Sugar Free Summer

When I first heard that Laura at HeavenlyHomemakers.com was doing another one of her wonderful challenges, I thought that I'd probably just observe silently and learn from her experiences and others. However, through a round-about way, I did take up her challenge!

Back in April a combination of issues reminded me again that sugar is really bad for me.


* Sugar causes us to keep or put on excess weight.

* Sugar corrodes the enamel on our teeth and causes/allows cavities to form.

* Sugar inhibits minerals like calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium from being absorbed by our bodies and steals those minerals from healthy cells in order to process it..

* Sugar feeds yeast (which in nursing mommies and babies shows up as thrush).

* A life long sugar habit can lead to diabetes, hypoglycemia, and gallstones (among other things).

* Sugar highs lead to sugar crashes.

* Sugar is addictive (some even say it is drug like in its addiction).

* Sugar (which has been stripped of all of it's nutrients) often takes the place of other nutritious foods.

* Not to mention that all of these problems could potentially pass on to my completely-depending-on-Mama's-breast-milk baby!


I believe that some natural, God given forms of sugar--like honey or unrefined maple syrup--do have redeeming qualities and can be used by people in moderation with good results. But personally, I knew that going from too-much to moderation wouldn't work for me. I needed to call a sugar fast.

So, for the month of June, I am doing what I can to kick the sugar habit. Maybe after this, I will be able to eat some desserts in moderation. We'll see. Now I am avoiding all sodas, cakes, cookies, chocolate, candy, sweets, and sugary foods (some salad dressings, sauces, etc.). I am allowing myself one or two servings of fruit a day and a glass of milk on occasion (we still have a gallon of the good stuff coming to us each week!). I am also trying to avoid white flour, white pasta, bananas, and potatoes. I do have a good serving of brown rice, oatmeal, or whole wheat each day, but I try not to let the starches take over my diet.

On June 1st, I went to Costco and bought big bags of multi colored peppers, sugar snap peas (okay, so they are sweeter than many veggies!), cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, apples, and strawberries. I also went to pick up our first CSA share of the season which included bok choy, mustard greens, and two different kinds of lettuce.

So, at the end of day 4, I have been eating big green salads and handfuls of peppers, tomatoes, and peppers all day long and eating a few strawberries after dinner. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but except for some strong pulls towards the candy basket on the second day (it's really slim pickings, but I was feeling desperate!) I haven't wished for any of the stuff I have been avoiding. In fact, it's early to tell, but I think I have more energy and am clearer headed than usual. I hope the rest of the month goes this well.

I am really happy that this decision is helping our whole family (all three of us : ). My eating healthier is forcing me to be more on top of the planning and cooking of meals than I have been since Clara's birth. We are forced to not rely on fast food for a quick last-minute meal (especially since our recent move has brought us within a mile of both McDonald's AND Wendy's along with about 10 other places!). James has joined me during the meals, of course, and now has veggies to take with him to work to snack on. He even encouraged me to make us a "to go" meal for the hour long drive to church on Wednesday night. It worked pretty well. And I feel so much better about myself being the homemaker I so want to be and am even more productive with my time--all just because I dropped sugar from my diet! Amazing!

So, my tip for those doing an eat more fruits and veggies challenge is to eliminate, avoid, or extremely limit all forms of sugar in your household. Yummy fruits and veggies will step up to fill the gap right away. Many of you are way ahead of me, but I'm excited that this is so doable. Let's hope I still feel this way on June 28th!

Fresh "Moloko"

Kiana's fingers are being "nursed" by a two day old calf, while Isaac and Adam watch.

Knowing the dangers of store-bought milk: hormones, antibiotics, unhealthy diet and lifestyle of cows, homogenization, and pasteurization (killing all of the good enzymes), plus learning many of the the benefits of pure, unadulterated straight-from-the-cow milk (now called "raw milk" although this is a misnomer in that it presumes that milk must be cooked), brought me to a private dairy farm Thursday afternoon where I bought my very own share of a real live cow.

In Alaska (as in many states), it is illegal for an informed, conscientious, peace-abiding citizen to buy raw milk (or more accurately, it's illegal to sell it). It is a controlled substance. It's really ridiculous when I think about it. In Alaska it's also illegal to drive without a seat belt. I personally support this law wholeheartedly, but I've heard people grumble about that risk being their own personal right. However, in James' traffic engineering experience, he recently learned that the state spends 1 million dollars on each traffic fatality. Wow. It seems like they might actually have a bit of a right to say, "You are required to wear your seat belt and cut down your chances of dying in a car wreck by 75%." However, I don't see this with milk at all. If I did get sick because I drank contaminated milk, it probably wouldn't kill me and I would pay any medical bills. However, drinking milk chock full of antibiotics, hormones, damaged fats (through homogenization) and empty of any good qualities (through pasteurization) just might kill me and the state wouldn't even care or lift a finger to help me. I love politics . . .

This pretty lady is "Cadbury." When the fields behind her are green, she will be eating in them, but for now, like all of us, she has to deal with the mud.

Anyway, one of the loopholes currently available to health conscious, whole-foods connoisseurs like myself, is to buy a "share" in the cow itself so that I'm not "buying" someone's milk, I'm only taking the share of milk that my share of cow produces. Several families from church are doing this as well, so we'll be able to take turns picking up milk for each other before church on Wednesday evenings. So now, every Wednesday, I will bring home this sweet, wholer-than-whole milk in my new sun tea jar. After 24 hours in the fridge, a thick layer of cream rises to the top which can be skimmed off for cream (in coffee or tea) or to make whipped cream or butter. Because the milk has not been altered in any way, it can be easily used to make kefir, yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese, soft cheese (like feta or mozzarella), or (with a little more time and effort) hard cheese. The by-products of all of these products (whey and buttermilk primarily) can then be used to soak grains before cooking them, in place of milk in recipes, to feed animals, or to drink yourself. Of course, as you have probably been wondering, since I grew up with store bought milk, I know how to do none of these things. So, I have a lot of learning to do!

Besides Nourishing Traditions, which has a nice section of helpful dairy information, there are many other useful sources out there. Highly recommended (but as of yet unread by me) is The Untold Story of Milk: Green Pastures, Contented Cows, and Raw Dairy Products by Ron Schmid which covers both the reasons behind raw milk drinking and the recipes of how to use the milk. A somewhat older book, The Complete Dairy Food Book: How to make everything from Cheese to Custard in your own Kitchen by Annie Proulx is the one I am currently reading. I don't believe it's in print anymore, but I'm excited that I can buy my own used copy for only a few dollars since I think it will be a useful resource. Proulx's book gives a thorough "milk history" of our nation, then covers milk products one by one showing how to make them as well as how to use them in recipes. Definitely one I won't want to return to the library!

There are many resources on raw milk online as well, of course. Here are just a few that I recommend :

Real Milk Facts

TIME article

A campaign for Real Milk

Another note that makes all of this particularly difficult for our state right now, is that our (still very beloved) Governor Pallin, was forced to close down Matanuska Maid Milk--our only local creamery which took milk from local dairy farms and processed it to make different milk products packaged to go to local stores. Now these poor farmers are forced to pour out the milk that they make into the fields. Thankfully, there is a private creamery that hopes to open soon. From a locavore perspective, not being allowed to eat local, available food and being forced to buy the same food produced and processed in another state, is extremely frustrating. Thankfully, I can have a cow share and maybe soon there will be good cheeses and ice cream from our new local creamery. Let's just hope they keep it organic as they have advertised!

A Daunting List

In my pursuit of New Year's resolution #2, I have slowly begun the snowballing effort of evaluating our food, home, resources, habits, and life. It seems that I can't zone in on one area, eating organic, for example, without several others popping up: green living, local eating, hormone free, grass fed, raw, etc.

Here is a recent list of things that I have learned about and am now trying to muster up an opinion.

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Pesticides are bad for you. Poison for bugs becomes poison for humans when it soaks into the plants we eat.

Hormones in meat and dairy are bad for you. They lead to premature development in girls and have been linked to female cancers.

MSG (called many things including natural flavors) is bad for you. It can cause seizures, brain damage, and eye damage, and has been shown to promote obesity and diabetes in lab rats.

High fructose corn syrup (HSFC) is bad for you. An unnatural sweetener that isn't processed well by the body and leads to obesity.

Aspartame is bad for you. Studies have shown that it is stored in our bodies and turns into a formaldehyde type preservative.

Hydrogenated oils are bad for you. A cheap alternative to butter, they are heated oils that don't meet your bodies' need for fats and just get stored.

Most cooking oils (except for olive, coconut, and cold pressed) are bad for you and all go rancid quickly outside of the refrigerator. Corn oil is used to cause tumors when experimenting on rats and can impair immune function, soy wrecks havoc with the thyroid, and so on.

Homogenized and pasteurized dairy is bad for you. Although if it it is free of growth hormones it is slightly better for you, the homogenization and pasteurization process robs milk of it's natural, healthy properties (sometimes still found in yogurts, etc.). Raw milk is so much better for you.

White flour is bad for you. At least it contains nothing good in it and sometimes has harmful additives.

White sugar is bad for you. When honey and maple syrup are available full of natural minerals, overly processed sugar is an empty alternative.

Aluminum in food (baking power, salt, etc.), cans, deodorant, and cooking tools (pans, foil, etc.) is bad for you. Aluminum has been linked to Alzheimer's and other brain disorders.

Teflon non-stick cook wear is bad for you. Well, it's fine until it's heated. The fumes of the chemical breakdown can cause cancer and organ damage.

Plastics 1 (soft drink bottles, etc.), 3 (cling wrap, peanut butter jars, etc.), 6 (Styrofoam), and some 7s (polycarbonates [BPA]: sports bottles, baby bottles) are bad for you especially when heated up and/or combined with liquids. These chemicals are linked to brain dysfunctions, infertility, miscarriage, cancers, and a whole slew of harmful effects.

Microwaves are bad for you. Recently, scientists have learned that baby formula changes composition when heated by a microwave. What is it doing to the rest of our food and the area in which it operates?

Fluoride is bad for you. Found in drinking water, toothpaste, and at the dentist office, fluoride builds up in the body and harms internal organs and can also harm fertility and pre-natal development.

Parabeans (a preservative in most lotions and soaps) are bad for you. Parabeans from these products have been found in cancerous tumors in the body.

Dibutyl phthalate (DBP, plasticizers, butyl ester, or fragrance) is bad for you. These are plastic additives to toiletries that can leach through the skin.

Benzophenone-3 (found in sunscreen) is bad for you. Another plastic type chemical that has been shown to be excreted in the urine of the users of those sunscreens even five days after the user has stopped wearing the lotion.

Talcum powder is bad for you. It has substances similar to asbestos in it and has been shown to cause cancer. That's a nice after shower treat!

Flame retardant chemicals (in mattresses, pillows, children's pajamas) are bad for you. These are breathed in by sleeping adults and children and can be absorbed through the skin. They also do not flame up, but they can melt onto the skin.

Many synthetic clothes (made with plastics) are bad for you. Similar to those that are flame retardant, they often contain unhealthy chemicals and will still melt onto you.

Paraffin (in candles and wicks) is bad for you. The fumes from paraffin wax candles is similar to the fumes of burnt diesel fuel.

Many cleaning products are dangerous to handle and breathe. Inadvertently combining them could cause death.

~ ~ ~

Phew, I feel a mixture of catharsis to have written all these things down publicly and panic from the somewhat drastic life changes these dangers could merit. Probably there are items on this list that are dramatically more dangerous than others and I know I probably omitted items that are either unknown by me or the public. As I imagine life without these things, I see a fairly bare existance. Kitchen cupboards would be purged of foods, pans, containers, and utensils. Bathroom cupboards would be emptied. The linen and clothes closets might look a little sparse. But it makes me think of a kitchen and home a hundred or even just sixty years ago before all of our "conviniences" robbed us of our health and well being. How I would love to learn how to feed my family whole foods, make my own bread and yogurt, grow and raise basic staples of our diets in our own back yard. But I'll save all that for a later post.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite authors. Reading her work is kind of a guilty pleasure for me as her world view is polar opposite of mine (Poisonwood Bible is even a critical look at a fictional missionary family), but she has total mastery over her craft, an intuitive look at nature, and sympathetic characters that draw me in. Recently I read the two book series about a single woman who adopted a Native American baby abandoned in her car in The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven. So when I saw a recommendation for her book on a conservative Christian blog, I couldn't resist reading what I knew would be delightful prose on a compelling subject. I was not prepared for just how eye opening and potentially life changing her book would be.

For someone who does not believe in God and points to evolution to tell her little daughter how things came into being, Barbara Kingsolver has a deep respect for natural processes, the order of seasons, the symbiosis of birds-insects-plants-minerals in organic growth, and the importance of the family table and nutrition. So even though occasionally, I differed from her opinion 100%, most of the time I found myself learning at the feet of a woman with knowledge and experience that I want to emulate.

This book, co written by Kingsolver's husband, Steven Hopp, and daughter, Camille Kingsolver, covered a year in which their family ate food grown or produced within a 100 mile radius of their home: a small farm in Virginia's Appalachian Mountains. Although, the Kingsolver-Hopp family members were not strangers to growing, preserving, and cooking their own food from scratch, their decision to eat ONLY local foods was a journey of learning that the book chronicles in delightful detail.

Following the seasons of Spring (greens, mushrooms, asparagus), Summer (zucchini, tomatoes, and a plethora of other veggies), Fall (potatoes, pumpkins, garlic, root crops), and Winter (winter squash, root cellar holdings), the family grows, hatches, butchers, cures, pickles, freezes, dries, and preserves all the food they need to comfortably live for a year. They frequent farmers’ markets and local farms for available fruits, meat, and milk that they themselves don’t grow. They learn to make cheese and yogurt. They travel to different parts of the country to observe organic farming elsewhere. They take a trip to Italy to see a country centered on a food culture of growing and producing local olive oil, vegetables, cheese, pasta, and meats.

They give compelling arguments for supporting local agriculture, cooking from scratch, and “voting with our dollars” to avoid processed foods and foods that have traveled across continents to reach us (apples from New Zealand anyone?). They also talk about foods that cannot be reasonably purchased locally (olive oil, spices, coffee, and chocolate) and, instead of giving up and going down to the local grocery store, buying from small farms elsewhere through free market enterprises to support someone else’s local economy (without supporting big foreign businesses who don’t have as much respect for the land or individuals in that place).

This can be done much more reasonably than I expected. The first part of the book, I wished ruefully that it could be done where I lived. However, a little bit of research (specifically on localharvest.org) quickly showed that I can buy fresh local produce through a local farm CSA (for community supported agriculture) which will allow me to “subscribe” to a farm and receive fresh seasonal produce weekly through the growing year. I also have the option of buying into a not so local CSA in Oregon called “Full Circle Farms” which gathers food from small farms locally and farther afield to provide fresh organic produce year round. I also found several local dairies that will allow me to “share” in a cow’s ownership to buy fresh raw milk (which can then become yogurt and cheese). I also found places within 50 miles of me that sell eggs, syrup, beef, and chicken meat. I suddenly remembered the local summer farmer’s markets in Anchorage and Wasilla that I was too busy for. The options are really much more varied that I had ever hoped! I can even start a small window garden in my apartment to grow several salads. The possibilities get more and more exciting.

Although I hope to write more later, I did want to point out that this method of eating and living may not be the most frugal method at first. Buying local produce may cost a little more than buying produce shipped from South America, and buying hormone free, grass fed meat will definitely be costlier, but setting those pennies aside, the gains of making sure that local food producers stay in business (no matter what happens world wide), the local economy stays strong, healthy food is on your table daily, and whole foods are prepared from scratch with the ingredients you choose is really a much healthier alternative over all. This method of eating does not have to be done all or nothing. It could be done by choosing only one or two local items to incorporate, or it may be done to any degree that works for your family. Becoming educated and supporting local food however you can is a big step in itself.

In conclusion, I strongly encourage anyone who is interested in feeding their family naturally to look into this book. It contains a treasure trove of ideas, recipes, resources, and motivation. It comes out in paperback April 29, 2008.

Thank you, God!

*Steps on Soapbox*

Ahem. As a Christian, it has been a grating annoyance over these past few weeks approaching Thanksgiving to see that the attention toward thanksgiving is divided into four categories: A) Food, B) Football, C) Shopping, and D) Thanking all the nice people in our life for what they do for us. Frankly, I'm fed up. All the woman oriented stuff in my life clamors to tell me the VERY best recipe for stuffing, nerdy articles purport the difference between the yam and the sweet potato, and diets offer me tricks to not over do it on the Big Day (of eating, I presume). My husband is not among them, but I've been hearing football talk all week. I don't even get it enough to talk about it. The newspaper, Internet, and mail announces all the big sales starting early Friday morning (I've been reminded to wear good shoes and shop with a friend so we can split up and comparison shop). And lots of nice meaning people in my community have said thank you, in general, to me and others for working in a school district where God is not allowed. Agh!

I wish America could experience another winter of starvation and disease to humble us a little! Okay not really. But Thanksgiving is no longer a day when we humble ourselves before God in appreciation for His salvation and His bountiful blessings and has become a day focused on us again. Sure, enjoy the bounty of Autumn Harvest foods, thank those around you for their tireless service to make your life easier, take advantage of good sales to stay on your Christmas budget, and go ahead and watch a bunch of guys in weird suits running around a muddy field with a squash-sized ball, but let's stop the crazy cycle, slow waaay dooown, and get on our knees to thank the Father for it all, because we don't deserve life let alone the abundance we all have. Then let's live each day with a spirit of thankfulness and humility for all of God's good gifts.

*Steps off Soapbox*

For all our dear friends and family who are still checking up on us through all the fits and starts of this pitiful blog, thank YOU for being such an important part of our lives. You are a blessing from God in a miriad of different ways. Thank you for your love and encouragement.

May God bless you with a special Thanksgiving surrounded by loved ones and the reminders of God's many different blessings.