Food For Thought

If you are eating well you shouldn't feel tired.

Salt tends to over-stimulate the adrenal glands, whereas sugar tends to over-stimulate the pancreas.

If you are experiencing headaches, cold sweats, or get cold just after eating, your body is giving strong signals that you are out of whack. 


Coffee stimulates the endocrine/nervous system as a whole. It can over-stimulate our nervous system. If you are experiencing sharp spikes of energy with subsequent 'crashes' you may want to look at caffeine as a culprit. Carbohydrates can be another hidden simulator with a similar spike and crash pattern.

Using stimulants to kick an under-nourished body is rather like beating a tired horse. If your body is not looking or acting the way you would like, be prepared to make the necessary changes.

Food should energize through nutrition, not stimulation

I remember reading an article about a young man who traveled across the United States for employment and used only hot sauce to keep him awake, rather than coffee.  He arrived in New York State feeling alert and energized.

Being out of the spiral of stimulating foods means that I can trust my body to nudge me towards what it really needs. 

There are certain foods that just make me feel better. My body loves carrots, spinach, dandelion, kale and beets. These are my own personal super foods. I crave them. Sometimes I want meat. I tend to use the 24 hour delay button here and see if I can make my body happy by supplementing protein and Floradix iron or having a meal with beets. If that does not satisfy, then a meat meal it is.

Foods I would avoid:

Junk foods/Prefab foods/Franken-foods, refined foods, Sugar/Salt laden foods, Canned foods/Frozen Foods, Toxic Fats/Deep Fried Foods, De-vitalized foods, Moldy foods such as mushrooms, peanuts and pistachios, simple carbohydrates and Carbonated drinks.

Eating Lower on the Food Chain

The higher up on the food-chain that we consume, the more accumulated toxins the food contains. 

Eating lower on the food chain not only means cleaner food, but can also mean less expensive food. 

(Diet for a Small Planet)

Another name for diet is ‘food style’. One ‘food style’, known as ‘food combining’ which is outlined in the
The Fit for Life Diet. ( advises eating proteins and carbohydrates at separate meals.  This really takes the stress off the whole digestive engine).  

The Blood Type Diet is a wonderfully researched thesis that focuses on the genetic/antibody link to foods.  For example, Type O is typically the meat eating, hunter/gatherer, whereas Type A is Agrarian.  Type A’s usually do well with a vegetarian diet.

We are hardwired for Feast and Famine.  You can’t fool the body.  If you have a ‘starvation and boom and bust’ kind of eating style, your body will prepare for famine and conserve every calorie.  Deprivation just doesn't work to control weight. Maintaining a personalized food style works.

The wise choice is to eat foods that are lower in calories and higher in nutrition.  Usually people eat food that is nutritionally empty, laden with calories, and too much of it.

When high activity makes physical demands on one’s body, repair with quality protein and eat just enough carbohydrates to maintain a good energy level.  The best choice is complex carbohydrates such as unrefined whole grains, which allow a slower glucose release into the bloodstream.

It isn’t just what we eat, but when we eat.  The Body Type Diet looks at the dominant glandular tendencies and food choices that over-work specific endocrine glands.  For example, I notice that if I eat too much too late in the day, I am unusually hungry all the next day.  If I eat a heavy breakfast, I am unusually hungry all day long. It doesn’t work for me.

When your systems are working well, and your food style is in balance with your life, still be prepared to make ongoing changes.  We are constantly changing too, and our food choices need to reflect our real needs on a personal and physical level day to day.

My favorite diet is The Dolly Parton Diet. The reality is that your first taste of anything is an explosion of sensation in your mouth.  The second taste is good, but by the third spoonful, you can no longer taste what you are eating. A teaspoon of anything isn't too much, calorie wise, but why eat volume when you can no longer taste your food?

Staying Healthy with the Seasons

Changes in the seasons create big changes in the body.  Extremes in temperature and humidity can really stress the body’s coping mechanisms, not only in detoxification but endocrine balance as well.

This is the wisdom behind eating watermelon and cucumbers, raw foods, fruits and salads that cool us in the heat of the summer.  In the winter we are attracted to soups, stews, foods that are oven baked.  All of this tends to create more warming for the body.

With this in mind, we can maximize our personal ‘house-cleansing’ of primary elimination systems at these peak times of year.  In the spring, the body is focused on cleansing the liver system, which includes the blood and intestines. In the fall, the body is focused on flushing the kidneys and the whole genito-urinary system and cleaning the blood. 

A simple way of looking at this is that in the spring the wood element is highlighted – hot and juicy (liver), and full of growth and expansion. In the fall the water element is highlighted – cold and damp (kidneys), and 

the body is conserving and contracting.  The foods we eat every day make a tremendous change in how effective these peak times are maximized.  The quote “Let food be your medicine” is certainly true.

What is your personal super-food?

I have been approached by so many people over the years, each selling a plethora of products guaranteed to ‘cure whatever ails ya’.  How could one product be good for everyone? For example, Chamomile herb is in the same family as ragweed.  Needless to say, it doesn't affect us all in the same way. 

Fortunately, by using bio-feedback testing, such as specialized kinesiology, it is easy to assess what your personal needs are and what specific nutrients meets this need in the most body-friendly way.

 

The following is a list of nutrients that in my experience have been on many people’s ‘top picks’ of super-foods.  Don’t assume that you need to supplement all of them.

ü  Green Food Blends (Vegge Green) - These blends nourish, as well as detoxify & alkalize the body.

ü  Minerals: Make sure these are ‘body friendly’

        

Calcium

            Magnesium

            Iron

            Iodine

            Multi Mineral

ü  Antioxidants:

            Co-enzyme Q 10

            Network Antioxidants (Phytoberry)

            Lutein

            Grapeseed Extract

            Lycopene

ü  Digestive Enzymes

ü  Digestive Tonics

ü  Essential Fatty Acids

ü  Vitamin C (Ester C)

ü  Vitamin B & B Complex

Manufacturing quality is always important. Choose top quality companies.  Be tested and make sure that the brand you are using is really performing for you, and that you are getting the optimal amounts. 

What I mean by that, is some people are taking too much at once whereas taking less over a long 
period of time would help make profound gains in well'being. I have to say again, that if you are not 
putting top quality in, you are not going to experience the change your hoping for. Worse yet, what you are using may by toxic, or a elimination burden to your body.

Spend a little more and get a lot more results.

Slow Cooker Glazed Pecans

I always like to make something stupendous for the holiday season.  This is my one time of year to break out of my usual 'healthy' food style.

I had a brain wave that I wanted to make glazed pecans and was catapulted into action when I found a no work-no brain recipe.  I made a few batches and was really happy with the results.
 


This week I met up with a friend and we had our annual Christmas exchange of gifts.  She gave me glazed pecans!  Go figure!


If this is a brain wave that is crossing the nation, I thought I had better share the lazy person's version of this classic.


3 Cups raw pecans
1/4 Cup Maple Syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon organic coconut oil





Throw everything into your slow cooker and turn on low.  Cook for anywhere from one to three hours (no slow cooker is alike), stirring often with a paddle .  At first you will see that the syrup is dripping from your spoon.  As time goes on, it will be stickier and thicker.  At the end, there won't be any residue on spoon.  It will all be on the pecans.

Pull the plug and let cool.  When you are ready to move your treats to an airtight container, go down the side with a sturdy butter or dinner knife and wiggle to loosen the pecans.  Mine just kind of blasted apart with little effort.  That's it.  No muss and no fuss.

These treats are fabulous additions to yoghurt or ice cream deserts, or in salads.

Spinach Salad with Glazed Pecans and Pomegranates
3 tablespoons 'elite' olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar or maple balsamic
Herbamere/sea salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
3 or 4 rings of paper thin red onion
4 tablespoons of glazed pecans
1/2 bin washed baby spinach
pomegranate seeds 1/4 to 12 of the fruit


Put the oil, vinegar, mustard and salt all into the bottom of a salad bowl.  Whisk these together thoroughly.
Add the spinach and toss lightly but pay special attention that all the leaves have a light coating of dressing
Place the red onion rings, glazed pecans and pomegranates on top and serve.

I wish you all the best of homey things this Christmas Season and blessings in abundance for this coming New Year.

Nelda

Gluten-free/Dairy-free

Gluten free is a big deal right now.  Thankfully, a new breed of medical doctors are emerging who are putting together the chronic illness/diet relationship.  The question is, have we as a species always had a problem with cultivated grains, or is this an across-the-board weakness that has come about for another reason?



The food I was offered was cow’s dairy which I do not tolerate.  Within the first three months of my life, gluten grains (which are very complicated and hard to digest) in the form of boxed Pablum were pushed.  Realize it takes humans a full eight years to develop a fully functioning digestive engine.  Some adults still have an underdeveloped or damaged gut, and are limping through life struggling to be well.

Baby Boomers are the Pablum generation
Baby Boomers are also the front line generation of test subjects in the consumption of genetically manipulated food.  This started with the hybridization of grains to create more disease resistant crops.  As a result, my generation has had ‘Franken-food in our diets for decades starting with hybridization and moving on to more complex and evil manipulation of genetics.

We are part of a wacky experiment
When we eat meat that has been genetically altered, this is a different creature than ‘cow’ or ‘chicken’. These new creatures change us physically in unpredictable ways.  How we individually and collectively respond to genetically altered foods is at best, a very wacky experiment, where nobody is particular is paying attention to the results.

My adventures into the diet revolution began in 1984.  My daughter was suffering from repeated ear infections and had been treated with repeated antibiotics.  When I was told she needed a surgical procedure to put tubes in her ears, I freaked out!  At this point I took my daughter to see a herbal/nutritional practitioner.

When I was told to eliminate dairy and wheat from both our diets, I didn't have the substitution choices that I see today in most grocery stores or health food stores.  What I did instead was to explore Asian recipes where dairy and wheat was not staple ingredients.  Later on I introduced moderate amounts of goat and sheep based cheeses as a treat item.

For some people, gluten may be at the root of many chronic health issues
For any kind of inflammatory conditions and degenerative conditions, eliminating gluten is a reasonable place to begin.  It isn't going to be easy because gluten will be hidden in to many things.  Any form of commercial thickeners including soup bases or corn starch may have gluten added.  Always look for ‘gluten free’.

I have a few clients who have been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.  They avoid all gluten.  By sticking to a strict gluten free diet they have been able to reduce and avoid flare ups.  One person is on no medication, and the others on reduced medication.  In my world there are other factors with any auto-immune condition that have to do with modifiers and DNA.  There is more to change and heal rather than just a list of what one must avoid.

In my world, grains work well for some people and not for others. If you do well with organic grains, spelt or kamut may be a reasonable substitution if wheat is a problem, but again why push the same thing day after day. There are a variety of grains, oats, rye, barley, rice, wild rice, teff, quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat.  Add spelt and kamut to that list and you have a working diet – Unless gluten sensitivity or  is an issue.  In this case avoid all gluten grains: wheat, spelt, kamut, rye, barley, buckwheat.

Cereal
To many people, 'the staff of life' is the processed thing that comes out of a box.  This is a processed food. Many people also use bread as a constant in their diet.  Flour is a processed food that acts like glue in the gut.  Try cooking real grains opt for eco-friendly containers to tote instead of the never ending sandwiches.

For gluten free thickeners try making a roux (French style of cooking gravy).  Just cook a tablespoon of starch (tapioca, arrowroot is a good substitute for cornstarch or any flour) in 2 tablespoons of hot oil in a saucepan,  cook it for a minute, then add liquid; water, nut/seed milk, broth or leftover vegetable cooking water a little at a time and stir like crazy until you get the gravy thickness you are looking for.  I use this as a thickener for soups and sauces.

Soaked/sprouted grain breads may be a good choice for some people when consumed moderately, but again, the whole bread thing is overdone in people's diets generally.  You can freeze the loaf and take one out at a time as a treat.

Dairy Substitutes

I use all kinds of milk-like things.  Almond milk (soak nuts overnight, strain off soaking water, add filtered water in a blender and blend the be-jiggers out of it.  Strain and voilà!). Seeds take much less soaking time, but can be made into milks as well.  I also like coconut milk and cashew milk. Variety is the thing.  I like soy but use the commercial stuff very sparingly.  Rice or rice/almond may be good as a milk substitute.


Just a note that you can 'milk up' nut butters by adding hot water gradually in small amounts, and stir like crazy.  Add Braggs or tamari, dry mustard or Dijon mustard, parsley, garlic.  Flavour it up in any way that you prefer.  Consider making a sauce out of sesame seeds (Tahini sauce), peanuts (Satay) almonds, cashews, hazelnuts sunflower or really any nut or seed you like and tolerate well.

Cheesy
Red Star brand nutritional yeast has a cheesy taste and you may like this instead of the pricey cheese substitutes.  Is one of my favourite things for popcorn or as a Parmesean substitute or when I want to make a roux-cheese-like sauce.  You can try other brands of nutritional yeast, but Red Star so far anyway, has the best taste.

For anyone willing to make radical changes in the pursuit of better health, I would suggest to stay away from all dairy products and all gluten grains and the by-products of these staples.  Lactose free alone may not work.  Lactose free means that they have removed the milk sugars, but all other bits are still there.  For example I am fine with lactose, but don’t tolerate the beta-albumin proteins in cow’s milk.




If I am going to be part of an experiment I would prefer to be in control of it.  Eliminate gluten and dairy for 12 weeks and see what happens.  You just might feel better.  If you add it back in to your diet and you feel worse, you have just had the experience of a successful experiment.

As usual, these comments are not meant to prescribe or diagnose, but are offered as ‘food for thought’.

Why Autumn is the Season for the Lungs and Large Intestine

According to Oriental tradition, the metal element encompasses the autumn season and highlights the lungs and large intestine.  The fall is the perfect time to address the needs of these two important organs.

Specialized Kinesiology is the energy system I use for assessments.  This gives one the opportunity to look at the body relationally; organs, glands and muscles.  Muscle testing can give a profound up to the moment insight into the body’s strengths as well as its stresses.

In regard to the lungs, the muscles sharing this same meridian are:  the anterior serratus (think the 'red cap' salute), the deltoids (rotator cuff), coracobrachialis (think ‘the Fonz’ salute), and the diaphragm.  If the energy circuit to the muscles is weak, logic would say that this same lack of energy supply would also affect the organs and glands on the same river of energy.

The lungs often get used by the body’s detox system as an overflow system.  This once a year clean out can be really helpful, especially before the additional stresses of extreme cold and dry heat.  There are many herbal formulas this help to clean the lungs and respiratory system.  Lung Flush by Omega Alpha and the Inula formulas by Genestra are excellent. 

Hydration is essential here as well.  This means 1 to 2 ounces every ½ hour.  Foods rich in Vitamin C and eating lung and spleen can be helpful to strengthen the lungs.  This can be obtained in pill form for the squeamish.

The large intestine is the other organ on the metal meridian.  The muscles in this group include the Fascia lata which runs down the outside of the thigh from hip to knee, the Hamstrings, and the Quadratus lumborum. We don’t tend to see back issues or knee issues, or chronically tight hamstrings as having at their root, an elimination problem.  As with the lungs, Vitamin C and optimum hydration are essential for bowel health.

There are many good bowel cleanse products available.  I do have a caution here.  If you have or suspect you have some problems or impacted areas, bulking up all of a sudden is not a wise plan.  Something simple like increasing vegetables in your diet will increase natural fibre.

Flax seed tea (a heaping teaspoon of seeds cracked open in a coffee grinder, put into a mug and fill mug with very hot water.  Let it sit for a few minutes until the contents get a little thick and drink it down).  Food grade aloe vera juice can be helpful as well.  This is a very gentle healing approach especially if there is discomfort or inflammation present.  Marshmallow herb and Slippery Elm are helpful to lubricate and soothe.  These herbs do not interfere with absorption in the GI tract.

To improve hydration in the bowel, cook barley grain in lots of water. To decrease excess water in the bowel pan-toast barley until it is fragrant and then add water and tender-cook.

How fortunate we are to have a 2,000 year old health system at our fingertips; the best of the east and west and the old and the new.  Integrated health is the blessing of this day and age.  

  

Metal Element Nutrition

The following are Metal Element foods:

 Fennel seed, Fenugreek, Flax seed, Parsnips, 

Horse radish, Daikon radish, Chai tea in milk, Ginger, Barley, White potatoes, Cauliflower, 

Cabbage, Tofu

Wilted Kale Salad with Mushrooms and Red Onion

• Curly Green Kale sliced fine, enough to fill a large heat proof salad bowl, taking out the large stems and veins
• Slice ¼ medium red onion in thin slices
• Slice 2 Cups of firm white button mushrooms 
• Heat 1/3 Cup of light oil in sauté pan on medium heat

Add the sliced mushrooms sauté and stir frequently until you see the mushroom exuding juice

Quickly add ¼ Cup of Balsamic vinegar and cook for 2 minutes

Take off heat and add 1 heaping tsp of Dijon Mustard into the centre of the pan stirring well to mix

Quickly pour hot dressing over the kale and mix well

The Kale will turn a bright green.

Taste add more Balsamic dressing if needed

Add onions and toss lightly

To serve, grind Gomasio coarsely and sprinkle on top

In this way Gomasio tastes like bacon

Japanese Gomasio

Rinse 1 cup of brown sesame seeds in sieve under tepid running water

Let drain

Use dry cast iron skillet –medium heat 

Cut dulse into very small bits using scissors

Toast dulse in pan until the dulse is crisp

Add 1 tsp Celtic salt –ground fine

Up end the sieve and dump in sesame seeds all at once

Spread the seeds over bottom of skillet and leave it to dry for several minutes until the seeds no longer stick to the bottom of the pan.  Be patient.  This is the 'screw up' point.

Stir gently and fairly constantly (you may need to reduce heat)

This is ready when seeds are fragrant, slightly golden and hollow (crush one to see)

Cool and store in an airtight jar.

To release the calcium and minerals inside the seed, coarsely grind the seeds with a mortar and pestle or by using a small coffee grinder.  Do this just before serving. 

For an interesting and calcium rich salad dressing, grind about ¼ cup with mortar and pestle, or small coffee grinder and add to a basic vinaigrette.  

2 parts oil to one part vinegar - If you find dressings have too much bite, add 1 tablespoon of water.  

Balsamic Vinaigrette

Balsamic Vinegar is strong tasting – so add a little less than the full part

Crush 1 garlic clove and add to oil

Add 1Tbs of Dijon mustard (emulsifier)

Herbamere to taste

Reality Check

When I am on my home turf, I find myself surrounded by people who can appreciate my point of view.

As a result I have been lulled into the illusion that I (along with my point of view) are almost hitting the normal zone.



The definition of a real vacation is 'the rare opportunity to see life through a different lens that is very different from our own'.  


I enjoyed some relaxing down time this past Christmas.  I was visiting family in the Southern US . While there I was exposed to American Reality TV, in large doses and for an extended length of time.  I don't have a TV at home so if there is video screen in the room I am like a Mennonite in a furniture store.  I can't help myself.  My eyes keep getting drawn in by the movement.

One night I had a dream about Pickers and Pawners.  Although these were the shows I enjoyed the most while away, the dream itself was more of a nightmare.

I am by nature a neat freak.  I find clutter to be painful.  In this dream I was trying to clean out a building that was full of trash.  The other characters in the dream kept tossing the stuff back to me telling me how valuable all this junk was, and that I should hold on to it and sell it.  Rick says to me "You could make a fortune!".

Is this for real?
The drugs commercials in particular blew my hair back.  The visual images always showed radiantly happy  families blissfully doing outdoorsy things together.  In the US, by law, the advertisers have to list the side effects of their products in full, and most of the slotted airtime was given to this verbal listing.

So as one is hearing the horrific list of ills like "may cause drowsiness  headaches, blindness, cause sterility", bleeding, and "some individuals may experience homicidal  or suicidal tendencies", you see these beautiful people going about experiencing the best life has to offer (in slow-mo with great music).


One advertisement in particular was describing the benefits of a drug used  for the treatment of chronic body pain.  It showed a lovely woman sitting on a  park bench serenely  reading a book.  All the while my ears are being subjected to the horrible litany of side effects which goes on and on and on. (and on).



So as I am watching this, I am wondering if it is just me or is everyone else on glue?


Through my networks I hear many people who are upset about the drug companys' agenda.  Yet I wonder how any company or any movement can continue without the mass of people to support the enterprise?  Companies usually survive by giving people what they want.  Maybe soma is what most people want?  Or perhaps people don't have enough information or common sense to make different choices.

Long ago,  before my personal exploration into the world of natural healthcare, my medical healthcare providers would  suggest medications to me.  I always considered the treatment they were offering, but gave myself the choice.

 I give myself the choice to 'Just Say NO'.

Sometimes I followed their suggestions. Sometimes not.  I wasn't opposed to 'swallowing the pill', but for the most part I just couldn't see a future in it.  I wanted real answers to real questions.

These questions were usually:  What ?  How?  Where? and Why?

I never got great answers.

On one occasion the attending  doctor at my local clinic suggested that my digestive ills were because I was a woman, and women tended to be hysterical.  I want to let you know that I let him live, if only for the reason that if I actually bitch-slapped him, I would indeed prove that I was hysterical.

I did visit with a local herbalist and she was able to determine that I was experiencing simple liver and gall bladder overwhelm.  I also had a congested large intestine.  (She never mentioned 'hysteria' thing at all.)

So back to the chronic body pain.  We can say it in another language 'arthritis' but al in all, our structure hurts. It hurts when we move or it hurts when we don't.  Or we hurt all the time. When it goes on for a long period of time without relief or our bodies don't resolve the problem on its own, we call it 'chronic'.

Here are some thoughts.
To view the body holistically one must assume that we exist in a time continuum, experience cause and effect, and accept that no part or aspect of the body is divorced from the whole.  To push this right into the Quantum zone, we are energy and matter.

Pain is really a symptom of a mystery.
Do we have too much mineral?  A lack of mineral?  Infection toxins backing up in the blood and being pushed and stored into the joints?  Is this an allergic symptom?   An immune response?  Is there a chronic shortfall of nutrition needed for the joints to build?  Is this local or systemic?  Are we over/under exercised.  Perhaps we have toxic blood, or poor circulation?  Is this pain in the area of an old injury or birth trauma?  What about our nervous system pathways?  Is this pain a drug reaction or side effect?

There are so many possibilities.  To my mind, drugs that suppress symptoms short circuit the body's ability to heal the root of the problem.  Removing the pain and leaving all else keeps us from looking at the real issues.


So the questions remain:  What?  How?  Where? Why?  And what can I do about it?

Keep Well_
Nelda

The Brain of the Gut

What do I mean by ‘The Brain of the Gut’?   

Our brain/spinal/nervous systems and our digestive systems started out as the same embryonic tissue.  

This rod of tissue at some point divided in two.  One half developed into the brain, spine and nervous system.  The other half become a hollow tube and became our digestive system.  

There are more nerves surrounding the stomach than any other organ in the body.  Often we teach ourselves to ignore our 'gut' reactions.  Even a dog knows not to eat while fatigued, upset or under stress.  Humans will even go so far as to condition themselves to eat specifically when they are upset.  Many people can't discern when they are hungry or differentiate between hunger and thirst.

It takes the first 8 years of our life to create an engine of digestion.  Some people do not achieve this development for many reasons.  Unrelenting stress, socially, nutritionally, or ecologically can have a detrimental effect on the growth and strength of our digestion system for the rest of our lives unless effort and attention is taken to heal this system.  

Elaine Gottscall's work as been helpful for many to reclaim digestive balance.  Fermented foods such as yogurt, keifer, sauerkraut and sourdough can educate our digestive tract to handle dairy foods, vegetables and grains.

Digestive Enzyme supplementation can really make an improvement if one often feels comatose, bloated or gassy after eating.  Often it is not only a matter of what one eats but whether there are enough plant enzymes to ‘catalyze the fire’, turning food into energy on a cellular level.  For some people, there is a need to ‘prime the pump’ and get the digestive secretions going.  Digestive tonics such as Agrimony Combo, Cheladonium Plex or bitters like artichoke or dandelion can really aid in creating a more efficient digestion and assimilation of nutrients.

 

Food supplements are just that; they expand the body’s ‘nutritional pool’.  Supplements will not make up for habitual ongoing poor food choices. When I recommend nutritional supplements I want to find the big performers first. What nutrition specifically increases a person’s energy and vitality by 20% or more?  The form and source of these supplements may be a big concern for those who have a suffering/struggling  digestive engine.

Working through digestive issues requires patience and care. The digestive system is such a sensitive system which we impact with every aspect of our lives.  I recommend Specialized Kinesiology food testing, as much to see what foods do work well in the system.  Sensitive testing methods will help people to make personalized choices. It gives us a chance to know what foods to avoid as well. For example some people have trouble digesting gluten or the starch/protein combinations that are present in most grains and beans.

Amaranth, teff and quinoa have been used by many people as staples to replace other grains in the diet.  These are all gluten free and easy to digest.   Generally, rice is another good choice. 

I have never cooked with teff, but  Phoo-d knows how.  Miss Phoo-d has been an adventurous and committed Foodite blogger.  I have enjoyed following her for the last year or so.  She has made some extreme adjustments to her diet for health reasons  and (lucky us!) shares her food knowledge and experiences with us.

 How to work with Quinoa

Find (1Cup) of the largest, whitest Quinoa you can find (organic Bolivian)

Quinoa has a resin on the outside which will be bitter is you don’t rinse like mad

Put the one cup of grain in a large measuring cup add cool water.

Whisk vigorously and drain carefully

Repeat this rinse at least 5 times and cover with clean water to the 4 cup mark

Soak for at least 2 to 8 hours on counter. If you are not ready to cook it right away you can put grain and water and all in the fridge.  What you are looking for is that the quinoa grain will almost triple in size

Before cooking drain carefully and rinse and whisk the Quinoa another 5 times.

Transfer to a good rice pot and add (1 cup) of water

Bring to a full boil and stir well. 

Put lid on and turn heat to lowest setting

Time for 15 minutes then take pot off heat and let rest for another 5 minutes.  You want an el dente grain. Don’t overcook!

Take off the lid right away and fluff with a fork.

For a side grain, serve as is.  As a salad grain, let it cool.

Quinoa Tabouli

Soak ¼ Cup Sunflower seeds and ¼ Cup pumpkin seeds in filtered water for 1 hour (I use a mason jar)

Mix basic white wine vinaigrette, in a medium salad bowl,

½ Cup light tasting oil, I like Koroneiki Olive Oil

¼ Cup white wine vinegar

Herbamere/Sea Salt

1 Cup cherry tomatoes halved

1 Cup Cucumber diced

½ Cup Green onions chopped

1 Cup Red pepper diced

1 Cup Parsley chopped

Rinse and strain the seeds and add to vegetables

Mix well to coat with dressing.

Add quinoa and toss gently to mix

Quinoa has a very delicate flavor and can be overpowered by strong herbs or strong flavoured oils, so keep flavours light 

Cover and marinate in fridge for 1 hour or so. 

Food and health are so profoundly connected.  Our food styles are very unique and personal to us.  Diet choices are always evolving as we evolve.  I think that awareness (intuition and knowledge) is the key. 

Enjoy the bounty and keep well_

Nelda