If I ever kids, this will be the first item I want.

Too bad I can't justify spending this much right now for kids I don't even have yet when there is such a good deal going!

http://deals.mamapedia.com/deals/sage-spoonfuls?utm_campaign=3428&utm_medium=email&utm_source=deal_alert_sidedeal_0 

By feeding children homemade, organic, locally grown baby food, parents are not only giving them the most delicious and nutritious food—they are laying a strong foundation for a lifetime of healthy food choices. By spending just 1 hour every 2 weeks, parents could have a freezer stocked with healthy and delicious baby food, made from safe, natural ingredients.

https://www.sagespoonfuls.com/

Coming to terms with holiday baking

You may have noticed that I've been doing a lot of baking lately.  None of which has really been vegan.  Technically speaking, most refined sugar is not vegan because it is refined with animal bones, and of course, anything containing butter, eggs or honey is an animal product.  So what is this new vegan to during her first holiday season with this plant-based lifestyle???

Find balance...

For my favorite Everything Bread Recipe, I struggled for a while over the use of honey.  For the time being, I've decided to use organic, local honey, and to just be ok with that for now.  If I feel differently later as I continue to grow into my new humane plant-based lifestyle, then that's fine too.

For my to-die-for Whole Wheat Morning Glory Muffins, something that I eat for breakfast every day now, I didn't know what to do.  The recipe contains two eggs.  Watching videos of factory chicken farms makes me feel so guilty about this morning pleasure.  So for now, I've decided to buy only organic, cage-free, vegetarian fed eggs.  If I can talk to the farmer and buy them locally, even better.  If I later find an egg substitute to replace this ingredient then great!  Better yet, I'd love to get my own backyard chicken coop.   But for now, I'm choosing to be ok with using my buying power to support only animal products that I want to support.

Butter.  Hmmmm.  It has always been one of my favorite flavors!  For baking, I've been buying organic butter.  For spreading and cooking, I use Earth Balance.  I hope to eventually look for other vegan alternatives for baking too, but its just so scary to start messing with all your tried and true recipes!

Finally, the sugar issue.  This is something I have not even started trying to conquer yet.  You can buy raw natural sugar that is vegan, but I'm not ready to start experimenting with my recipes to see how this effects them, yet.  Someday, in my fantasy world, I'll find the time to not only bake, but to experiment with baking too.  For now, if I can squeeze 30 minutes in here or an hour there, I'm going to stick with what I know and get the job done.  The point is, at least I'm making everything from scratch, which is definitely healthier and kinder to the planet in so many ways.

The biggest lifestyle change with trying to eat a mostly vegan diet, is all the homemade cooking and preparation in advance that needs to be done!  I have found I really need to use my weekends to plan for the week ahead, because there are very limited fast-food or pre-packaged options available to me.  Which really is a good think if you ask me anyway :)

Well, speaking of which, I better get back to my vegan Rustic White Bean & Mushroom dish that I'm bringing to pass at Christmas (to make sure I have a protein too).  See, always have to think ahead!

Documentaries of the Week: Ingredients, King Corn, and Tapped

I had a wonderful weekend of cooking, cleaning, and walking with my dogs.  In the little down time I had left, I found time to watch three great documentaries through Netflix instant streaming.


The first one, Ingredients, came on recommendation from a friend, though it had already been sitting in my instant queue for a while anyway, just waiting to be watched.


This film was very good, though both DH and I felt like we had watched it before.  The story of the Canadian Farmer's Fight with Seed and Pesticide Giant, Monsanto, was very familiar to us.


Regardless of whether it was a repeat for us or not, it was a great reminder of why we should spend the extra money, whenever possible, to buy organic & local food.  It reminded me that not only are the pesticides they spray not something I want traces of in my food, but also the genetically modified foods are scary!  They are less nutritious and could even be harmful to our bodies!  I actually I paused this film about half way through in order to rush off to the farmer's market and load up on some yummy fruits & veggies!

The next documentary, King Corn, was also recommended by the same friend.  I'm glad she mentioned it because I'd seen it in the Netflix "Recommended" section (based on other films I'd viewed and liked), but I was totally judging a movie by its cover!  I thought the image (left) looked like some crappy 70's comic book cover or something, and didn't ever bother to look deeper and see what the film was about.


Turns out, it's about these two friends from CA who move to IA to plant an acre of corn and then follow their product through the commodities chain into our food system.


This was a GREAT film and I highly recommend it for anyone who needs a reminder as to why we should be avoiding processed foods!  Corn is in everything.  You can go to McDonald's and order a corn-fed burger, with fries fried in corn oil, and soda sweetened with corn syrup.  All because the government chooses to subsidize a few select crops over all others.  And the crops they subsidize are genetically modified, and actually cannot be eaten straight from the ground, but rather HAVE to be processed in order to become edible.  Gross!

The final documentary we watched this weekend was called Tapped. DH was getting a little "tapped out" on food films, so we decided to switch things up.  We had heard about this one a couple weeks ago from some tourists who had taken the Milwaukee Photo Tour with us, and while we walking along the Milwaukee River Way, our guide mentioned how ground water works in Milwaukee vs the surrounding suburbs and what an important resource it is.  The other tourist mentioned this film and it stuck in my memory.


This film was enlightening.  It is about the bottled water industry and the damage it is doing to communities, our health, and our environment.  Did you know until the 70's that only Europeans really used bottled water, and then they were glass?  Did you know that your city's municipal tap water is tested multiple times a day...and bottled water companies don't have to test their water at all?  Did you know that in many cases, bottled water companies just draw water from the same ground water sources that municipal tap water comes from, but they take it for free and then sell it back to you at highly marked up prices, sometimes at hundreds if not thousands of times the price it cost them to gather and package it?  All of it being the exact same water you could get out of your own faucet for free, just lest tested for safety and now exposed to harmful chemicals from the cheap plastic bottle it is packaged in?!?!?

I've been carrying around reusable water bottles for about 3 years now.  I started during my second master's degree because everyone else had these unique looking "SIGG" bottles and it seemed like the cool thing to do.  Plus, they often came with caps that can be hooked to your book bag or easily carried by looping one or two fingers through the middle.


It was a large investment at first (around $20 on average per bottle for this brand), but I did the math and it quickly paid for itself in only a few weeks, especially if I were to buy bottles one at a time from vending machines, rather than buying cases in bulk from the store.


I found myself drinking a lot more water at school, on the road, and even in the evenings when I had my own personal bottle with me, that I could refill whenever, wherever.  I also liked that I could express myself by my choice in decorative bottle too.


Over the course of three years, I became so accustomed to carrying free water with me everywhere (that I now get from my refrigerator Brita Filter), that I started collecting water bottles from any source I could find them.  I stopped paying the big bucks for my SIGG bottles and started buying cheaper generic aluminum bottles, then cheap plastic bottles, then collecting free bottles.... all plastic.


While watching tapped, DH and I realized how harmful to our health all the plastic food and beverage containers were!  This prompted me to do a little internet searching and I discovered the following list effects that Bisphenol A (BPA), found in hard plastics, can have on our health:

• breast cancer
• prostate disease and cancer
• diabetes
• obesity
• hyperactivity
• impaired, altered, and compromised immune system and functions
• miscarriage
• impaired female reproductive development
• sperm defects
• lowered sperm count
• chromosome abnormalities
• chromosome sorting errors
• Down’s syndrome
• Turner Syndrome
• Klinefelter Syndrome
• genitalia deformity
• early onset of puberty
• impaired learning and memory
• increased aggression

After watching this film and learning about all of this, DH and I immediately went into the kitchen, gathered up all the plastic storage containers we could find, and put them in a bag to take to goodwill.  Then went out to buy some glass food storage containers.  I'm currently in the process on deciding which cool design SIGG bottle I want to buy again to replace all the plastic ones we're getting rid of!


I strongly recommend that everyone I know watches this film.  And don't be surprised if you wind  up getting a fancy BPA free water bottle from me as your next Christmas gift too :)

Vegetable of the Day: Brussel Sprouts

I woke up super early this morning (about 5:20am) even though it's Saturday. I think my internal clock has been permanently set to the time I get up for work on weekdays now. Oh well, just makes more time to get things done...and then take a nap later on lovely weekend days such as today :)

The stalk of brussel sprouts that I purchased this morning looked similar to this before I picked off all the individual sprouts.

What the whole plant looks like before it is harvested.

Since I was up so early, I decided to head over to the neighborhood farmer's market as soon as they opened, so I could get the best pick of the cheapest produce this time.  I was planning to only buy organic, but some of the the non-organic but still local people had some interesting items that the others didn't have, such as broccoli and today's vegetable of the day... brussel sprouts!

I've never bought fresh brussel sprouts before.  I've bought them frozen once or twice, but DH doesn't like them so we don't make them often.  As a kid, I hated them!  I think most people have bad childhood memories of a mushy, maybe buttery, awful tasting green pile of brussel sprouts on their plate that they were forced to finish before they were allowed to leave the table.  They used to make me gag!  I'm sure it didn't help that the stubborn streak in me made me wait at the table for I'm sure about an hour until they were cold and even more disgusting before I would finally give in and plug my nose while swallowing them as quickly as possible to get it over with so I could get down from the table.

The sprouts I picked on my porch this morning.

As they so often do for many people, my taste buds changed once I became an adult and I was open to trying this scary vegetable again.  To my surprise, they weren't so bad!  I did drench them in butter again... but I could still detect some of their natural flavor coming through and too my surprise I kind of liked it!


When I saw them fresh on the stalk this morning at the farmer's market, I'll admit that I had to ask what they even were.  When they told me "brussel sprouts," I got kind of excited and knew I had to try to find some new recipe and make them from this fresh stalk!

The farmer told me to take it home, pick off each individual sprout, and peel off the outer layer of leaves.  I found a video on you tube about how to prepare them and it suggested cutting off most of the base, and even cutting a little slit up the middle to let the tough stalk cook and get tender.

I plan to split my sprouts between two meals.  Tonight, I'm going to just do a simple oven roast with the following recipe that I found on the food network:

Oven Roasted Brussel Sprouts

1 1/2 lbs Brussels sprouts

3 tbsp olive oil

3/4 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Mix sprouts in a bowl with the olive oil, salt and pepper. Pour them on a sheet pan and roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. Shake the pan occasionally to brown sprouts evenly.  Sprinkle with more kosher salt (I might skip this), and serve immediately.

Later in the week, I plan to use the remaining brussel sprouts and pan-fry them with some pancetta that I also bought at the farmer's market from a local producer this morning.  The vendor makes all his own pancetta and smoked meats right here in Milwaukee, and he gets all his meat from hormone-free, pasture fed animals in Iowa.  This will be my first venture back onto the meat side of things in exactly two weeks.  I feel a little nervous about it as I'm still unsure where my ultimate ethics stand, but at least I do feel a little better knowing where my meat came from.

I'll use half the pancetta for this recipe (see below), and the rest I will serve raw with some cantaloupe that I bought at the farmer's market too.  The farmer told me he picked it yesterday and it should be at it's ultimate ripeness by tomorrow!

Brussel Sprouts with Pancetta

 

Ingredients

• 1 pound fresh Brussels sprouts, trimmed
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 ounces paper-thin slices pancetta, coarsely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 3/4 cup low-salt chicken broth (I'm going to try substituting vegetable broth here)

 

Directions

Partially cook the Brussels sprouts in a large pot of boiling salted water, about 4 minutes. Drain.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add the pancetta and saute until beginning to crisp, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and saute until pale golden, about 2 minutes. Add the Brussels sprouts to the same skillet and saute until heated through and beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Add the broth and simmer until the broth reduces just enough to coat the Brussels sprouts, about 3 minutes. Serve. 

Micronutrients vs. Macronutrients

In the documentary, Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, Joe Cross talks about eating a micronutrient rich diet after completing a reboot period of juicing.

Micronutrients are vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals and often happen to be very low in calories. *Micronutrients are often referred to as “super foods” and include:

• Polyphenols – Found in nuts, and berries, these act as antioxidants and anti-allergenics.
• Carotenoids – Found in carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkin, apricots, and mangoes. These include beta-carotene, lycopene, and lutein and also function as antioxidants.
• Phytoestrogens – Found in soy, seeds, whole wheat and other whole grains, and some fruits and vegetables. These are plant estrogens and may help prevent breast and prostate cancer.

Macronutrients are protein, carbohydrate, and fat all of which contain a lot of calories. Macronutrient foods include all animal-based foods:

• Meat Products (including poultry)
• Dairy Products (milk, yogurt, cheese, etc)
• Eggs
• Fish 

At first glance, it looks like the reboot program is promoting a vegan diet.  Assuming that followers of the diet are not supposed to eat meat, dairy, or eggs would lead one to that conclusion.  However, the program actually promotes a micronutrient-rich diet.  It does not restrict you from eating macronutrients.  The website associated with the documentary does suggest the following guidelines for eating animal proteins after completing a juice reboot: 

 

Think about protein in a new way. When you are not on a Reboot, you should be eating protein. Protein is essential for a healthy immune system, building and maintaining lean body mass, regulating the speed of digestion, and overall energy levels. As Americans, we eat lots and lots of animal proteins like meat, poultry and pork. The typical American plate is 50% animal protein, 25% overcooked vegetable and 25% starch like white potatoes. Health advocates recommend, reshaping our plates for balanced, healthy eating. Recreate your plate by shifting to 50% plant foods like vegetables or some fruit, 25% lean protein and 25% whole grain.

Examples of the Plant Proteins You Should Be Eating:

• Beans & Legumes (lentils, split peas, black beans, garbanzo beans, hummus, kidney beans)

• Nuts & Seeds (walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds)

• Natural Nut Butters (almond, peanut)

• Soy Foods (edamame, tofu, soy milk)

The Animal Proteins You Should Be Eating:

• Organic, cage free Poultry

• Grass Fed lean beef (bison, ostrich, buffalo)

• Organic eggs

• Wild caught fish

As it turns out, the program is not in any way promoting vegetarianism or veganism.  It is actually just encouraging its followers to choose to eat organic, free-range, pasture fed meat and animal products whenever possible.  There are many reasons to do so, some of them nutritional and some of them ethical... both of which I will discuss in future posts.

There are also some controversial aspects to following this type of lifestyle.  Organic foods can be much more expensive than those found in the regular section of your grocery store.  In some areas, it may be difficult to find organic foods, or difficult to find the variety of foods that people need to make a complete healthy diet.

Personally, I think that trying to choose organic and local produce and animal products whenever possible is the best rule of thumb.  There will be times when the option is not available, and that's okay.  There will be times when financial constraints won't allow you to buy everything organic, and you'll have to pick and choose which items to buy organic, and which to buy in the regular section.  That's okay too.  Some foods are better to buy organic whenever possible, and I'll try to do another post sometime soon on the topic.