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Posts Tagged ‘milk’

I am not going to try to pass this off as a recipe that will help you improve your health in any way. But if you are a chocolate chip cookie snob like I am, you know how hard it is to find one that’s made just right. This is one of those cookies, and I just can’t keep the recipe to myself since some of you out there just might want to make an unhealthy cookie once in a while, and since there’s just no other place to get recipes (ha ha)….well, I’m sharing this one.

It started from FannieFarmer’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I altered it slightly to suit me.

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar (sucanat would work fine)
1 egg
3/4 tsp vanilla

1 cup flour (I usually use whole wheat, since that’s what I have)
1/2 cup oats ( I use quick oats; regular rolled would work for a more textured cookie)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

200 g (2 bars here) of semi-sweet chocolate, cut into chunks*

*Note: the original recipe calls for 1 cup semi sweet chips. I LOVE chocolate, and was amazed to find this to be enough (I usually add more than whatever the recipe calls for). I only switched to the bars for the size of the chunks. If this is not important to you, the chips would work fine.

**And, if you’re not into a chunky cookie, you can omit the oatmeal and add 1/8 c flour. A regular chocolate chip cookie with this recipe is delicious.

Oven 375F

1. Mix the butter & sugars together, add egg & vanilla
2. Mix the flour, oats, baking soda & salt together & add to the first mixture
3. Add in the chocolate chunks or chips
4. Chill till firm, then roll into 1 inch balls, placed 2 inches apart on cookie sheet

bake 11 mins or whatever works for you depending on how crispy you like them.

And yes, that’s a glass of (gasp) cow’s milk in the picture. Which I recommend for taste, not for health. And that’s also the only reason to make these cookies.

Enjoy! But only once in a while.

Click here to see my other posts on cow’s milk and its alternatives.

There are many ways to get calcium from foods other than dairy products. In fact, you might already be aware that we are UNABLE to absorb the calcium in cow’s milk; in contrast, our bodies actually PULL CALCIUM OUT OF OUR BONES in order to buffer the acidity of our blood when we drink the stuff. See my post on milk for more info.

• Green leafy vegetables contain calcium. Examples are bok choy, kale, mustard greens, dandelion greens, turnip greens, artichokes and broccoli. Out of these options turnip greens have the highest calcium source with 200mg per cup. Fresh broccoli is our favorite. Unfortunately, I have not developed a taste for it raw, but I’m trying. Lightly steamed is better than not at all. Basically, the darker the green, the better the nutrients. Use Romaine lettuce in your salad instead of Iceberg, please!

• Many beans are also fair sources of calcium.

• Some fruits offering good calcium levels are figs, papaya and raisins

• Sesame seeds in particular are very high in calcium and are so easy to add to a diet. They can be sprinkled over salads, added to casseroles, cereals and more. Tahini, which is a paste made from sesame seeds is very high in calcium with 2 tablespoons offering 130mg of calcium. Tahini is delicious spread on a pita, as an addition to a sandwich or added to falafel or humus. Humus which is made from garbanzo beans (chickpeas) offers 60mg per half cup and makes a wonderful dip.

• Almonds are good calcium alternatives. 1 oz. of almonds provides 80mg of calcium. You can make almond milk from almonds to add to cereal or use in baking.

Daily Recommendations:

The daily recommended intake of calcium varies according to age, but will average between 500mg and 1000mg.(Dietary Reference Intakes, National Academy of Science, 1997)

Are you looking for a milk alternative? If you are wondering why you should be, then please read my post on milk

Well, we try to limit our dairy consumption to occasional cheese or ice cream for a treat, so when it comes time for eating cereal, we have used rice milk for years. I recommend rice milk over soy milk because soy is quite difficult to digest.

Rice Dream costs about $3.50 per 1 liter box, and our family of 6 easily finishes a whole box for one breakfast. In learning to be frugal, I started thinking….maybe I can make my own rice milk. I haven’t really looked into it, because I think it may be complicated (but I still will try to find out at some point), but I realized that I could do what I used to do when I was weaning the boys and wanted to introduce a highly nutritious “milk” for them. I made seed and nut milks!

Raw nuts and seeds are highly nutritious and can be made into butters, and yes MILKS, for babies and adults alike. The most nutritious are almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds.

I prefer Almonds to the others for milk due to their mild taste. Here is how to do it:

1/2 to 3/4 cup raw almonds (depends on how full you want the flavor to be. I used 1/2 c)
3or 4 dates (for a little sweetness)
water

1. Put the almonds and dates(pitted) in your Vitamix or blender. (more on this below)
2.Cover with water not much above the level of the food
3.Blend on high till smooth, adding only as much water as needed to blend. It will be thick.
4. Add water until liquid consistency.
5. Strain through fine mesh strainer, and again through cheesecloth (I used a clean cloth diaper/burprag) DO NOT THROW AWAY ALMOND MUSH! This is nutritious stuff and can be used in your next smoothie or added to pancakes or cookies. Use within a day or freeze for future use.
6. Your milk should be nice and smooth, free of particles. Add as much water as you want to achieve the consistency and flavor you want. I made 1 L of milk from 1/2 c almonds & 3 dates.

Pour on your quick and easy homemade granola or other cereal and enjoy! Also delicious to drink.

Note: this milk will not keep for more than a day or two in the fridge. Use the same day for best taste and nutrition.

About the blender: Work like this is tough on a regular blender. It can be done although it will wear your blender down quickly. For regular smoothie making, nut milk making, creamy soup blending, and other yummy stuff, I highly recommend a Vitamix or similar blender. I use mine every day and love it!

When I was little, I remember my grandparents always telling me to “drink your milk”. And my friends’ parents always said the same thing. Mine were pretty lax about it; I really didn’t like milk unless I filled it with Hershey’s syrup (I remember when it came in a can before they invented the squeeze bottle). I guess they were ahead of their time.

So, back to the milk. Is cow’s milk good for you? These are the questions I encourage you to ask yourself:
1) Who/what kind of animal is cow’s milk designed for? (a cow)
2) Are YOU a cow? (I hope not)
3) Do cows continue to drink milk after they are mature/weaned? (no)
4) Are YOU grown? (notice I didn’t say “mature”…I hope you still like acting like a kid sometimes )
5) Do cows, or ANY animal you can think of, drink milk from another animal, and continue to do so post-weaning? (no, no, NO!))

Each species of mammal creates milk specially designed for that species’ growth needs, at birth and until weaning. Cow’s milk is designed to DOUBLE a calf’s weight in fifty days. I doubt you would enjoy the same affect! It also contains almost three times as much protein as human breast milk. The differences are many more than I will list here.

Besides the differences in the chemistry between human milk and that of cow’s, or any other species, a significant argument for excluding or minimizing cow’s milk in your family’s diet is the fact that it is heat processed (pasteurized). Heat denatures proteins & enzymes; in other words, you are not going to get the “good stuff” from the milk because it’s been “killed”. Also, the typical dairy farm compromises the cow’s lifestyle. They may be fed stale grains, grown in nutritionally depleted soil. Unless they are free to roam, they get no exercise. They often are pumped with hormones to get them to produce more milk, and given antibiotics since they are unhealthy, due to their lifestyle. These chemicals come out in the milk.

Many people are “lactose intolerant”. This is actually a NORMAL condition, because our bodies do not produce the enzyme lactase which is needed to break down lactose after early childhood (because it’s not expected that we would still be breastfeeding) !

“What about calcium?” you ask. While it’s true that milk has lots, it is also so high in protein that your body cannot absorb the calcium it gets at the same time. Not only can’t you get calcium, but the high protein content actually causes your body to REMOVE calcium from your bones to act as a buffer in your blood. That’s right, drinking milk actually causes you to LOSE calcium from your bones. The best place to get calcium is from dark green leafy vegetables. If you are concerned you are not getting enough of those, I highly recommend JuicePlus+ to help you get what you need. Almonds are also a good source of calcium; this fresh almond milk is what we use most of the time instead of cow’s milk.

As far as osteoporosis, there is NO evidence that increased dairy consumption decreases the occurrence of osteoporosis. In fact, the countries with the highest milk intake also have the highest rates of osteoporosis. This probably is because of what’s stated above: your body REMOVES calcium from your bones to deal with the milk you put in. The dairy council has done a number on us! Not that I blame them.

What to drink instead of milk? Well, water is what should be drunk on a regular basis. But as far as milk alternatives, many options exist.

See my post on Making Fresh Almond Milk for milk alternatives.

This made me laugh so much that I had to include it!

Here is a very good article about osteoporosis: http://www.betterbones.com/osteoporosis/top10myths.aspx

And this is a fantastic site with detailed articles on many physical conditions and how they relate to milk consumption: http://www.notmilk.com/