Do you live to eat or eat to live?

Monday, May 20, 2013

It is really that simple, note that I said simple, not easy.
People who live to eat make me sad. As enjoyable as eating can be, there are so many other joys in life that we miss out on if we give food this much power.
I believe that people who live to eat are addicted to food in just the same way that alcoholics are addicted to alcohol, smokers are addicted to cigarettes and many people are addicted to legal or illegal drugs. Sometimes it is not possible to talk to the real person any more but you are talking to the drugs.
I have blogged about the dangers of sugar and wheat before and this is not going to be a repeat. I am not giving advice on how to deal with these addictions, as many people have written about it who are much better educated then I am.
I believe abstinence, together with a good support system and possibly counseling to deal with emotional eating issues are the only solution.
Participation in a healthy living program is voluntary. Everyone has the legal right to eat themselves to death, that's part of living in a democracy. Everyone also has the legal right to feed their kids processed crap and justify it by saying it only happens once a week and watch them get obese, get diabetes, get high blood pressure, get autoimmune diseases. On top of that everyone has the legal right to ignore any responsibility for their own and their family's well-being and simply follow the orders of doctors, dieticians, some TV authority or simply the fashion of the day or the advertisements on the internet.

But nobody can escape the moral responsibility of finding out the truth forever.



ASK QUESTIONS UNTIL YOU FIND ANSWERS THAT MAKE SENSE.



MAKE CHANGES UNTIL YOU FIND SOMETHING THAT WORKS.



DON'T IGNORE THE WARNINGS UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE



NEVER GIVE UP HOPE BECAUSE HELP MAY BE JUST AROUND THE CORNER



"Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free."

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This is what I eat

Sunday, May 19, 2013

When people hear that I eat a low-carb, paleo-type organic diet they sometimes want to know what exactly I eat.
Because this type of eating does not require counting calories or, after the first few weeks, even counting carbs, I don't track my food intake. This makes it harder to quickly explain how I actually eat. So I decided to write this blogpost once to describe what I'm doing.
The basics have not changed much, although I make minor changes over time.
It is also important that I try to eat seasonally, use animal products from humanely raised, pastured animals and try to eat things that are locally produced as much as possible. We raise ducks for eggs, buy raw A2 milk from a local 4-milk-cow dairy operation in a neighboring community and grow some of our own vegetables about 10 months out of the year on a 100x100 feet small town lot. We buy a few staples in bulk over the internet, in particular virgin coconut oil in 5 gallon containers. We also purchase the majority of our groceries at a food co-op near us.
A typical day's menu looks like this:

Breakfast:
- Sometimes just a cup of coffee (or more likely decaf) with about 1/4 cup raw heavy cream
-most days breakfast is a combo of nuts (2 oz), homemade raw plain yogurt (1/2-3/4cup) and 1/2 cup berries (blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, huckleberries, red curants, gooseberries, cranberries etc.) or some other, not too sweet fruit like apples, cherries, rhubarb. For very acidic fruit I use a little Xylitol or Just Like Sugar or Stevia as sweetener. Sometimes we use kefir or goat yogurt or buttermilk instead of homemade yogurt. Nuts are always raw and could be almonds, brazil nuts, macadamia nuts, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts (filberts), rarely cashews (higher in carbs) and sometimes hemp seed or pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds or coconut flakes.
- Sometimes breakfast is eggs (3 duck eggs or 4 chicken eggs/person) and nitrate-free bacon with herbs (fresh, frozen or dried) like basil, thyme, marjoram, dill, chives, parsley, garlic or onions and spices like paprika, turmeric, curry, hot pepper sauce etc.; sometimes instead of bacon I use some cheese and cook the eggs in coconut oil or pasture butter or add some green veggies like broccoli, spinach, kale or other leafy greens
- Sometimes breakfast is low-carb pancakes made with nut flour (ground in food processor), typically almond flour, maybe mixed with coconut flour, eggs and full-fat raw milk or yogurt. We top the pancakes with the same types of fruits we eat with yogurt.

Lunch: Any of the breakfast foods can be used for lunch as well. Any of the dinner foods sometimes become lunch foods.
Sometimes breakfast is more brunch and we have an early dinner or a snack of some nuts, some veggies, a piece of cheese or some beef jerky and then eat. I would say that about 50% of the time breakfast is filling enough to need only either lunch or dinner plus a snack.
If we need to eat out for lack of time our staple is a McDonald's double quarter pounder minus bun or cheese, wrapped in lettuce.

Dinner: The basic ingredients of dinners are one animal protein/fat like beef, lamb, fish, dark meat chicken, eggs, cheese (avoiding anything low-fat) combined with one green vegetable like spinach, mustard greens, kale, collard greens, turnip greens, arugala, bok choy, green beans, asparagus, other lettuces, combined with one different colored vegetable or sea vegetable (but no potatoes or yams because of carb levels) or mushrooms. Kelp noodles or shredded zucchini are our replacement for pasta. The second vegetable replaces the starch.
In summer we are more likely to make salads, in winter more likely stews and soups. Stir-frys happen all year round. Very occasionally I'll have a very small glass of red wine with or after dinner.
We do occasionally like desserts but they are not very sweet by most people's standards. It could be a small piece of very dark chocolate, another piece of fruit, a little nut butter, some raw cheesecake. In summer we make our own ice cream with raw milk, Xylitol and any natural flavors we like.
We drink mostly water, sometimes coffee, decaf or different types of tea, very rarely tiny amounts of juice added to water to flavor it.
The important thing is that because of the high fat content of the food there is no need to restrict calories or portions as appetite is largely self-regulating. Often after days of hard workouts I eat more and temporarily gain a little and the next day (once my body has done the necessary repairs) the weight drops back down.
Eating this way has proven to be very tasty and very satisfying and therefore easy to maintain for life.

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And another call to action - big dairy industry

Saturday, May 18, 2013

I hate to do two of these types of blogs in a row but it came up and it is very important. As Monsanto is massively messing with our food supply the dairy industry is trying to put them to shame:
action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/tel
l_the_fda_to_reject_unlabeled_aspartam
e_in_our_milk/?akid=863.278959.nb1_RE&
rd=1&t=6

This is turning more and more into an all-out war, much more dangerous to us than many other possible wars, all within our borders.
We need to fight while we still can.

Birgit

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Monsanto trying to prevent any State-wide GMO labeling laws for good

Friday, May 17, 2013

If this succeeds then we can forget about every having a healthy food supply anywhere in this country. Please take the time to read and act at whatever level you can. This is a very scary possible development.


www.organicconsumers.org/articles/ar
ticle_27540.cfm


Birgit

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I'be been learning a lot of new stuff

Monday, May 13, 2013

That's why I have not taken the time to write a blog in a while. We changed to a different gym, much better, much bigger and much better equipped, but also much more expensive. The reason was that at the old one the air was very bad because of the indoor pool in the building that is chlorinated too heavily for what I can handle. So now we have a great University gym to use with every piece of equipment one can imagine and I'm having fun playing with the new toys. One piece of equipment I like is a climbing machine that simulates rock climbing for a great full-body workout incl. cardio.
We also joined a track club about a month ago. The first couple of weeks we did mostly basic conditioning exercises but today things got going for real. I learned the basics about long jump and a little bit about high jump. We did some sprinting drills as well. I found out this last week that sprinting indeed uses totally different muscle fibers than long distance running. I was sore for several days after a few short sprint repeats.
Then I was hit hard by a stomach bug of some sort, did not have to throw up, but a lot of cramping. I thought I might have developed IBS and even checked out an IBS- friendly diet called FODMAPS that helped my system get back on track. Today during track practice my muscles still felt sore but I'm back to being able to eat everything on my plan so hope to feel much stronger in a day or two. All this definitely gave me a lot of empathy for people dealing with IBS. Now I don't see paleo or low-carb as a restrictive diet at all in comparison.
Between all of this we had dogs get sick, a ton of gardening to take care of and some hot weather that made it necessary to water the yard every day.
Two nests of ducklings hatched in our yard middle of April and they are now old enough to not fit through the fencing any more, making our lives much less complicated. There are more ducklings hatching some time in the next two weeks. They are so much fun, but a bit of work as well.
In the garden, I added some berry bushes, a thimbleberry bush and two currant bushes, another little step towards feeding our family.
I'm getting into a routine making our own yogurt and sour cream from the 3 gallons of raw milk we are buying every week from a local dairy. I hope to learn how to make some cheeses soon as well.
This post was a catchall since I had not blogged in so long.

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