I'll Take Eggs Over-Easy With That

HT: Letters from Kamp Krusty, the most hilarious blog ever.

For some reason, the links above are not working right. Sorry. I can't get it fixed, and I'm not going to waste any more time trying. If you click on them, just delete the stuff before the second "http". It's worth it.

Early Spring is Here!

It's been a long time since I've had to use one of these. Our "senior" doe (Daisy) had her babies on Saturday. One of them was extremely weak and underweight. Her mother would have nothing to do with her, so we have to bottle feed her.

We were keeping the baby in our kitchen full-time right after she was born. Now she's starting to spend all day in the barn and nights in the laundry room in a laundry basket. This is a picture of her. For some reason in the picture she looks like the goat from outer space. Don't worry, her eyes are actually normal. For goats. Yes, I have a goat in my laundry room.

This is Rose. She's next - due to have babies sometime between this weekend and the middle of next week. She had a difficult delivery last year. We hope she has an easier time this year. It's hard to tell from this picture how big she is, but she is getting huge. Don't tell her I said that.

These are some birch trees we planted between our house and the pond several years ago. Our trees are finally starting to grow to be a nice size. As you can see, the grass is brown and the trees are bare. For now. Six weeks from now, things will look a lot different.

We spent a lot of time outside today because it was so nice. Things have been very muddy so far this year, but it is finally starting to dry out a bit. Although I hear we are supposed to get more rain tomorrow. I did something wild and crazy this afternoon. I planted some peas, lettuce, and spinach. This is a picture of the bed I planted them in. I got this idea from Square Foot Gardening, by Mel Bartholomew. We'll see how they grow. I have never planted this early before.

How I Came to Really Love Real Food: Part Three

At this point, it might be good to talk about sources and how to know who to trust. My husband has been the one who's opinion I really value on all of these matters. So if I'm unsure of something I have read, I go to him. He did a lot of health research back in his 20's, and he has always seemed to have a sixth sense about whether some information was phony or not. And when he was unsure himself, he always referred back to the Bible. For example, artificially engineered fats. Like margarine. Can a man-made food "product" compare to the fats God made - especially butter? If God brought the Israelites to the land of "milk and honey", how can butter be bad? A lot of what I have learned has been a result of my faith in God and my faith in my husband. When I would bring up something new I had learned from the internet, we would talk together to work out whether it made sense or not.

I know not everyone has that same advantage of having a husband like mine, but having someone to talk things through with is very important. It helps to get your ideas out in the open so that someone else can shoot holes in your theories if they're not completely logical. (sidenote: It is also a good humility-building exercise. You talk about your idea, and someone else shoots it down! Fun!)

Another thing to remember when considering your sources is money. Can you trust organizations and companies that have a financial interest in the outcome of the research they fund? Personally, I find that the research results coming from pharmaceutical companies, food companies, the federal government, and even supposedly good community organizations like the American Cancer Society to be suspect. Those without a financial interest in the outcome are the ones most able to make a clear, logical assessment of study results. Unfortunately, those studies are rare, because who can pay for them? Most people have been led to believe that scientific studies are objective assessments of truth. However, as human beings, all scientific studies are biased in some way. Some more than others, but there is always an element of subjectivity in any study you might come across.

Another way to look at it is to think of the creation/evolution debate. People's views on this important topic depend upon their underlying presuppositions. If you don't believe there is a God, obviously any scientific proof for creation will not mean a thing to you. You will believe in evolution because of your presuppositions. It is similar in the world of health. People will mold just about any health-related study into something that matches what they already believe. Take a look at cholesterol for example. There is really not much evidence that keeping your cholesterol levels low means good health. In fact, in some instances higher cholesterol can actually be protective. But since the theory that high cholesterol = heart disease is so entrenched within the medical community, almost any study concerning cholesterol levels either is based on (possibly false) assumptions or it is twisted to fit the theory.

We must think things through for ourselves. Consider whether something is logical or not. Talk with others who have thought about this themselves. The important thing is not that you come out agreeing with everything I think. The important thing is to take responsibility for your own health and the health of your family and not delegate that important duty to people you really don't even know that well. Not that doctors and nurses are ill-intentioned. In fact, I don't really know anyone in the medical profession that doesn't want to help people. But their sources for information are many times biased, and a good percentage of their training is paid for by corporations and government organizations. It is my opinion that we can't always trust the information they give us.

Next time I will talk about two books (other than the Bible) that changed the way I think about food and the way I live.

How I Came to Really Love Real Food: Part Two

It didn't take long for dietary change number two to come into the picture. Faced with issues of infertility, and having the recent ability to access the internet for research purposes, I became aware of the side-effects of antibiotic usage in causing an infinite number of health problems by wiping out the "good" bacteria in our digestive tracts and allowing yeast and fungus to proliferate. This is when I first learned of the work of Doug Kauffman, who many people probably know from his television show "Know the Cause". His main point is that many if not most of the health issues people face today are a result of an imbalance of gut bacteria. The fungus gains an upper hand and begins to wreak havoc on any or all of the body's systems - digestive, circulatory, urinary, reproductive, neurological, etc. What does fungus feed on? Sugars. Once I learned this, I began to realize how dangerous sugar can be for a person. It can precipitate a huge number of physical and even mental/emotional ailments by feeding antibiotic-induced fungus. I knew right away that this was likely an issue for me since I took some serious broad-spectrum antibiotics as a young adult in an effort to get rid of acne.

I went sugar-free based on this new information, and eventually was able to have three great kids. After the first baby, though, I became a sugar-free backslider. I had what I wanted (a baby), so I really got careless with my diet. My downfall was chocolate. My motto was (still is!): any sugar without chocolate in it is a waste of sugar (ain't it the truth).

After several winters with children in the house, the one thing that became really discouraging to me was the numbers of colds and flu that we all experienced. There's almost nothing worse than being constantly sick between October and May. Around February 2005, I just started thinking this should not be normal. Certainly it's not normal.

This is what began my interest in internet health research. It didn't take long for me to discover the work of Dr. Mercola (link in the sidebar) and his internet articles and blog. I found out that there actually existed people with young children who didn't catch every single bug that was going around. Rarely did they ever get sick. And if they did get sick, it was minor. And it seemed the biggest contributing factor to sickness in general was sugar consumption. Well, I sort of knew that already, but things finally began to click for real. I found out all the other awful health effects of sugar, and the first real permanent change was made in our diets. We cut out refined sugar.

In all honesty, after three years of gradual diet changes, cutting out sugar was the most difficult thing we ever did. We started out very strictly, but decided it wasn't too big of a deal to have ice cream occasionally in the summer. We found it more advantageous to be especially strict in the winter, when viruses are at their worst. But the cravings you have when you first cut out sugar are incredibly strong. Especially if you are used to having it every single day. Fortunately, I found that using honey, maple syrup, and Rapadura or Sucanat (natural unrefined sugar) makes things taste just as good as refined sugar.

There were several changes we could have made to begin with on this "good health odyssey". I chose sugar because it seemed to be the greatest hurdle to me. I felt that good health would always be elusive so long as refined sugar was on the menu. There are many other good changes you could start with, but it seemed that once we cut out the sugar, I was able relax a little and enjoy the trip. While cutting out the sugar was a stressful thing for me, the rest has truly been a joy. You might think me crazy to think that, but it's true.

We still struggle from time to time with getting off-track (too much ice cream!). All we need to do is read this list again, and we remember how important it is to cut out white sugar all together. Many people would say that sugar is not that big of a deal, but I have found that for myself anyway, it is difficult to have something with sugar just once or twice a week. Once it gets to be habit, I have to have some every day. Better to avoid it altogether!

If you have ever been on antibiotics of any sort, chances are, cutting out sugar is probably one of the most beneficial (and difficult) things you could ever do.

In part three I will talk about how I determine what sources of health information to trust.

My Chores This Week

As you might imagine, doing farm chores in winter is fun! I made a few illustrations to illustriously illustrate my week of chores. First, here's me taking water to Ruby the WonderCow. Maybe you can guess exactly what it is Ruby and I are standing in. Do you have any idea how hard it is to lift your rubber-booted feet out of this mess?



Here's what happens when you lose your balance in such a situation. See what I mean by "fun"?

Here's me closing the chicken pen. Right under a roof loaded with snow and ice.




And after closing the door. (You knew this was coming)
By the way, that's not hair that I drew on top of my head. It is my Eskimo fuzzy hat with the flaps that come down over my ears. Tres chic. And of course on top of that are the icicles that landed on my head.

p.s. I was just at Merriam-Webster's and saw this definition prominently posted on their main page:

pwnanza

noun

: An event in which an individual or group is pwned excessively or repeatedly

As if it wasn't bad enough we had to add 'pwn' to our vocabulary, now this. What is the world coming to. Good thing I saw this, otherwise I would have remained hopelessly out of touch with the rest of the world. Now I have been enlightnd.

p.p.s. I can't sign off without reporting this great advice for married couples. I read it last night and it's STILL cracking me up.

Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. (Phyllis Diller)

I'll have to remember that.

How I Came to Really Love Real Food: My Food Story (Part One)

It can be helpful sometimes to step back from life and gather your thoughts on various subjects. As you may have noticed, there have been big changes in our family over the last few years in the way we view food, diet, and health. Now I want to write about my "food story", with the hope it might be helpful for someone else thinking of beginning a similar journey.

Thinking back over the years before I became interested in nutrition and health issues in general, I never really considered the impact the foods I ate and the medicines I took had on my physical well-being. I just did what seemed "normal" to me, without much thinking whether or not "normal" was what was best. It is easier to do things that way, so naturally, that was my default mode. Now that I am still only approximately ten years past the "default mode", I certainly do not claim to be an expert on all things dietary. I am learning new things all the time and hope to remain a learner my entire life.

The first time I recall being confronted with a major dietary change came shortly after I got married. My husband was interested in the pies I enjoyed making, but he was not interested in the Crisco I used to make them. Could I make them without the Crisco. Maybe with butter in the crust? I figured any pie crust made with something other than Crisco was doomed to failure. But in an effort to humor him, I gave it a try. To my great surprise, it turned out great! The crust tasted like some kind of fancy French pastry. Go figure. Apparently, cooking with transfats (which is what Crisco is made of) was not necessary to enjoying good food. I still didn't know much about why transfats are dangerous, and I honestly didn't much care. All I knew was my husband wanted to avoid them, and it wasn't all that difficult to do that, so I gladly made the necessary changes. Real butter only, and read the labels on packaged foods - anything with hydrogenated oil of any sort got put back on the shelf. No problem.

Next time I will talk about our second big change - the biggest change of all: going sugar-free.

Pride and Prejudice: Movie Review

Over the last month I watched Masterpiece Theater's three installments of the BBC's 1995 version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. This must be one of the most awesome movies ever made. Ten times better than your favorite movie for sure. If you don't like dialogue or if you have noisy kids, you shouldn't watch this movie. Or, if you do have noisy kids, kick them down the basement stairs and make them play down there while you're watching it. That way you can hear the fantastic dialogue.