Salad Saturday!
May 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Each Saturday I’ll post a free salad recipe from my new salad cookbook. It ha
s over 365 recipes, so you can either buy it now or just hang around here for the next 6 years. LOL!
BLACK & WHITE BEAN SALAD
2 cups Red onions — finely chopped
2 tablespoons Olive or Vegetable Oil
1/3 cup Red Wine Vinegar
1/4 cup Chopped Red Pepper
2 tablespoons Minced Parsley
2 tsp. Garlic — Minced
2 tablespoons Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Pepper
1 cup 15 oz. Great Northern Beans — Rinsed and Drained
1 cup 15 oz, Black Beans — Rinsed and Drained
Sauté onions in oil until crisp-tender in a medium skillet; Remove from heat and cool until warm. Stir in vinegar, red pepper, parsley, garlic, sugar, salt and pepper.
In a serving bowl put the beans, (both types) and pour the onion mixture over them. Mix well and serve.
Makes 8 servings
Salad Saturday!
May 3, 2008 | 2 Comments
Each Saturday I’ll post a free salad recipe from my new salad cookbook. It has over 365 recipes, so you can either buy it now or just hang around here for the next 6 years. LOL!
Berried Avocado Grapefruit Salad
Bibb lettuce
Watercress
2 avocados — seed, peel, slice
2 cups grapefruit sections
1 cup fresh raspberries
Prepared sweet vinegar and oil dressing
Line serving platter or individual salad plates with lettuce and watercress. Arrange avocado, grapefruit and raspberries over and sprinkle with dressing.
Salad Saturday!
April 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Each Saturday I’ll post a free salad recipe from my new salad cookbook. It has over 365 recipes, so you can either buy it now or just hang around here for the next 6 years. LOL!
Bean and Tuna Salad
3 cups Water
2 cans Cannellini beans
1/3 cup Olive oil
3 teaspoons Red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Salt
Fresh pepper to taste
1 medium Red onion
12 ounces Tuna — drained
Directions: Mix together oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Pour over beans and onion in a shallow bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour. Transfer bean mixture to serving platter with slotted spoon. Break tuna into chunks and arrange on bean mixture.
Salad Saturday!
April 12, 2008 | 1 Comment
Each Saturday I’ll post a free salad recipe from my new salad cookbook. It has over 365 recipes, so you can either buy it now or just hang around here for the next 6 years. LOL!
BAJA CHICKEN PASTA SALAD
3/4 pound Chicken Breast
6 ounces Dried Mixed Fruit
1 cup Ring Macaroni or Orzo — Raw
1 cup Jicama — Cubed
2 Green Onions/Tops — Sliced
1/2 cup Mayonnaise Or Salad Dressing
2 tablespoons Sour Cream Or Plain Yogurt
1 teaspoon Red Chiles — Ground
1/4 teaspoon Salt
* The chicken breast should be boneless, skinless and weigh about 3/4 pounds
** You should use 1 6-oz package of diced mixed fruit.
Heat enough salted water to cover the chicken breast (1/4 tsp salt to 1 cup of water) to boiling in a 4 quart Dutch oven. Add the chicken breast. Cover and heat to boiling, reduce the heat and simmer until the chicken is done, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon.
Heat the water to boiling and add the fruit and ring macaroni or orzo gradually so that the water continues to boil. Boil, uncovered, stirring occasionally, just until the ring macaroni is tender, about 6 to 8 minutes or 10 minutes for the orzo, then drain. Rinse with cold water and drain again. Cut the chicken into 1/2-inch pieces and mix with the fruit, macaroni, jicama and onions. Mix the remaining ingredients and toss with the chicken mixture. Cover and refrigerate 2 hours.
Frugal Friday: Natural Product Discount Alerts
April 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Amazon is offering some nice discounts on natural and organic products in April, including:
Save $2 on Neti Pots (and if you don’t know what in the heck a Neti Pot is, find out cause they come in real handy during allergy season. Read about this Neti Pot system.)
$10 off Natural and Organic personal care products
Save $20 on Eco Friendly Cleaning products
Save $10 on Rechargeable batteries (this is nice because rechargeables require a bigger up front investment, but boy I love them! You know how kids go through batteries!)
Save $20 on NatureMade supplements
AND Cute Baby Shoes has a special 50% off coupon code! It is: secretsale
Just go here to shop (before April 12!) and get half off your order. Cute Baby Shoes offer soft soled leather shoes for babies and toddlers - and they are true to their name. 
ONE MORE:
GAIAM is offering $10 - $20 off your order. This one expires April 17th.
You’re welcome. 
Review: Weston A. Price Foundation Membership
April 9, 2008 | 5 Comments
Well. I just spent 45 minutes writing this review, then hit “save and continue editing” and the article disappeared. Of course, I should have hit “save and continue editing” before I had been writing for 45 minutes.
So you had better read this post and appreciate it dadgummit!
I read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
But reading this book changed me a lot. It also made more sense than anything I had ever read before about nutrition.
Dr. Weston A. Price was a Dentist. He started to notice that his patients who were experiencing tooth decay and other dental problems often had chronic debilitating illness. So, in a quest to find out the secret to health, he set out to travel the world.
Dr. Price traversed the globe - he studied isolated peoples from the Swiss to the Gaelic islanders, from Inuit peoples in Greenland to Polynesians in the South Seas. He became fascinated by the fact that these folks - as long as they were eating their native diets - had no dental caries nor did they suffer orthodontia ills. They lived healthy lives into old age with no chronic illness, and the elderly stayed sharp in mind too. He also noticed that the women had a much easier time of labor and delivery.
Despite the fact that these folks had no toothbrushes or floss and had certainly never seen a Dentist before, they had broad, beautiful smiles with almost perfect teeth! While I wouldn’t necessarily vouch for their morning breath, the fact remains that they seemed immune to dental issues that plagued even “healthy” people in industrialized nations - Dr. Price’s contemporaries.
Dr. Price was determined to find out why this was so. So he began to study their diets. What he found was that as long as these isolated people kept eating the traditional foods, the effect remained. When they strayed (often as a result of “white man” diets thanks to the missionaries - white flour, white sugar, jams, candies, canned fruits and 
veggies) they suffered quickly. The next generation would be born with crowded teeth, small jaws, maloclussions and they even became less physically attractive (how’s that for motivation to eat better? Prettier kids!).
While the diets of these people were extremely varied, they had several things in common. Some of these commonalities were:
- An emphasis on animal foods. There were no vegetarians anywere to be found. All the cultures placed a very high value on animal protein - fish, meats, organs, eggs, dairy products. They went to especially great lengths to be sure that children and women in their reproductive years had these foods.
- Lots and lots of fat. Whether is was coconut oil and palm oil or raw, nonhomogenized butter and milk, these peoples ate a large percentage of their calories as fat.
- Specially prepared sprouted grains, naturally fermented vegetables such as sauerkraut, kim chi and the like, and cultured dairy in the form of kefir, buttermilk, cultured butter.
There were a few other similarities but these were the most important. Here is a quote from the website that puts it succintly:
“When Dr. Price analyzed the foods used by isolated peoples he found that, in comparison to the American diet of his day, they provided at least four times the water-soluble vitamins, calcium and other minerals, and at least TEN times the fat-soluble vitamins, from animal foods such as butter, fish eggs, shellfish, organ meats, eggs and animal fats–the very cholesterol-rich foods now shunned by the American public as
unhealthful.
These healthy traditional peoples knew instinctively what scientists of Dr. Price’s day had recently discovered–that these fat-soluble vitamins, vitamins A and D, were vital to health because they acted as catalysts to mineral absorption and protein utilization. Without them, we cannot absorb minerals, no matter how abundant they may be in our food.”
That last sentence was a bit chilling. To think that as a mom I could take great care to feed my kids well - but missing one important element, they would not get the benefit!
Shortly after, I purchased Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats
The Weston A. Price Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the ideas of the late Dr. Price. (They’re also the folks behind RealMilk.org) I joined two months ago and am enjoying the quarterly journal, Wise Traditions, immensely. It’s far more than a magazine - this is a publication you STUDY, not read. I’m still working through my first two issues. I “read” them with pen in hand so that I can make notes to help me remember things I’m learning and can refer to in the future. And I enjoy the letters from readers all over the world immensely - they’re full of great tips and inspiring stories of people who have enjoyed tremendous health changes as a result of changing their diet to a more traditional one. I’m also very impressed with the depth of research that obviously goes into the articles. They delve deep and take a bit of work to get through.
When you join WaPF as a member, you also get a handy-dandy Shopping Guide to keep in your purse when you go to the store. It helps you make better food choices and recommends specific name brands.
Another neat thing about the magazine are the resources and advertisers in the back - they’re carefully screen to be “WaPF” friendly. They don’t just accept any advertiser willynilly. So you can feel good about supporting these small, local farmers who use sustainable methods to produce organic products.
It’s scary what’s happening to our food supply in this country - the megamonopolistic food conglomerates who control (according to industry experts) 98% of the food industry are making our food cheaper, faster and cardboard-er every day. They don’t care about your health or your family’s health. Eating their food is making us fat yet simultaneously malnourished. We’re slaves to our cravings and to the hundreds of additives (some of which are put in there just to trick our brains and taste buds into craving more) that are surreptitiously put into these fake foods.
It’s enough to make a mother mad.
There is a lot more I could say about Weston A Price, and I am planning a series of articles to publish on this blog on the topics of raw milk, cod liver oil and grass fed meat. But for now I’ll just share two things about the WaP style of eating that have been pretty huge for me.
- For one, I’ve had stomach problems all my life. While a lot of this is due to stress (I put all my stress into my stomach!), I also have had issues with dairy products. Drinking one glass of milk would have me hurting.
Not so with raw milk. I can drink it all day long and never have the first stomach pain. It makes so much sense to me. Just as human breastmilk has enzymes to help baby digest it easily, raw milk contains the enzymes that make IT easy to digest. I love it and have been drinking it for several years now. Raw milk also works wonders on my cravings for sweets (probably because of the fat content).
- Secondly - soaked grains. I’ve had issues with low blood sugar and hypoglycemia since I was a kid. I don’t do well with wheat at all, but I can eat oats… but they would trigger episodes of low blood sugar. I could eat a bowl of oatmeal in the morning and be shaky and weak 30 minutes later.
However, when I soak my oats overnight (with an acid medium - such as a tablespoon of whey or sour milk in the soaking water), I can go all morning without getting hungry or feeling ill. I’m convinced that the reason for this is because since soaked grains are far easier to digest - and the body can get the full benefit of the minerals and vitamins due to a long soaking process that disables the phytates (enzyme inhibitors), I’m simply getting more nutrition from the same bowl of oatmeal!
I have already sung the wonders of coconut oil… for one, it keeps me regular. And that is a huge blessing. It also seems to help with my joint and muscle aches. My mother has fibromyalgia, and I’ve suffered with aches and pains since I was in my early 20’s, but the coconut oil seems to keep me lubricated… probably due to the antioxidants and healthy fats.
Check back later on this week for more about other tenets of the Weston A Price style of eating. And I encourage you to look into making a tax deductible contribution and joining WaPF.
New Podcast - Cure Your Cravings
April 8, 2008 | 2 Comments
Diana Walker of The Cravings Coach has decided to launch a podcast!
She will be sharing tips and advice to help moms live healthier lives and overcome their cravings for salt, sugar, carbs, caffeine… you name it.
Go have a listen and check out her Cravings Secrets ebook too while you’re at it.
Free Report on Going Organic
April 7, 2008 | 1 Comment
The ladies over at Menu Planning Central have put together an informative free report on going organic. They are letting me share it with you all. The report covers:
- What the organic label really means
- Cleaning with organic cleaners - and how to make your own
- Recommendations for organic products all around the house
To download it, just right click on this link to save to your desktop.
Salad Saturday!
April 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Each Saturday I’ll post a free salad recipe from my new salad cookbook. It has over 365 recipes, so you can either buy it now or just hang around here for the next 6 years. LOL!
Avocado with Peanut Dressing
2 avocados — ripe
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons peanuts — shelled
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
cayenne — to taste
sea salt — to taste
fresh chives — to garnish
Peel the avocados; cut out the stone and cut into cubes. Sprinkle with lemon juice and set aside. Grind the peanuts roughly with a rolling pin or in a grinder for a few seconds. Mix the peanuts and spices well. Sprinkle over the avocados with finely chopped chives.
Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Breastfeeding and Yeast Infection - Taming the yeast beast
March 30, 2008 | 10 Comments
Now that it’s getting warm out, it’s time for me to write about an issue that might be affecting a nursing mommy out there: breastfeeding and yeast infection (thrush). Troubles with yeast are more common in the warmer months because yeast loves to hang out in damp warm sweaty places.
Thrush is one of those things that can creep up on a nursing mother and cause pain, even lead to her giving up breastfeeding. Sometimes women have no idea that a yeast infection is what’s causing their pain. It’s not understood very well and many women don’t even know that yeast infection of the breast exists. But it does!
I struggled with it for a long time when my oldest was born. At first it was just painful nipples, but because I didn’t know how to resolve it, it got much worse. The pain was very bad - I felt as if someone was sticking ice picks into my back. (This is because the yeast can colonize the milk producing glands high in the breast.) Even my shirt rubbing across my chest hurt. It felt like sandpaper.
I wonder how many moms have given up breastfeeding because they thought it was “supposed” to hurt like this?
I finally kicked it, but me, my baby AND baby daddy had to be treated. (Yes, it can be passed through THAT kind of contact too, and men are usually asymptomatic.) He and I took Diflucan, and that was enough to stop the cycle of transmitting it back and forth.
As was mentioned before, sometimes a breastfeeding mother will suffer from pain during nursing which she thinks is “normal”. But breastfeeding is not supposed to hurt. Repeat after me: pain with breastfeeding is common, not normal. If everyone knows what they’re doing and there are no anatomical anomolies (I just love saying that!), then there won’t be any pain. I had no pain nursing babies 2, 3 and 4 because we didn’t have this issue.
What often precipitates yeast troubles is that mother takes antibiotics around her birth (often in the case of a Cesarean delivery or a postpartum urinary tract infection) and comes down with symptoms. The baby may have thrush in his mouth, or he may not. He may have a diaper rash or he may not. But the baby and Mom pass the yeast infection back and forth. Baby may even be fussy at the breast. Mom thinks it’s “her milk”, and weans. This is a sad outcome.
While it is “normal” (again - in the sense of common) to experience some soreness with the initiation of breastfeeding, especially in the first time Mom, this should be little more than a temporary discomfort that goes away after the first few days or weeks. The tissue is becoming used to a new activity. It Mom is having PAIN, that is not normal and is a sign that something is wrong. Normal soreness typically only hurts when baby first latches on, then subsides as the feeding continues. Yeast hurts all the time, even when baby isn’t feeding and gets worse over time.If Mom has seen a Lactation Consultant or La Leche League leader and corrected any problems with latch on or positioning and baby’s anatomy is normal, she should suspect yeast.
This is especially true if Mom has had antibiotics, eats a high sugar diet, baby has any signs of thrush (white patches in the mouth, crying/fussing when feeding, diaper rash) or Mom’s partner suffers from yeast related symptoms (itching in the boy bits, although as I said, men usually get off scott free in this area).Keep in mind that weaning won’t make the yeast go away. It will just move to the vagina or gut if Mom weans the baby (it’s probably already there anyway), and the baby will have pain in his mouth when he bottle feeds also. Better to just get rid of the yeast altogether. Shall we?
Natural Treatments For Breast Yeast And Infant Thrush
Baking soda
Baking soda can be an effective treatment for thrush. It changes the ph of the skin, inhibiting fungal growth. You can make a paste of baking soda and water and apply it to Mom’s nipples. Rinse off before feeding the baby. Baby can also take baths with a little baking soda sprinkled in the water, which will soothe any yeasty diaper rash (it looks bright red and hurts).
Vinegar
Vinegar also kills yeast by changing the alkaline/acid balance of the skin, in the opposite way that baking soda does (obviously you would choose one or the other, not both treatments!). It can be irritating to the skin however, so care is needed. One tablespoon added to a cup of water and applied to Mom’s nipples several times a day with a cotton pad can help.
Olive Oil and Coconut Oil
Olive and coconut oil are highly nutritious for lactating women and should be used daily in the diet. Both have antifungal properties and coconut oil in particular is excellent for immune system health. Coconut oil is delicious for baking, added to smoothies, used to cook eggs, etc. Olive oil is delicious in soups, casseroles, used to cook meats, etc. Olive oil and coconut oil can also be taken straight from the spoon.
Some moms have had success applying a bit of oil to their nipples. both for pain and to help heal the infection. I wouldn’t recommend leaving it on if the baby is a newborn, but it’s fine for older babies who are eating solid foods.
Don’t shy away from healthy fats if you’re in your reproductive years ladies. These two fats don’t make you fat. Nursing Mothers all over the world since the beginning of time have thrived on high fat diets. Low fat is not healthy for the lactating or pregnant woman. And eating cheap oils means the fat in your breastmilk is of lower quality.
Strict Hygiene
Fungus is very hardy. Good hygiene is important if you want to prevent reoccurence. Wash your nursing bras and pads, panties and cloth diapers in hot water and do a double rinse. Add vinegar to the first rinse to help kill yeast and prevent irritation from detergents. Wash your hands well with hot soapy water after using the toilet or changing diapers.
If you’re using any bottles or pacifiers, boil them before use. Throw away nipples and pacifiers after treating the thrush and buy new ones. Or better yet don’t use them if at all possible. Be sure to sanitize your breast pump parts too if you use one.
Avoid plastic backed nursing pads. They create moisture and heat which yeast loves. Use cloth nursing pads instead. Go braless when you can to let the breasts air out. And don’t use any type of soap on the breasts, ever.It’s a good idea for Mom and baby to use their own towels and washcloths for awhile. Launder them separately, using the vinegar rinse mentioned above. If it’s hot and sunny out, hang them in the sun to help kill yeast.
Wipe baby’s mouth with a clean wet washcloth or cloth napkin after feeding.
Herbal/Supplements
Garlic and Pau d’Arco have antifungal and immune building properties. Native Remedies is a good source of these and other anti candida supplements. Caprylic acid and oregano oil are also antifungal, and they’re found in Yeast Assassin.
Nutrition
Another thing that will help is supplementing with probiotics. Eat plenty of plain yogurt, kefir and cultured veggies like homemade sauerkraut. These kinds of foods contain lots of beneficial bacteria that help keep the yeast in check in the gut. It’s also very important to eliminate sugar while treating yeast infections. This will be hard because you’ll crave it something terrible! But stay strong and remove sugar, white flour, all junk food and simple carbs (white rice and even fruit) for awhile. Eat plenty of meat and protein, and tons of vegetables while you’re clearing the infection.
There are some prescription medications that you can get for yeast troubles from your baby’s Pediatrician or your OB/GYN. One is Nystatin. It’s commonly prescribed as a liquid suspension. It’s sticky and full of sugar. I hated using that stuff. It didn’t work, and it only made me and the baby and my clothes stick together like glue. And the sugar content - hello!
Another old fashioned remedy is Gentian Violet, sold in some pharmacies. I tried this one too and it’s messy to work with because it stains everything bright purple. I couldn’t take my baby out for a week because he looked like Papa Smurf. And I had to wear an old purple T shirt so as not to ruin my entire wardrobe. But it is pretty effective. There are some concerns about Gentian Violet being carcinogenic with long term exposure, but it typically only has to be used for a day or two to work so most people who care about babies and mothers say it’s ok for this short term use. It’s also very inexpensive and available without a Doctor’s prescription or even a visit to the office.
Diflucan was the ticket for me. Along with the nutrition and other self help measures listed above, we finally kicked it for good. The thing with Diflucan is that a lot of Doctors who are ignorant of how breastfeeding works will tell you that it’s not safe for nursing moms. That’s pretty ridiculous because Diflucan is prescribed for premature infants! Medications and Mother’s Milk is considered the authoritative source on the safety of various drugs for breastfeeding women and Diflucan gets the ok. As for me, we had tried everything else first and the meds helped me get relief, fast so it was worth it.
Have you ever had breast yeast and what did you do about it? Do tell!