First Foods

So we're feeding Mavry egg yolk and liver as her first foods.  (I realize this is weird.  People think runny eggs harbor potential dangers and liver is nasty, but these foods are really good for her!)

I went to a baby shower on Saturday and left Mavry and Colin home alone.  This is what happened while I was away. 



This week we've also introduced homemade chicken broth and I cooked sweet potatoes and am lacto fermenting them in a pickl-it to make it a baby super food.  We plan on introducing avocado soon too.

So far, we are going by the book Super Nutrition for Babies, which is based on the Weston Price recommendations for foods.  This includes waiting on grains until the 2 year molars come in.  (This blog post has more detailed information on these first baby foods.)  I am interested in baby led weaning as well, so I am going to get a book from the library on it.  Mavry isn't too interested in us feeding anything to her.  She really wants to get it to her mouth herself and these foods aren't all that friendly to that, so we are experimenting with all of this.  I'd love to hear what your experience is with first foods, especially baby led weaning!

YES on Proposition 37

There are all sorts of posts about Prop 37 that we'll be voting on in California in a little over a month.  I want genetically modified foods to be labeled as such so that we can choose to avoid them, so I am glad I get a chance to vote YES on Prop 37.  

GMOs have pesticides built in to the seed and are linked to birth defects, cancer, and hormone disruption, among other things.  Right now, the main edible GMO crops are corn, soy and sugar beets.  I generally avoid these ingredients and if I do eat them, I choose organic since organic crops are not genetically modified.  These foods also appear in many other forms. 

Prop 37 won't outlaw GMOs, it will just allow us to make more informed choices about the foods we buy. 

Jamie Oliver on TED

Have you seen Jamie Oliver's TED Talk (from 2010)?  (I seem to be watching quite a few of these recently.) 

He talks about how America is one of the most unhealthy countries in the world.  Children today have a shorter lifespan than their parents.  We are paranoid about so many things, but the thing that is killing us is the way we eat. 

Since I got pregnant, I have gradually been learning to eat better.   I have been surprised to learn that does not mean eating low fat, but it means eating more traditional foods.  (Jamie doesn't necessarily touch on the traditional food aspect, but he does talk a lot about sugar and moving to fresh and local foods which is another part of our journey.)

Real Food Summit

I've been listening to the Real Food Summit the past two days and it's pretty amazing.  It's a lot of information with three presentations to listen to a day (they are only available for free for 24 hours), but if you have any interest in real foods and being healthy, give a few of them a listen!  It's free!  Six of the presentations have already been closed, but you can get the links to listen to them until noon on Wednesday Pacific time here. 

I'm becoming more interested in real foods and generally being more natural - not to the point of stressing out about it, but just becoming more conscious of these things and making changes where I can.  I'll probably blog more about these choices soon too. 

Simplicity

I recently checked out Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life that is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich from the library.  As I'm reading it, I'm think about where I am in working towards living a simpler life. 

Until a year or so ago I would choose the vegetarian option on the menu if eating out and rarely bought meat in an effort to be healthier and be a better steward of the world's resources.  Beginning with reading these books, I have since come to a different understanding on the ethics of meat eating , the importance of animal protein for health, and the effects of unfermented soy on the body. 

I moved to Korea in 2003 and then China in 2005.  I came back in 2007 with the intention of heading back as quickly as possible, so I left most of my belongings there.  I had no intentions of staying in the States, but then I got married, moved to California and now we have a baby!  When we moved in to our apartment after we got married, we were able to furnish it with things that were given to us.  We are still intentional about almost everything we buy because we still hope to move back to Asia.  We are on a limited budget and live in a one bedroom apartment.  However, in the past year, we've bought a Vitamix, a juicer, Pickl-it jars (mostly with Christmas and birthday gift money!).  We use each of these on an almost daily basis so I don't question their value, but they still take up space and will be something else to move when the time comes. 

Many of the things that Mavry needs have been given to us and we have bought some things like a stroller and high chair on craigslist with gift money intended for her.  I'm thankful for our limited space that keeps us honest with the amount of stuff we bring in, but we are looking for a two bedroom place where we can live in close proximity with another couple that we know.  That's another dream of ours - to live in simple community with others.  Now that we've found friends who have the same dream, it's a matter of finding a place to do it.  We are beginning to think it might not be just a dream to be able to share things we need, share meals and share daily life.

In looking back at this blog, I remember another time when I was single, living with my grandmother and in close contact with people who were homeless.  Wonderful changes in my life have moved me to a different place (in more ways than just physically) and I am glad to have a chance to reflect.  We have limits now that keep us living a relatively simple life - if and when those limits are removed, will we still choose simplicity?

Pickling

Pickl-its are best stored covered to give the lactic acid bacteria a good place to grow.  We think they look like wise men. 

Since we started eating more traditional foods, we have experimented with lacto-fermenting since it is one of the best ways to get good bacteria back into your gut.  Colin started out this experiment doing it the way the GAPS book recommends.  He made sauerkraut and fermented cauliflower and had limited success. The ferments would grow mold around the top outside edges and he would scrape it off.  We didn't realize that our food probably had unseen mold growing in it (even if we'd scraped out all that we could see). 

After reading a few posts about lacto-fermenting at Cooking Traditional Foods, I spent some of my Christmas money (since we don't have much expendable income, I save up my gift money to use when I find something I want!) on a set of Pickl-its.  We are really happy with these - it's so much easier to make ferments in a Pickl-it because we don't have to worry about mold and the results are tastier, crispier, and full of good stuff. 

I used the 3 liter jars to make beet kvass and sauerkraut and the 1.5 liter jars to make dill carrots and dill green beans (my favorites so far).  When we ate up half of the green beans and carrots, I combined them into an air tight jar and made pickled garlic in the freed up Pickl-it.  I recently made a batch of pickles which I am anxious to try when they are done.  We also use one of the 1.5 liter jars to make our water kefir, which we used to make in a mason jar, but the lactic acid bacteria is increased in an airtight environment.  We have started having water kefir at dinner with a spoonful or two of beet kvass in it.  It looks like a purple sci-fi space drink. 

 

We are big fans of our Pickl-it jars because we can make lacto-fermented raw veggies easily and cheaply.  We have some with every dinner which means one of our veggie sides is always ready in the fridge.  Yay!

Real Food

I'm not sure when my interest in real foods began. I told Colin that it probably started with him, but he told me that I was interested in them before we got to know each other. Either way, he's a healthier eater than I am so he keeps me eating healthy.

On the blog of my sister's friend, I found these two books that I checked out from the library: Real Food by Nina Planck and Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, who is the president of the Weston Price Foundation, whose website has a lot of information.

I have been blown away by these books. They recommend, in general, eating whole foods, including grass-fed beef, eggs from pastured chickens, dairy made with raw milk, real sea salt, and avoiding the new, processed foods like refined white flour, margarine, vegetable oils, corn syrup, etc. Everyone is afraid to eat real foods because they are high in cholesterol, but Planck goes to great lengths to show that research proves real foods don't cause heart attacks but industrial foods (and our lack of activity) do.

I have gone to the grocery store a few times since reading this book and have been sort of in a quandary about what to buy. In the stores closest to us, organic foods are rare. To get the foods Planck recommends, we have to drive further and of course spend more. But, I am at least educated more in the ways of real foods and know simple facts like wild salmon is so much better for you than farmed salmon (but herbivorous fish like tilapia, carp, and catfish are okay to farm).

Planck also says that it's more important to spend your dollars on quality meat since it's higher up the food chain than vegetables, so more toxins are stored in it. I am beginning to search for real meats and dairy.

Colin is also considering going on the GAPS diet for a while. I've read some rave reviews online about people feeling much better as a result, but also read that it's a challenge to stick to! Has anyone tried it?