Eggs Benedict Made Easy April 29, 2008

Sunday morning Kate and I got up and I felt like doing something special for breakfast. So I made my favorite: Eggs Benedict.

I hadn’t made it in a while but you know what? It’s really not hard. And what a healthy and delicious breakfast! All those egg yolks and tons of butter. This is a great way to get healthy fats into your family before a long day. Most of us don’t get enough good fats throughout the day so this is a nice way to get a jump start.

Of course, I did not give the English muffin to Kate since she is not eating grains yet. She loved the poached egg and Hollandaise.

Also, I didn’t have any Canadian bacon (or any bacon or sausage for that matter) lying around (it was all in the freezer) so I scrapped that. The Eggs Benedict was still absolutely delicious. (If you do add the bacon, fry it in a little butter or lard while you are poaching the eggs.)

I also used the food processor to make the Hollandaise sauce — so easy!

Here’s how I did it…

Ingredients (this makes enough for two):

2 Ezekiel Sprouted English Muffins (not perfect because they do have sprouted soy… next time I will make this with homemade sourdough bread)
3/4 cup raw butter plus 1-2 TBS
4 pastured eggs plus 3 egg yolks
1 lemon
1 TBS Dijon mustard
Filtered water

Add 2-3 inches of filtered water to large skillet. Cover and bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, put a little water in a saucepan. Turn the heat on high. Take a stainless steel mixing bowl and set it on top of the saucepan. Add 3/4 cup of butter to the bowl. Let it melt and take it off the heat.

In your food processor (or use a wire wisk in a mixing bowl), process 3 egg yolks. Add the juice from one lemon (about 1/8 cup) and 1 TBS Dijon mustard. Continue to process and then slowly add the melted butter in a slow stream. When thoroughly mixed, set aside.

Butter your English muffins and stick them in the toaster oven.

Your water should be boiling by now. Reduce the heat to medium. Crack 4 eggs into the water, making sure not to let them touch each other. Cook for 2-4 minutes, depending on how you like your eggs (2 minutes for runny, 3 for medium, 4 for firm yolks).

Put the toasted English muffins on a plate. Using a slotted spoon, spoon the eggs onto the muffins. Ladle on the Hollandaise sauce. Add sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Daily Photo: Sharing an Apple With Daddy April 29, 2008

WordPress Gaffe: “Possibly” Related Posts April 28, 2008

The key word here is “possibly”.

This morning I noticed something funny on my blog. When I clicked to read the comments on one of my posts, I saw something I had never seen before. It said “Possibly Related Posts” and there were some links to other posts.

Only I didn’t recognize them. These weren’t my posts. They were posts on other people’s WordPress blogs. Only there was nothing distinguishing them as coming from other people’s blogs — so they looked like my posts.

For example, on a post called “The Miracle of Kefir” which is all about how one woman regulated her menstrual cycles by drinking kefir, the following showed up:

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

* Considerations to Take Into Account for Taking Birth Control Pills
* Speaking of Cramps…
* SNL’s “Annuale” commercial

Nothing to do with kefir or health or nutrition. I guess they are vaguely related to my post because they are about birth control pills and menstruation.

Here’s my beef though — there is no indication that these are posts on other people’s blogs. The way it’s designed makes it looks like these are links to other posts on my blog.

What had WordPress done? And why had they done it without telling us?

I googled it and found the answer.

WordPress.com has activated a feature without warning that has many up in arms of protest, making it one of the least welcoming additions to WordPress.com.

Since the beginning of WordPress.com, one of the most requested features has been the ability to showcase related posts from our own blogs. WordPress.com has activated this ability, but the links link to WordPress.com blogs, not our own.

This is bad for many reasons, which I’m sure you’ve already thought of. No control. Implied recommendation or endorsement. Inappropriate links. And a lot of confusion for our readers who believe we choose these links or that they will lead to links on our blog related to what we blog about.Source

If you noticed that this is happening on your WordPress.com blog, it’s easy to turn it off.

To turn off the new related post feature on WordPress.com blogs:

1. Go to the Administration Panels > Design > Extras.
2. Check Hide Related Links.
3. Click Update.

Source

I’m going to go turn it off on mine right now.

PS: To the people at WordPress.com: (A) You should notify your users before you do something like that. An email would have sufficed. (B) From a usability standpoint, it’s a terrible idea. I already hate it that if I click on the tags on the post, I go to a general WordPress page with tags. That makes no sense.

Here’s an idea — why not poll your users and see what they want? And why not create some better tools to help us discover blogs we want to read — instead of randomly driving us off to unrelated blogs that we would never want to go to?

As soon as I get a few minutes, I’m going to move my blog over to a WordPress.org blog. I’ve been meaning to do it anyhow.

Daily Photo: Picnic Lunch April 27, 2008

Kate and I ate strawberries and sausage and leftover shepherd’s pie on the lawn at LA’s annual Festival of Books, the largest literary event in the country. I got Kate a few books, including the Spanish version of “Goodnight Moon” — “Buenos Noches, Luna”.

This is something I plan to do with the kids every year. I just hope it’s not this hot next year! It was so hot today that all the coconut oil in the house melted. The sun’s going down now, but it’s still so hot I had to put an ice cube in my glass of sauvignon blanc.

Despite the heat, day one of the GAPS diet went well. I gave Seth ginger tea and fresh carrot/celery/strawberry/cilantro juice and beet kvass and lots of broth.

I made pulled pork for dinner — it’s almost done cooking. It’s technically legal, but it’s a little too sweet, I think for the GAPS protocol. Although I did not use any sugar in the BBQ sauce — just honey. The ketchup is fruit-juice sweetened. Of course I won’t be serving it on buns or bread. I’ll just put it on a plate with a heap of lacto-fermented sauerkraut — and a side of chicken broth.

Scallops, Spaghetti Squash, and Starting GAPS April 26, 2008

I’m relaxing in our “outdoor living room” in the backyard with a glass of Viognier. Seth is putting the baby down. It was hot today, but now it’s pleasantly cool. I can smell someone barbecuing in the distance.

Tonight’s dinner will be easy. I got a dozen fresh scallops at the farmer’s market today. So fresh, they are still alive! They gave them to me in bags of salt water.

I’ll probably braise them in a little butter. Then we will have some kielbasa and sauerkraut, some spaghetti squash with butter, and a green salad with sliced apple.

Tomorrow night I will make pulled pork. I’ve never made it before but Rocky Canyon had a nice pork butt at the market today. I think I’ll soak it in brine overnight, then slow cook it in the crock pot all day.

Seth had his phone consultation with Dr. Cowan on Thursday (which also happened to be his birthday — Seth’s, not Dr. Cowan’s).

Dr. Cowan recommended the GAPS diet. I knew he was going to say that, but the biggest reason we did the consultation was to convince Seth. He needed to hear it from someone other than me. Better yet, a doctor. I’ve been trying to get him to do the GAPS diet for months. Of course, he just thought it was some wacky think I read on the internet.

The good news is, he’s willing to do it now.

Let me back up — the GAPS Diet was formulated by neurologist and nutritionist, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. GAPS stands for “Gut and Psychology Syndrome”. The idea is that most of the psychological disorders we have are due to digestive disorders. Click here for an overview of the book.

I’m excited because Seth has suffered from anxiety and depression for years. He has also had digestive problems since he was a kid. He said he can remember being constipated when he was a small child, and said the depression started when he was 17. And I have noticed that his anxiety/depression is always worse when he has intestinal pain. Whenever he gets really cranky or anxious, he always says his guts hurt.

Dr. Cowan mentioned a book called “The Second Brain”. Here’s an excerpt from an interview with the author that may shed some light on this for you:

Ever get a gut feeling about someone, or I anxious butterflies in your stomach? That’s because you have a second brain in your bowel, according to Michael Gershon, M.D., author of The Second Brain (HarperCollins, 1999), and a neurobiologist at New York’s Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Gershon recently explained to Psychology Today how an independent network of over 100 billion neurons in the gut not only signals our bodies to stress but causes illness.

Q Why do we need a second brain?

A Most importantly, to control digestion. It also works with the immune system to protect us from hostile bacteria.

Q Does it use neurotransmitters?

A Actually, 95% of all serotonin in the body is in the gut, where it triggers digestion. Nerve cells in the gut also use serotonin to signal back to the brain. This information can train us not to eat certain foods by communicating pain, gas and other terrible feelings.

Q Does the brain in our heads influence the “second brain”?

A Yes. Butterflies in the stomach arise when the brain sends a message of anxiety to the gut, which sends messages back to the brain that it’s unhappy. But the gut can also work in isolation.

Q How does this brain influence irritable bowel syndrome (lBS), which many believe is a psychological problem?

A Irritable bowel syndrome, whose symptoms include abdominal pain accompanied by loose stool, affects 20% of Americans. But doctors often dismiss its severity, attributing IBS to psychoneurosis because they don’t know exactly what it is. I propose that the second brain is the cause. Antidepressants like SSRIs, when used in doses too low to treat depression, are effective immediately in IBS patients. Prozac takes weeks to kick in. This suggests that the drugs work not on the brains of people with IBS, but in the bowel. Source

Anyway… the idea is if you heal the digestive tract, you will alleviate mental/emotional disorders. Dr. Campbell McBride has had much success with this program in her practice in England where she has been reversing autism, ADD, etc. in children.

So here’s the plan:

He has to drink about a quart of bone broth a day, plus 4-8 ounces freshly juiced fruits and vegetables 3-5 times a day. I’m going to give it to him mixed with beet kvass at least twice a day.

In addition to that, he can have meats, fish, non-starchy vegetables, and fruit. No grains. No dairy. He also has to take cod liver oil and a couple of other supplements (including Dr. Campbell-McBride’s probiotic, BioKult, plus plenty of fermented foods (sauerkraut, homemade pickles, kefir soda pop, etc.).

After anywhere from a few days to a few weeks (depending on how it goes), we will start to introduce dairy foods — one at a time. Starting with ghee (clarified butter), then kefir, yogurt, etc. Not sure about the exact order — I have the list Dr. Cowan sent in my purse.

In a matter of weeks or months, we can start to introduce soaked beans, soaked grains, etc. Ultimately, Dr. Cowan says, Seth should eat a “Nourishing Traditions” diet.

Dr. Cowan says he thinks Seth can heal in a couple of months. But he said the longer he stays on the diet, the better, and that it can take up to two years.

I’m going to have to have a stock pot of broth going all the time. And I’m going to have to be juicing all the damn time too. And for any of you out there who have juiced, it is messy. You have to clean that thing every time you make juice.

But it’s okay. I’m just grateful he’s finally doing this. I just know this is going to help him!

So I guess we’re starting tomorrow…

Daily Photo: New Clotheslines April 25, 2008

I finally got some clotheslines rigged up in the backyard. I found some rope at the local hardware store — I just tied it to some trees. Nothing fancy — but it works. They had clothespins at the store, too.

These are Kate’s cloth diapers and cloth wipes. The sun really does bleach out the stains.

Seedlings! April 23, 2008

I have more seedlings!

Here are the plants that are sprouting so far:

Chamomile
Basil
Cherokee Tomatoes
Roma Tomatoes
Calendula

Wheee! This is so fun!

Making Masa and Agave Margaritas April 23, 2008

I grew up on Tex-Mex and I love it. Now Seth loves it too. Which would be great… EXCEPT…

I still don’t have a source for decent tortillas and tortilla chips.

Those sprouted grain tortillas are an okay choice (except they do have sprouted soybeans which is NOT good). But they don’t taste that good.

What I really want is a good-tasting, organic, non-GMO, properly soaked corn tortilla. Is that too much to ask for?

Last night we broke down and cheated. Seth really wanted nachos (and, having grown up in Texas, nachos is my favorite meal). So I picked up a bag of organic tortilla chips. Of course they were made with canola oil. So it was, as Sally Fallon says, “a compromise meal”. I have yet to see a nacho chip that was not fried in either canola oil or corn oil or soybean oil. All bad! (And guess what? I am constipated today! I’m never constipated!)

I also made us the most delicious sugar-free margaritas made with agave nectar. Here’s the recipe:

Patron or other good-quality tequila - 3 ounces
Juice of 2 limes
Agave nectar - about 1-1.5 ounces (to taste)

Combine the above in a shaker with ice. Shake and pour into glasses with ice.

After you’ve had this margarita, you will never go back to sugar!

Anyway, back to my search for tortillas. Unfortunately, the good looking tortillas I’ve seen at the store are not organic. I have never seen an organic one. And it’s really important to get organic when eating corn — since most non-organic corn is genetically modified.

Likewise, I’ve never seen organic masa harina for sale.

Masa harina is the flour that is made from corn. You take the corn, dry it, then soak it in water with cal, which is slaked lime. It needs to be soaked at least overnight.

Yensi said in Guatemala they used to soak it for 1-2 weeks. Sadly, she spoke to her grandmother and she said they are not soaking it at all anymore — they just cook it.

I did find some organic masa harina online the other day. But I called the company to find out how long they soaked the corn in the lime water. They said they didn’t soak it — they just cooked it for 40 minutes.

So I guess I won’t be buying any masa harina. I have to make it myself.

But I’ve been doing some research online and you know what, it doesn’t look that hard. All you have to do is soak it and cook it and grind it.

Here is one recipe for masa. On that same site, they sell the cal (slaked lime), the grinder, and the dried corn (they even have one organic variety).

Here’s another recipe for masa. Here’s another source for organic corn — you need to use “dent corn” or “field corn” to make masa.

In Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon says it’s best to grind your own corn, since all flours go rancid quickly. But you can also just soak corn meal with the slaked lime — for about 7 hours. She says you can also use pickling lime.

Mmm — now I will be able to make polenta and corn bread, too! And tamales!

I’m going to order the dried corn, the grinder and the cal today. This may very well be Little Miss Kate’s first grain.

Low Milk Supply Related to Iodine Deficiency? April 22, 2008

Ever since I discovered that I was hypothyroid and iodine deficient, I’ve been digging around on the internet, trying to find a connection between an underactive thyroid gland and iodine deficiency and low milk supply.

I did my best to breast feed Baby Kate but it was not easy. I had to start supplementing at just 4 months. Thank goodness I found the Weston A. Price Foundation and the homemade raw milk formula.

Nonetheless, It was so disheartening to me. I felt like such a failure.

Everyone gave me advice. “Just nurse more. Stay in bed with the baby for 3 days.” Or “Drink more fluids.” I did everything they said to do and more. I even took fenugreek drops and drank the tea.

Nothing worked. My supply dwindled. Nonetheless, I kept nursing and pumping until she was 9 months old. Most people say that’s a pretty good run.

Nobody ever suggested that there could be a physiological reason that I could not produce enough milk. In fact, some women got angry when I asked that question. They said that it was purely cultural. They said that it was my fault for giving my baby a pacifier or a bottle or because I was not nursing often enough.

But I couldn’t help but wonder. Could there be a physiological link? Why was my milk supply so low? Why did I have to pump or nurse frantically every 3-4 hours just to maintain the limited milk production I had?

Meanwhile, Yensi, our nanny, nurses her 16-month-old anywhere from 2-6 times a day. “Some days it’s twice a day, sometimes it’s six times a day.” Depending on whether she’s with Julianna or not. Yensi did not have to lie in bed with her baby to continue to produce milk. She went back to work when Julianna was six months old.

How can she do that? I always thought you had to keep pumping and keep nursing. I’ve even heard mothers say that if you don’t keep nursing all through the night you will lose your supply.

Meanwhile all Yensi has to do is eat a piece of sprouted toast and she feels her milk come in. Whether she nurses a lot or a little, she still has milk. It is not stressful for her — it’s just easy and natural.

Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?!

Yes, I know that some women have a better milk supply. But isn’t it possible that there’s something more to this? Could it be that there is something we are lacking in our diet that reduces our milk supply? Could it be a nutritional deficiency?

I started researching it but came up empty. No doctors were making the connection between thyroid disease or iodine deficiency and low milk supply. Nor were lactation specialists talking about it. They were all talking about the dangers of pacifiers and telling the mothers to stay in bed with the baby. Not really an option if you have to go back to work!

Then I found this website — it’s for a class on Lactation Biology taught by Professor Walter L. Hurley in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana.

It says the class provides “fundamental information about the biology of lactation in mammals.”

Get ready for this: “Thyroid hormones are essential for maximal secretion of milk.”

Hmm… thryoid hormones. The thyroid gland produces thyroid hormones. So you need a strong thyroid gland that produces lots of hormones if you want to produce a lot of milk.

Let me back up and explain how the thyroid gland works and why iodine is so important. Iodine is stored in the thyroid gland.

According to Wikipedia:

The thyroid hormones, thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3), are tyrosine-based hormones produced by the thyroid gland. An important component in the synthesis is iodine.

So you need enough iodine for the thyroid to produce enough hormones. Where else is iodine stored in the body? In the breasts!

Anyone see a connection here?

I read more on the Lactation Biology website:

Thyroidectomy can be achieved by surgical procedures or by irradiating the thyroid by ingesting radioactive iodine which is sequestered into the thyroid and essentially destroys the thyroid function. Thyroidectomy in cattle by either method results in decreased milk yield.

Injection of thyroid hormone into cattle for 7 weeks at 25% above the normal thyroid secretion rate results in increase milk yield by 27%.

Feeding thyroprotein (iodinated casein — milk protein with added iodine) to cows increases milk yield by 10% in early lactation and by 15-20% in late lactation.

I’m going to continue researching this but I have to tell you — I think I am on to something! Finally — a possible answer to why my milk supply was so low.

I’ve decided, based on this information, that I am going to try to go back to breast feeding. I know, Kate’s 12 months now and I could probably just skip it. And it may not work.

But I have two pretty big reasons for wanting to do this:

1.) Immunity. We have not vaccinated her since she was 4 months old (and I regret letting them do that. They gave her 5 shots in one day!). One way to impart immunity to the child is from the inherited immunity of the mother — through the breast milk.

“Through your breast milk, you give your baby immunities to illnesses to which you are immune and also those to which you have been exposed. Nursing also allows your baby to give germs to you so that your immune system can respond and can synthesize antibodies! This means that if your baby has come in contact with something which you have not, (s)he will pass these germs to you at the next nursing; during that feeding, your body will start to manufacture antibodies for that particular germ. By the time the next feeding arrives, your entire immune system will be working to provide immunities for you and your baby. If you are exposed to any bacteria or viruses, your body will be making antibodies against them and these will be in your milk” (La Leche League).

2.) Iodine. I’m concerned about Kate’s iodine stores. If I am iodine deficient, most likely, she is also iodine deficient. Yes, I could supplement her with Lugol’s drops but I would much rather give her iodine through my own breast milk.

Now, as to how hard it will be to restart breast feeding. Some say it can be difficult, but for many mothers, it is totally doable.

I found this website for adoptive mothers who want to breastfeed. It says that most women are able to successfully breastfeed their adopted children. If they can do it, I’m sure I can start again!

First things first though. I need to give my thyroid what it needs — iodine. And I need to support my thyroid and adrenal glands with proper nutrition: glands, vitamin C, amino acids, B complex, etc.

When I correct my hormone imbalance, only then will my milk production increase.

Also, I need to continue to detox these heavy metals out of my body before I start again. I’m going to talk to Dr. Flechas when I have my consultation, see what he thinks, see how long it will take to detox. I’m doing the heavy metal test this week to see what I need to detox– so I should know something by next week.

I’m also going to order the Lact-Aid. This is a wonderful tool that helps you stimulate milk flow while supplementing your baby (with stored breast milk or formula). Of course I will also pump but I think the Lact-Aid will help us tremendously.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to finally be able to finally make sense of this conundrum. Yes, it’s still a theory. Doctors are not aware of this. Nor are lactation consultants. But if this theory works, that’s pretty exciting, don’t you think? And don’t you think the doctors and lactation consultants should be aware of this? Think of how many women could be helped. And how many babies would not need to go on commercial formula.

I will keep you posted…

Yet Another Post About Liver April 21, 2008

Most people give me a funny look when I tell them I feed Baby Kate liver every single day. I guess maybe they think I’m going overboard.

She gets 1/2 tsp of cod liver oil daily. In addition to that, she gets liver at lunch or dinner — or both. Usually chicken liver, sometimes cow’s liver, and sometimes goose or duck liver. I like to hide the cow’s liver in ground beef or bison. The chicken liver I fry in butter — or I make pate out of it. I often give her duck or goose liver pate.

Read this post and you will see why I feed Kate liver every day. It has a chart listing the nutrient content of apples, carrots, red meat and cow’s liver.

Look at the differences between liver and red meat:

Over three times more iron. Twenty-seven times more vitamin C. Over a hundred times more vitamin B-12 and folic acid. And just look at the vitamin A — 40 IU in red meat and 53,400 IU in liver.

You may be asking yourself, “Why does she need all that? Why not just follow the food pyramid. The RDAs don’t require such high amounts of nutrients.”

That may be true but who ever said the RDAs were right? What if the RDAS are way too low?

“Today we have the Required Daily Allowances put forward by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Counsel. The RDAs are the minimum wage of nutrition: you can barely survive on them. The RDA for vitamin C will keep you from getting scurvy, but doesn’t protect you well from the onslaught of environmental toxins.” Source

The RDAs also don’t take into account our mineral-depleted soil (due to monocropping and unsustainable farming practices), meats and dairy from factory farm-raised animals (much less nutritious) and nutrient blockers like phytates in unsoaked grains, nuts, seeds and legumes. Especially the high amounts of soy in our diet (soybean oil used in almost all restaurants and packaged/processed foods, soy which is fed to the animals, soybean oil in almost all commercial infant formulas, etc.).

We need to eat liver — more than ever before.

I know I don’t eat enough liver — so I take dessicated liver tablets (Solgar brand). You can get them at Whole Foods. And of course I take my cod liver oil.

Barbecue and Beer April 20, 2008

Seth is happy tonight. I made barbecued spare ribs. He had a beer go to with it.

It was GOOD!

I used this recipe for the sauce. And this recipe for cooking the ribs. I did it in the oven — it was so easy.

I used maple syrup instead of brown sugar. And I nixed the Worcestershire sauce and steak sauce (both contain high fructose corn syrup).

The spare ribs came from Rocky Canyon. No antibitotics, no hormones. Happy pigs on pasture.

“Would you eat this again?” I asked.

He said, “I’d eat this every night!”

I had to ask. “Are you sure you’re Jewish?”

Daily Photo: Loving the Sippy Cup! April 18, 2008

Okay, these photos are not from today — they are from Sunday (Kate’s birthday). But I had to share…

Kate LOVES her new sippy cup! She has so much fun playing with it, banging it on her tray, biting it, waving it around. She drank two whole cups of kefir the other day after lunch.

It’s the Foogo stainless steel sippy cup made by Thermos. BPA-free.

LOL! These photos make me laugh. She’s covered in goose liver pate.

Whoa — speaking of BPAs — I just read that Canada banned all BPA plastic in baby bottles. Even Wal-Mart is pulling them from the shelves. Read the story.

First Seedlings of Spring April 18, 2008

I was gathering Italian parsley and oregano for my spaghetti sauce tonight, and I was thinking, “There isn’t anything better than this. Being able to just step outside and gather herbs for your dinner.”

Then I realized there is one thing that is better. And that’s the first seedlings of spring.

I was so excited to find these seedlings this afternoon. I actually jumped for joy. They are baby chamomile plants. I love chamomile tea, so I figured I’d grow my own. It’s also great to plant chamomile around the garden, in between other plants.

Amazingly, I only planted these seeds less than a week ago. It was last Sunday — on Kate’s birthday.

Here’s my set up:

I got some stainless steel shelves from the restaurant supply store (I figure I’ll use them in the kitchen or pantry later). I’m using shop lights with fluorescent bulbs and the lamps on the sides are for warmth. And I have everything hooked up to a timer so they get light 14 hours per day.

Those are egg crates. In the ones that are flat, I used cut-up cardboard rolls from toilet paper and paper towels.

I didn’t put plastic wrap over them. I haven’t gotten around to it. Actually — I just can’t figure out how to put plastic wrap on them and still water them. I need to water them every day — and trying to get the plastic wrap off and get them watered seems like a big hassle. Anyone have any ideas?

I planted lots of seeds — including a few different kinds of tomatoes, basil (for sandwiches, pesto, tomato sauce, and lots of other things), nettles, dandelion, jalapeno (for my salsa), bell peppers, a few different kinds of lettuce, hosta and impatiens (for the shade garden), and something called blue shrimp plant. There’s a whole lot more — can’t remember off the top of my head.

This is so much fun. The best thing is — the fun doesn’t have to stop. I can’t keep planing all summer. I think I’m going to order some more seeds.

Heck, I live in Southern California. I can plant all year long.

I’m going to plant a bunch of other stuff directly in the garden this weekend. Watermelons, various kinds of flowers — including sweet pea and lavender. I forget what else.

A is for Autism and Vitamin A April 17, 2008

And Aspberger’s, ADD, and ADHD!

On my morning walk with Kate, I listened to the most fascinating and moving lecture by Dr. Mary Megson, MD. She is a pediatrician who has been working with autistic children and seeing absolutely miraculous results with nutrition.

I was literally moved to tears listening to this woman speak. And totally dumbfounded. The connections she is making, the healing that is happening. It’s nothing short of incredible. In fact, I was so entranced by this lecture that I walked for over an hour! Poor Kate was home late for her morning nap.

She was talking about how vitamin A deficiency plays a role in causing autism. She explains physiologically why the lack of vitamin A and other nutrients causes problems with vision and language. She explains how autistic children see the world, and why they behave the way they do (the stimming, the flapping, the lack of eye contact). She explains what the physiological reasons are for those behaviors. She explains how nutritional deficiencies cause these behaviors — every single one.

There’s lots of scientific talk in it (some of it went over my head) but hang in there because the stories she tells are incredible.

She told one story about an 18-year-old girl who went to get her vaccinations for college. After the vaccinations, suddenly any bright light was very painful to her. Her father had to carry her out of the office. She had to stay in bed in a dark room for 6 months. Her father did tons of research and read about the vitamin A connection. He started giving her cod liver oil and within 3 days, she could tolerate light again. (She’s now doing fine — totally returned to normal.)

She told another story of a man she met who was in his late sixties. He said for the first 30-some-odd years of his life, he was autistic — and for the next thirty or so years he was just dyslexic. She said, “What did you do?” He said, “I ate a lot of fish.”

Fish! Vitamin A!

These stories are especially encouraging to me because these people were not children when they recovered — they were adults.

I can’t do her stories justice. You have to listen.

And yes, it fits with what Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride and Donna Gates are saying about how problems with abnormal gut flora fits with autism — because an inability to absorb nutrients causes deficiency! They both say you have to supplement with cod liver oil, too. And Dr. Megson also says you have to heal the gut with probiotics.

Here is a taste of Dr. Megson — this is an excerpt from her website. (You can download the PDFs here)

Our early experience with treatment with natural cis forms of Vitamin A in Cod Liver Oil (CLO) in these autistic children, followed by stimulation of blocked acetylcholine receptors for neurotransmitters affected with a blockage of G-alpha pathways in the cell, is promising. There are dramatic, immediate improvements in language, vision, attention and social interaction in some of these children, as evidenced by the following case reports.

My earliest evidence came from a ten-year-old boy diagnosed with autism by DSM-IV criteria (20). The patient’s parents suspect he has been reading since age four but his inability to communicate made this unverifiable. Over an eight-year period of regular visits I had never heard him speak. Standardized IQ tests revealed moderate mental retardation. His mother developed night blindness and hypothyroidism in college and had responded well to Vitamin A and thyroid hormone replacement. The patient’s mother’s sister was diagnosed in infancy with gluten enteropathy that had improved on a gluten free diet. She has had lifelong dry eyes and is night blind (treated with amber glasses.)

For these and other reasons I started the boy on cod liver oil (5,000 IU of Vitamin A, given in 2500 IU/b.i.d.) and a gluten free diet. After one week, he began to sit farther from the television and to notice paintings on the walls at home. He had always gone out of his way to follow the sidewalk and driveway to meet the school bus. On Vitamin A, he began to run across the grass directly from the front door to the school bus. After three weeks, he was given a single dose of Urocholine, an alpha muscarinic receptor agonist, to increase bile and pancreatic secretions and indirectly stimulate hippocampal retinoid receptors. It has minimal cardiac effect, is FDA approved, has been used safely in children since the 1970’s for reflux, and does not cross the blood-brain barrier, unlike secretin (21). It stimulates post- synaptic cell membranes via receptors for acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter in the parasympathetic system.

Thirty minutes after administration of the Urocholine, the patient, who was sitting in a chair, swung his feet over the side, pointed to a glass candy jar on my shelf and said, “May I have the red Jolly Rancher® please?” He had read the label on the candy in the clear jar. These were the first words he had spoken in eight years, and the first proof that he could read. We took him outside and he said, “The leaves, the leaves on the trees are green! I see! I see!” When I asked to take his picture he looked at the camera, smiled and waved. When he left the office I said, “See you later.” He asked, “What time?”

In this child’s case, after several weeks of treatment with Vitamin A in CLO 3500 IU/day, the Urocholine acted like a switch. When absorbed, he immediately became socially engaged, made excellent eye contact, hugged his mother tightly and said, “I love you so much,” looking at her face.

At that point we both realized that this child had a blocked pathway. The change in language and social interaction was dramatic and immediate. Yet he reverted to the pre-treatment state of silence when the dose wore off. On lower daily doses of Urocholine (12.5 mg bid) along with the Vitamin A, his language and social interactions have continued to progress, albeit slowly. Source

If you have autism (Anna, I thought of you!), have an autistic child or relative, or know someone who is autistic or has an autistic child, you must download this lecture. It’s $13 to download the mp3 on the Weston A. Price Foundation website. (They have it labeled as Dr. Campbell McBride but that is incorrect. It is Dr. Megson.)

This lecture is truly mind blowing. It made me want to go back to school and become a pediatrician.

PS: April (another A!) is Autism Awareness Month. Please spread the word on your blog if you feel so inclined.

PS2: A is also for Anna. And Ann Marie!

Dandy Blend! April 17, 2008

Many of you may not know this but I LOVE coffee. I mean REALLY LOVE COFFEE. It’s a sickness.

So of course I was very sad to learn that coffee is not good for the adrenal glands. And adrenal gland function is critical for healthy pregnancies, healthy thyroid function, healthy people.

Sigh. So, I’ve successfully cut down my coffee consumption to 1 cup per day. Hoorah! Pretty good, eh? I was doing anywhere from 2-4 cups per day.

But now I think I may have found a way to cut my coffee consumption down to ZERO.

It’s called Dandy Blend. And get this — it’s made from dandelion root! Yes, dandelion — one of the most nutritious weeds you will find. Heck, one of the most nutritious foods you will find.

I’m very curious about this. I just planted a slew of dandelion. To think that I could grow my own coffee!

I was also wondering — how does one live truly sustainably if one has to import coffee from Costa Rica?

Well, one does not have to import coffee from Costa Rica. One can drink Dandy Blend. Or better yet — make one’s one Dandy Blend. (I’ll start with the Dandy Blend — then get around to making my own one day.)

Can you imagine — drinking coffee in the morning that is chock full of minerals and has none of the bad stuff that screws up your adrenal glands? Chicory is another weed that people have used to make a coffee drink. You may have heard of chicory coffee? This is something people have been doing for centuries.

It turns out that the common weeds you find in your back yard and in vacant lots are actually some of the most nutritious foods in the world. I was listening to a speech by Peter Gail, PhD, botanist, weed enthusiast, and owner of Dandy Blend. He named some weeds that have ten times the nutrients of spinach and broccoli (I’ll have to listen again to get the actual names and numbers). He said that three of the plant foods listed on the USDA’s most nutritious are WEEDS.

Dandelion leaves provide vitamins A and C, as well as the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory luteolin. They have more iron and calcium than spinach, and can pretty much be substituted in any cooked spinach dish. Source

There are edible weeds growing all around us — stinging nettle, lamb’s quarters, milkweed, dandelion, pokeweed, purslane, ramps — just to name a few. Instead of spending a lot of money buying expensive organic vegetables, you can just go out in your yard and pick some weeds!

Michael Pollan, in his recent book called “In Defense of Food,” states “Two of the most nutritious plants in the world are weeds — lamb’s quarters and purslane — and some of the healthiest traditional diets, such as the Mediterranean, make frequent use of wild greens.” He goes on to point out that many of the wild greens have “higher levels of various phytochemicals than their domesticated cousins. Why? Because these plants have to defend themselves against pests and disease without any help from us.” Source

According to Dr. Gail, 80% of the weeds in America came from immigrants. They brought these plants and seeds to the new world, for food and medicine. This is fascinating to me. These are the plants we can’t seem to kill. The plants that keep coming back, no matter what we do.

What does that tell you? These plants are hearty and healthy. Harvey Ussery of the Modern Homestead said that the weeds actually come up to heal damaged soil. If they heal the soil, what could they do for us if we ate them? We shouldn’t be killing them — we should be eating them.

I’m so excited about this I can’t even begin to tell you. I’m growing lots of dandelion this season, as well as stinging nettle. Now I want to get some purslane and lamb’s quarters. I can’t wait to incorporate these into my soups and salads and into sausages and meatloaf… think of how much more nutritious the food will be.

I think I’m going to start looking around the neighborhood for weeds. I can do my neighbors a favor and pull their weeds — and bring them back to my garden!

Oh sure, there is the issue of pesticides and herbicides… but Dr. Gail says you can wash 80% of that stuff off — just wash it a few times before you eat it. And don’t eat the roots from plants that have been sprayed. You have to wait three years to eat the roots.

Dr. Gail said that his family lost their father when he was only 9. His mother was beside herself, didn’t know how she would earn a living or feed her family. A friend told her that they could live on lamb’s quarters. And they did! Until she could get a job and earn money to support them. Every morning she’d send the kids out into the yard and they’d harvest what they needed.

Dr. Gail told a lot of other interesting stories. He said that when he was watching the footage of the floods in New Orleans, he thought it was so ironic that these people were waiting for the government to bring them food, and they were standing on food — edible weeds! He also told the story of a concentration camp survivor. Every day when they let him out into the yard, he would bend down and eat some dandelion. Others laughed at him for doing this — but he survived. The nutrition in the weeds helped to supplement the thin gruel he was fed.

Here’s a page with bunch of recipes for edible weeds.

Dr. Gail also has lots of recipes in his cookbooks. You can buy them on his website, along with the Dandy Blend. I’m going to go order the Dandy Blend and the cookbooks today!

If you want to listen to the lecture, you can download the mp3 on the WAPF site. Comment and I’ll direct you to it. It’s $13 to download.

Salmon Frittata for Breakfast April 16, 2008

Turns out Seth and the baby love leftover frittata for breakfast. They are having seconds now.

Yay — I got two meals out of one!

We’ll be making that recipe again. However, next time I will try it with the goat cheese. I think the stronger flavor of the goat cheese will balance the flavor of the salmon a little bit better.

Saved by a Scallion April 15, 2008

I decided to make smoked salmon frittata tonight. Frittata is an Italian quiche. It doesn’t have any crust — so no grains to soak.

I used the recipe from the “Barefoot Contessa” on the Food Network website. I just doubled the butter and instead of using goat cheese (I didn’t have any), I used NT cream cheese (homemade cream cheese — recipe from “Nourishing Traditions”).

It called for 3 scallions, which I knew I had gotten in the CSA box. this week. Not sure if they got thown out or what but they were not in the fridge.

I went out to the garden and lo and behold — the lone scallion I “accidentally” planted a couple of months ago — when I buried my kitchen scraps into the vegetable beds. I just pulled it out of the ground.

The recipe called for three scallions — but I figured we could get away with one.

It came out great!

King Corn on PBS Tonight! April 15, 2008

“For the first time in American history, our generation was at risk of having a shorter lifespan than our parents. And it was because of what we ate.” —Curt Ellis, KING CORN filmmaker

I’m so excited. They are showing “King Corn” on PBS tonight. You do not want to miss this movie!

Check your local listings and set your DVR!

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/kingcorn/

Update on the Olive Oil Challenge April 15, 2008

Last night I put two bottles of Adam’s Ranch olive oil in the fridge. One was “unfiltered” olive oil and one was “filtered”. I do not know what the difference is between filtered and unfiltered — I just thought I’d stick them both in there and see what they would do.

Well, the unfiltered turned solid (just like last time). And the filtered (which I never tested before) did not turn solid at all!

Hmph! So this tells me something. It tells me that this test is not accurate.

Adam’s Ranch olive oil comes from real local olive ranch. They grow their own olives. It has to be real!

So I am going to go talk to them at their booth at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday and see what they say. Maybe they can explain this filtered vs. unfiltered business to me.

I think this comes back the same thing I keep finding with all food — you have to know the source. I mean literally know and trust them.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: I happened to look in the fridge — the filtered Adams Ranch was rock solid. Guess it just took a little longer.

Happy Birthday, Kate! April 13, 2008

Here’s Kate with her “cake”. Shhh — it’s goose liver pate. She LOVED it!

After the cake, Grandpa Ed and Grandma Nancy sang Happy Birthday to her — on the webcam.

That’s her new sippy cup. She’s getting the hang of it. Drinking kefir!