 I started trying to switch over my recipes from using white/brown refined sugar and instead using only raw honey or real maple syrup as my sweeteners. This is still an ongoing process. I also began researching and experimenting with culturing dairy.

In February 2010 I joined the Weston A. Price Foundation. I succeeded in making my own butter, buttermilk, cream cheese, and whey from the raw milk that we purchase from the farm.

Now we're at March 2010 and my goal for this month is to work at soaking grains before preparing them. I've already made soaked bread, muffins, and oats. Tonight I'll be trying to make soaked tortillas for the first time.

When I look and compare our family's current way of eating to the way we ate prior to December 2007, there's a drastic change. If I had made that change overnight, Shawn would probably be in a fetal position in the corner. However, by making this change gradually (it's been over two years!) it's easier to accept. The biggest issue for us is becoming accustomed to a new normal. I remember when I first started making bread from scratch..Shawn missed WonderBread terribly. Now, when I mention trying out a new bread recipe so I can make bread from soaked grains the first thing Shawn said was, "So, are we not going to be able to have your bread anymore? It's really good bread."

I try to imagine what our new normal will be a year from now.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday over at http://www.cheeseslave.com/2010/03/03/real-food-wednesday-march-3-2010/

Real Food SUCCESSES!!!

Yay! I have successes to report for a change.

Some of you may remember a previous post where my attempt to make cream cheese and whey from our raw milk was a complete failure. Well, I took the advice from one of the comments and pulled the failure back out of the fridge. I combined what should have been my whey and cream cheese into one jar again and let it sit for another day. Wow, what a difference a day made! Apparently I hadn't let the milk separate enough before processing it the first time. Of course, I started processing it this time before I realized...Hey, I ought to take a picture of this!! So, this picture was taken after I had already started pouring off the whey. However, I hope you can still see a big blob of white that has solidified in the center of the jar. That's the cream cheese. The yellowish liquid surrounding it is the whey.



When I first separated the cream cheese from the whey, I thought the whey had a very soured smell to it. However, I recently opened the container to use it for soaking oatmeal and noticed that the soured smell wasn't so bad. So, I don't know if I'm just getting used to it or if the smell becomes more tolerable over time. I am VERY pleased to report that oatmeal soaked using whey doesn't have a soured taste to it. I was pretty worried about that. I now have a new recipe for oats! Yay success!

Also...I recently made my own butter! I've been skimming the cream off the tops of our jars of milk. When I got enough to fill a pint mason jar I decided to process. I used the instructions from Mother Earth News.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/1978-03-01/How-To-Make-Butter.aspx

It took me 20 minutes of vigorous shaking, but this was the end result. (The jar contains the buttermilk that I poured off the butter.)



You might be able to see the consistency of the butter better here.



My butter didn't have that pretty yellow color to it. Unless someone else has any ideas, I'm going to contribute that to it being winter and the cows not having access to much fresh green grass. Anyway, I'll take white butter as opposed to paying $9.25 per pound for pastured yellow butter.

So, things are improving. I have recipes printed out for soaked wheat bread and soaked muffins and soaked tortillas, so those are going to be the next experiments in the kitchen. It's a slow process, but we're getting there!

For more information on Real Food, please check out Real Food Wednesday at
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2010/02/real-food-wednesday-22410.html

A Real Food Failure

My first attempt at making cream cheese and whey from raw cow's milk did not go so well. I'll spell out my journey and maybe someone out there can tell me where I went wrong! I used the recipe from the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.

Everything started fine. Sam and I placed a half gallon jar of raw milk on the counter and started the wait.


After three days of sitting on the counter, the cream is very separate from the milk, but I'm still unsure whether it's ready or not, so I wait another day. The recipe does say "1-4 days" after all, so I continue to wait.


After a full 4 days have passed, I decide to go ahead and attempt processing my cream cheese and whey. I got my large strainer and lined it with a clean and relatively thin dish towel. I tried really hard to only use glass containers to collect the whey, but I didn't have anything that would hold all of it. So, I ended up using a plastic pitcher in the end.


This is what was passing through the strainer.


I removed the strainer and tied the corners of the dishtowel to a wooden utensil and let the dishtowel hang until nothing else was dripping.


This is what I ended up with: a whole lot of liquid and very little cream cheese. The recipe said that I should've ended with about 5 cups of whey and 2 cups of cream cheese.


This picture's not great, but it might give you a better idea of the consistency of my "cream cheese."


I fear that I just ended up letting my milk spoil on the counter and then proceeded in separating the soured milk from the cream. The end result doesn't exactly stink, but it also doesn't smell real tasty either!

Does anyone have an idea on what I did wrong? I'd really like to start soaking oats and making fermented ketchup, but I need whey to do those things.

It's a constant learning process, but I'm stubborn enough to keep on trying!

Also, if you'd like to see posts of real food successes, then I suggest that you visit this site:
http://www.cheeseslave.com/2010/01/20/real-food-wednesday-january-20-2010/

I'm Jealous

I got online today and looked over some of my "regular" blogs. A lot of them have to do with traditional eating. After checking in on those blogs though, I found myself so envious of the writers. You see, several of the bloggers are participating in the Wise Traditions conference this weekend. My understanding is that the Wise Traditions conference is put on by the Weston A. Price foundation http://www.westonaprice.org/ and focuses on healthy eating, traditional foods, alternative methods of treating illness, and other things like this that most people see as odd. I would love to attend that conference! I think it would be so much fun to grab a couple of girlfriends and just take off for a weekend of soaking up Weston A. Price knowledge! They also serve traditional, nourishing meals at the conference.

Here are some of the food blogs I follow. The writers are at the conference and posting about the activities this weekend.

http://nourishedkitchen.com/
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/
http://www.cheeseslave.com/