Healthy Tips for Real Families
In the same vein of my last post-posting what I can instead of waiting till I can do more, I share this video with you. I want to do more on vaccines, more on swine flu, more, more. But, I can’t right now, and I’m okay with that (yeah, right!)
Anyway, I thought this was interesting. Look for more like these to come, too.
I’m here. Typing with one hand while I feed the baby. Which is why I haven’t posted anything sooner.
But the baby’s still going to be one for a while, and if I wait until I have the time to type with two hands like a human, well, it’s going to be a looong time.
So, this is what I can do. I’ve been learning to not be a perfectionist (thanks to Flylady) and to just do what I can, and not wait until things are different…
That’s all for now. Expect more posts like this one.
By the way, when I was little, I used to lay on my back, on the floor with my head under the piano and reach up and over and play Mary Had A Little Lamb. My mom thought that was amazing and would ask me to show that talent off when we had company. Kids do weird things. Mine like to play with broken rubber bands. But I digress.
What can you do today that you haven’t done because you’ve been waiting until the “right time”?
I found this recipe the other day when browsing for something new to make out of beans, and it looked really good. I made it last night, and WOW. It was so delicious, we were amazed. And we are burger people (I mean the kind with meat), so we know of what we speak.
I changed it slightly to suit us, omitting chili paste and adding more oats to thicken them so they would hold their shape better.
We added cilantro mayonnaise, (also delicious), as recommended, as well as the standard lettuce, tomato, red onion, and a slice of melted cheese.
There was one left over, and I snatched it up for lunch today and took this picture. YUM.
Amazing Black Bean Burgers
4 burgers, serves 4
Ingredients
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
2 cups black beans, cooked (or 1 can, drained and rinsed)
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup quick-cooking oats
1/4 cup red onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper
2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
2 tablespoons veg. oil
Directions
1)Heat 1 teaspoon of the oil over medium heat.
2)Add the red onion and garlic to the pan and saute until softened, about 8 minutes and then set aside to cool for a few minutes.
3)Combine beans, egg, oats, onion, mixture, chili paste, salt, pepper and cilantro and thoroughly mix and mash until pretty homogeneous, leaving a few whole beans.
4)Divide mixture into 4 equal portions and shape into patties.
5)Refrigerate patties for half an hour. (This step is not completely necessary but I find it helps hold the burgers together while cooking.).
6)Heat 2 tablespoons oil in large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.
7)Place burgers carefully into the oil, being careful not to crowd the pan.
8)After 5-6 minutes, flip and cook another 5 minutes. They should feel firm to the touch when finished.
Note: To freeze for later use, after shaping flash freeze and then wrap in plastic wrap. Place wrapped burgers into freezer bag and squeeze out excess air. To cook from frozen, simply heat frozen burgers over medium-high heat on the stove-top, cooking until done.
Cilantro Mayonnaise
Ingredients
3/4 cup mayonnaise
3/4 cup loosely packed cilantro leaf
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice (I used lemon)
1 teaspoon light soy sauce
1 garlic clove
Directions
1)Put all ingredients in a blender.
2)Blend until smooth.
3)Store in the refrigerator
ENRICHMENT OF FLOUR
In the 1940s, a flour enrichment program was instituted to compensate for wartime shortages of other foods. However, in the ‘enriched’ flour only the B vitamins – thiamin, riboflavin, and niacin – and the mineral, iron, were added. Flour ‘Enrichment’ implies a loss of nutrients and should not be equated with wholesomeness. For approximately 20 nutrients, there is an average loss of 70-80% in refined and enriched flour. When you eat this, you are placing your body at a disadvantage, casting a burden on the rest of the diet.
Prosser, WA. An old grain mill downtown near Twin City Foods
ADULTERATION OF FLOUR
Flour manufacturers want to make as much money as possible. For example, removing the germ not only prevents flour spoilage, it generates profits when sold to millfeed producers and pharmaceutical companies.
For centuries, bakers have known that ‘good quality’ baked goods could not be made with freshly milled flour, because the dough lacks strength and resilience to trap gas. Until the 20th century it was common practice of storing flour for months to allow oxygen to condition it.
However, as well as storage costs, spoilage and insects caused losses. Chemical oxidizing agents or bleaches were developed to produce the same aging effects in 24-48 hours. They cause one of two effects: oxidation of the gluten to help with rising, and bleaching of the yellowish carotene pigments which could have been sources of vitamin A.
Bleaching agents did not come into use without opposition. Harvey W. Wiley, Chief of the FDA early this century, won a Supreme Court decision outlawing bleaches, but he was forced out of the FDA, and the Supreme Court order was bypassed. The approval of chlorine dioxide as a bleaching agent was also protested by U.S. Army nutrition experts.
Today, in both Canada and the US, the addition of numerous chemicals to white, whole wheat, and rye flours is permitted. These include chlorine, chlorine dioxide, benzoyl peroxide, potassium bromate, ammonium persulfate, ammonium chloride, acetone peroxide, azodicarbonamide, ascorbic acid, l-cysteine, mono-calcium phosphate. Regulations also specify the acceptable levels. In many European countries the use of additives is almost completely prohibited. In Germany, for instance, chemical oxidizing agents were banned in 1958.
Nitrogen bichloride was one of the earliest bleaching agents. After 40 years of use, it was finally found to cause canine hysteria, and was outlawed. The currently most common bleaching agent is benzoyl peroxide. It must be neutralized by adding such substances as: calcium carbonate (chalk!), calcium sulphate, dicalcium phosphate, magnesium carbonate, potassium aluminum sulphate, sodium aluminum sulphate, starch, and tricalcium phosphate.
The most common maturing agent in use is potasssium bromate, and it is added with carriers such as calcium carbonate, dicalcium phosphate, or magnesium carbonate.
In addition to the chemicals permitted to be added to flour, many more are permitted to be added to bread before baking. Chemicals likely to be found in breads include: lecithin, mono- and di- glycerides, carragheenan, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, dicalcium sulfate, ammonium chloride, potassium bromate, calcium bromate, potassium iodate, calcium peroxide, azodicarbonamide, tricalcium phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium propionate, sodium propionate, sodium diacetate, lactic acid, calcium stearoyl-2-lactylate, lactylic stearate, sodium stearyl fumarate, succinylated monoglycerides, ethoxylated mono- and all-glycerides.
In Germany, propionic acid, sodium propionate, calcium propionate, and potassium propionate have been banned as preservatives since March 1988. This was in response to earlier experiments which found that rats fed these substances developed tumors.
In addition to all of this, grains may be irradiated to help prevent spoilage and bugs. This also affects the nutrients, and not in a good way.
Have you read enough? I know I’m tired from typing (or even copying and pasting) all those chemical names. They certainly should have no place in our diets!
So, you say, you don’t eat white bread, so you don’t need to worry about hurting your body by eating all those chemicals? Well….
Stay tuned for part 3, where I tell you what can happen even from “whole wheat” bread and flour.
Most of the information presented in these posts came from Nutritional Characteristics of Organic, Freshly Stone-Ground, Sourdough & Conventional Breads by Judy Campbell, B.Sc., Mechtild Hauser, and Stuart Hill, B.Sc., Ph.D., P.Ag.
I LOVE bread with butter; I think I could eat it all day long. When I became more health conscious, I switched to whole wheat, like most of you probably have. But most people don’t really think about the potential nutritional value of bread which makes up a major part of their diet.
How much bread do you eat? I bet more than you think. We have 5 children. All but the new baby eat sandwiches for lunch almost every day. Add one for me most days, and that’s TEN SLICES OF BREAD each week per person, and that’s just for lunches. On Shabbat we enjoy a sweet Challah loaf (or two), and we eat bread with a dinner meal at least 2 or 3 times a week. That’s a LOT of bread.
Are all whole wheat breads the same? Is the whole wheat flour you buy at the store really better for you than the white flour? Why would anyone be crazy enough to spend the time and effort to grind his own flour? I’m going to answer questions like these and more, and you will likely be very surprised at what you learn. I know I was. (Hint: see the title)
Wheat germ has a very high content of vitamin E. Vitamin E increases the good HDL cholesterol. Animal studies have also shown that vitamin E protects against free radicals released by the body when it is exposed to toxic chemicals.
During the milling process, steel rollers crush the grain, and the flour separated by sifters. The bran and germ are totally removed in this process. They are used in the production of animal feeds and by pharmaceutical laboratories for making diet supplements.
Whole wheat flour is produced by recombining ground bran with endosperm flour, but the germ is usually left out, because it would go rancid.
Yesterday I lost it. More than once.
The newborn wouldn’t wake up and really eat when she was supposed to, so then she dragged on and fussed/wanted to keep eating when I needed to cook to have dinner on time so that we could have bedtime on time the night before the first day of school. Then she fell asleep and never really finished eating, so my boob felt like it was going to explode. But I couldn’t stop and go pump because I had dinner cooking on the stove and a toddler who needed a new diaper very badly. The 5 and 3 year olds who were supposed to be clearing and setting the table were running around chasing each other as the dogs were barking and my husband was recording a video and needed QUIET in the house.
Oh, and this was only ONE of the times I lost it.
But the good news is: Today is the First Day of the Rest Of My Life.
I am a homeschooler at heart, and hope to homeschool in the future, probably starting next year. But for now, for various reasons, we have decided to send the boys to school. And boy, am I glad!
I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m still exhausted, I still have more to do than I know how to fit in. But, its so nice and quiet here! I can think! There’s a calm in the house that I haven’t noticed in a looong time.
Aaahh.
The Poop on Cloth Diapers (part 2)
I used to think that disposable diapers were the only way to go….
In my previous post, I started giving the reasons why we switched to cloth diapers a few years ago. In this post I’ll cover the environmental and money-saving benefits of cloth diapers over disposables, as well as discuss basic cloth diaper care.
Except for very limited uses, we’ll never go back to disposables!
Cost To The Environment
(from an article by the Sustainability Institute; entire article here: https://bit.ly/KIuk2)
…”18 BILLION disposable diapers are used in th US each year. Each one has an outer layer of waterproof polypropylene and an inner layer of fluff made from wood pulp plus super-slurper sodium polyacrylate that can hold a hundred times its weight in water.
Those 18 billion diapers add up to 82,000 tons of plastic a year and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp — 250,000 trees. After a few hours of active service these materials are trucked away, primarily to landfills, where they sit, neatly wrapped packages of excrement, entombed undegraded for several hundred years. “…
Cost To Our Pockets
“Disposable diapers” was absolutely the highest on-going expense we had with our first two babies. Consider this:
Your baby will use about 6500 to 7000 diapers from birth to 30 months.
Most parents seem to spend an average cost of $50-$80/month for Huggies® or Pampers® OUCH!!! That would come to $1500-$2400 over a 30 month period, more if you diaper longer — and there are reports that show cloth diaper babies often potty-train up to a year earlier than those who wear disposables.
Now….I’ve been using Mother-Ease One Size diapers since March of 2006, and (full disclosue) we will soon be offering them for sale here on my blog. The same diapers fit my newborn all the way to my toddler. It only takes 4-6 months to completely recoup our family’s initial costs. After that, we’re essentially diapering for FREE. The laundering costs are minimal in both time and money.
By choosing cloth diapers over disposables, you will save thousands of dollars on each child!
Especially in these difficult economic times, who doesn’t want that? Let’s face it, who doesn’t NEED that?!
Caring for Cloth Diapers
Caring for the diapers is quite simple: just rinse poop into toilet (NOTE: we have a sprayer attached to our toilet that makes this easy; in the US where it’s not as simple to connect this, I think most folks dunk&flush) & place diapers in a covered pail with water and some vinegar (neutralizes odors). When ready to wash, empty the soak water into toilet, do a prewash or rinse cycle, and then a full cycle in hot water with detergent. Dry. That’s it! We wash diapers every night before we go to bed. Our older children (even the toddler who still wears one at nighttime) know how to fold them and put them away. It’s as simple as that!
I love knowing that my babies are touching comfy soft cloth and not toxic chemical-filled plasticky-feeling stuff. I love knowing I’m doing our part to keep disposable diapers out of landfills, and I LOVE the amount of money we have and continue to save!
(There’s a lot more to say regarding using cloth diapers vs disposables — including the benefits of natural fibers, tips for making the care of cloth diapers even easier, and the scientific links of disposable diapers to asthma and male infertility. I will cover these issues in future posts.)
The Poop on Cloth Diapers (part 1)
With a new baby in the house, of course we are changing a lot more diapers — and even with five children under the age of seven, with two in diapers full-time, I’ve been reminded why I love using cloth instead of disposables.
When I was pregnant with my first child, my environmentally-conscious husband approached me to consider using cloth diapers. I didn’t know anyone who used them, and didn’t know that “modern” cloth diapers had been designed. I was too overwhelmed with all that would come with being a first time mom and never looked into it. When my second son was born only 11 months after my first, I was once again too overwhelmed. Not until my third did I dare to enter what I was sure would be a complicated world…only to find that it wasn’t! I wish I’d started using them sooner.
The cloth diapers I use really are simple (ours have built in snaps to accommodate all sizes, so there is no pinning) and don’t take much time at all to rinse and wash. I love that I never need to worry about running out of diapers, like I used to with disposables.
The way I see it, there are 3 main reasons to choose to cloth diapers over disposables:
1. To avoid the toxins (and their negative effects on health) in disposable diapers
2. To reduce environmental waste
3. To save a bunch of money
In doing research for this post, I discovered that the many costs of disposable diapers were more than I realized:
Costs To Our Childrens’ Health
from an article on The Diaper Hyena; entire article here
SODIUM POLYACRYLATE – This is the chemical, added in powder form to the inner pad of a disposable, that makes it super-absorbent. When the powdered form becomes wet, it turns into a gel.
Can absorb up to 100X its weight in water.
Can stick to baby’s genitals, causing allergic reactions.
Reported to cause severe skin irritations, oozing blood from perineum and scrotal tissues, fever, vomiting and staph infections in babies.
When injected into rats it has caused hemorrhage, cardiovascular failure and death.
Banned from tampons in 1985 because of its link to Toxic Shock Syndrome.
Has killed children after ingesting as little as 5 grams of it.
Causes female organ problems, slows healing wounds, fatigue and weight loss to the employees in factories that manufacture it.
DIOXIN – This is the chemical by-product of the paper-bleaching process, using chlorine gas, in the manufacturing of diapers.
Carcinogenic (cancer-causing chemical)
The EPA lists it as the MOST TOXIC of all cancer-linked chemicals.
In small quantities it causes birth defects, skin/liver disease, immune system suppression & genetic damage in lab animals.
Banned in most countries, but not the United States.
If we really care about our babies’ health, isn’t this information alone enough to make natural-fiber cloth diapers the right choice?
(In my next post, I’ll cover the environmental and money-saving benefits of cloth diapers over disposables, as well as discuss basic cloth diaper care.)
What an incredible week! Our baby girl came to join us…
Everything went according to “plan”. She was born the very day we hoped to have her (for a variety of reasons), the beginning of the 38th week of pregnancy, the morning after a restful Shabbat. The birth was at home, and went perfectly. Labor was just a few hours, and the delivery was done in the water. It was all quite amazing.
Now I’m dealing with the exhaustion, the emotions, the new challenges that each unique baby brings. Yes, I’ve done this four times before. But I’ve never done it with this baby.
She’s worth every moment.
I have a confession to make. I have not been following my own advice.
A short while back, I posted about using a schedule for children home during the day to help keep chaos away.
I haven’t been doing it. I’ve been stumbling around, my big belly and discomfort being my “excuse” for not organizing my thoughts, or my time, even a little. It’s not been worth it.
My children are misbehaving. A lot. I’m yelling. A lot. And I’m becoming one of “those” moms who can’t wait for her kids to go back to school. I don’t want this.
So, I think I can at least manage some of those tips, even if I am not doing the full schedule. The following seems to be the things that I can do now:
Separating them into pairs for playing. Group play of more than 2 seems to consistently meltdown into either arguments or wildness that I just can’t handle.
Assigning them activities to do separately. Example: one does a puzzle (he may choose one), one builds with Legos or K’nex, etc.
Not letting them do chores together. They always fight or fool around.
Therefore….reserving group free play for the exception, not the norm. Yes, they have it, a few times a day. Just not all day long.
That’s about all this pregnant mama can muster right now. Soon enough, a little bundle of joy will be everyone’s focus. We’re so excited!