Things M Says (part 40)

M, comparing his manhood to E's: "E!  Your pen!s is getting bigger, but not as big as mine!"

Oooo-kay.  It starts young, no?

From Eat Fat, Lose Fat to GAPS Intro Diet

As you all know, I committed to lose weight using the Eat Fat, Lose Fat regimen last October.  What I found out through the process of taking coconut oil in hot water with a squeeze of lemon three times a day for fivemonths is this: healing comes before weight loss.

In the process of taking all that coconut oil, I did lose about 5-10 pounds.  But instead of slimming down beyond that, I found that my weight stabilized and held as other health issues improved.  I had more energy.  I was sleeping regularly.  I actually wanted to work out and be active by going outside, walking, riding my bike, doing yoga and pilates.  I felt at ease, content, levelheaded.  I started to wonder if it was simply okay that I hadn't lost weight yet.  My body was healing!

Through that process I realized that when I give my body what it needs, it will heal from the roots up.  I am guessing that my weight gain and fatigue and hormone fluctuations are a result of nutritional deficiency.  As I heal from that deficiency, my problems disappear in order starting from the underlying issues all the way up to things like weight gain.  

So that brings me to the GAPS healing diet that I started on March 19th.  It was only natural that after healing with coconut oil alone, an intense healing diet was the next step.  I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I was having success healing, yes, but it was slow.  I was less tired, but I wasn't energetic all day.  I was more active, but I wasn't running and biking and yogaing everyday.  Those are the kinds of things I really want.  I want to feel excited and happy about life!  I want to run and bike and feel energized, not the need for a nap.

On March 19th I started the GAPS Intro Diet.  I made it through the six stages in about 6-7 weeks.  I am about to move to the Full GAPS Diet which includes more variety than any of the Intro Diet stages.  What I had experienced with the Eat Fat, Lose Fat diet was only a small part of the way I have been feeling for the last month and a half on GAPS.  Yes, the die-off was intense at first (the first week or two), but oh the energy! and oh the happy body I have!  GAPS is intense, yes, but it is worth it!

(I'll be writing more in depth on GAPS issues over the next several months.  I committed to do GAPS from March 19th until September 19th of this year.  I might even do a GAPS challenge for my readers in a week or two.  Don't worry, you'll only be committing to a week of GAPS!)

Things M Says (part 39)

M says the full name of any show that he wants to watch.

M: "Mom, can I watch Avatar: The Last Airbender?"
M: "Hey Dad!  We have five episodes of Spongebob Squarepants!"
M: "Can we watch the special extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring?"

Okay, that last one is made up.  But you get the picture.

My Choice

"So though the fight over Planned Parenthood might beabout abortion, Planned Parenthood itself isn’t about abortion. It’s primarily about contraception and reproductive health. And if Planned Parenthood loses funding, what will mainly happen is that cancer screenings and contraception and STD testing will become less available to poorer people. Folks with more money, of course, have many other ways to receive all these services, and tend to get them elsewhere already." --Ezra Klein on What Planned Parenthood Actually Does

When I was 20 weeks pregnant with my second son, I went in for my ultrasound and checkup hoping to find out the gender of my baby.  I already had one three-year-old son, and I was hoping for another boy.  The ultrasound tech saw the male gentalia and told us.  I was ecstatic!  I asked a lot of questions about the heart and brain and bones.  The technician asked if I was a nurse, surprised by my inquisition.  I said no, I was just interested in physiology.  After studying many sciences, and then modern dance in college, I had an awareness of and interest in the human body that was automatic.  The idea of growing a skeleton, muscles, life in my womb was mesmerizing in the dark of that ultrasound room.

A few minutes later, my husband and I spoke to my obstetrician about the baby.  She said that their equipment was old, but that she was fairly certain that our baby boy had a cleft lip.  I had read about cleft lips in biology a few years before, but I did not really know what was done for cleft babies.  I was not worried.  We were to go to fetal and women's center with a "million dollar ultrasound machine".  Honestly, the only thing I thought was to hope for a 4D ultrasound picture for the fridge.  My husband and I had no idea what we were in for when we made that appointment.

We went to the perinatal center a few days later and realized we were there with other high risk pregnancies.  I started to get nervous, wondering about whether or not I would be able to breastfeed a cleft baby.  Questions were forming.  In fact, during the exam I asked so many questions that the tech finally had to tell me she was not allowed to answer some of them.  The doctor finally came in and told us about the cleft.  But then she said that he also had a problem with his kidney.  They thought it might not be forming properly.  I was numb as they started to talk about how the two problems were unrelated, making the likelihood of a syndrome greater.  In other words, it was more likely that he had an underlying syndrome rather than just happening to have a cleft and a kidney issue.

They started looking to see if our baby's hands and fingers could clasp and unclasp.  Something in my mind snapped.  I shook off the numbness and shock at that point, and began to sob.  I demanded their best guesses as to what was going on with our baby.  They said they didn't know, but that we would need to meet with a genetic counselor.  We were also recommended for an amniocentesis to get more information.  It was likely that his underlying condition was bad, like Trisomy 13 or another short-lived, painful syndrome.  I was gently asked about the possibility of needing an abortion.  For the first time in my life, I considered it.

The next day we went back for the amniocentesis.  I am terrified of needles, but in the past few years I have faced my fear and been able to have blood tests done without fainting.  The doctor was bright and loving, and I trusted her when she said how good she was at very quick amniocenteses.  I wasn't in the mood to smile, but I appreciated that.  I had not slept much that night, speculating with my husband about what our baby might have.  As the needle went into my belly, and I squeezed my husband's hand and my eyes tight shut.  It was over, and I wasn't even faint.  But when the doctor announced how many CCs had been taken and I went white and had to lay down.  I asked questions about the genetic tests they would perform, and how long it would take for them to come back.

I hated our genetic counselor.  She was perfectly nice, but did not have any answers.  I knew my hatred was a mask for my fear and anxiety.  I wanted to make the next 10 days go by as quickly as possible.  I sobbed half the day, and did yoga in the middle of the night to calm my nerves.  I still remember doing sun salutations in the dark, trying to stop weeping.  We had to wait for one general set of tests, and then for another set of more specific tests.  I called the genetic counselor morning, noon, and night the days the tests were supposed to be done.  I was nearing 22 weeks, when the dividing line for an abortion in the state of Arizona had been drawn.

I wanted to know what my baby was facing, to know if I needed to spare him a painful, short life if he ended up having Trisomy 13, or something else equally horrific.  Even if he did have a fatal syndrome, I was fairly certain that I could not go through with an abortion.  The days were painfully long.  I compared the mercy of an abortion for my malformed child with the difficult birth and mere months of life that he might have to endure with many painful health problems.  I had no idea what I would do.

We finally heard back about our baby boy's chromosomes: they were normal.  There were other, more rare syndromes and diseases we might want to check for.  But the ultrasounds showed a strong heart, and one fully working kidney.  The cleft was bilateral, incomplete on one side, and in the lip and palate.  This was a rarer form of cleft lip and palate, and one of his kidneys had simply not formed at all.  But he was thriving.  Everything else looked strong and fully formed.

I was relieved.  I didn't have to choose between an abortion or my baby's death at the age of 1 due to some awful syndrome.  A cleft lip and single kidney was welcome indeed.  I no longer had to wonder if he had something life-threatening or that would cause a terrible death at an early age, a situation that I might have considered having an abortion for.

I still do not know what I would have done if my baby had been missing a chromosome, or was found to carry a fatal sickness.  But I had a choice.  I had a legal, supported, dignified choice that I could make myself, alone.  I had a choice that I wrestled with day and night for weeks while we had testing done.  If I had chosen to have an abortion in a situation like that, it would have been out of love and out of necessity to spare our baby pain and suffering.

I am so thankful for the women at the perinatal center for giving me that option without any judgment in their voices on those first uncertain, rocky days.  They did not presume to know what was best for me.  They simply offered options, and support.  And trust.  They trusted me to know what was best for me and my baby.

I decided to keep him, of course.  He beat the odds with his genetic testing, and I was spared my own Sophie's choice.  He has beat the odds on many fronts.  I am lucky.

I am also lucky to have the right to choose what I want to do.  I have that right because I live in a country where abortion is legal.  I have that right because I am a white middle-class woman with means and health insurance.  I have that right because I am informed of my options.  I have that privilege.  Many do not.  There are millions of women who, when faced with a situation similar to mine or worse, do not have the options I enjoyed.

This past week has been dramatic as we have watched a government shutdown nearly averted, all turning on the fulcrum of Planned Parenthood and it's funding.  I do not wish on anyone what I went through with my youngest baby, but it will happen anyway.  Sometimes it happens to women who don't have money or health insurance.  Do they deserve less than I do?  Do they not have the right to a legal procedure, if they need it, if they weigh their options and make a heart-breaking decision about what to do?

97% of Planned Parenthood's services are preventative: cancer screenings, yearly exams, rape services, and birth control.  Planned Parenthood's services do include abortion care.  But those procedures are not touched by federal money, despite all the recent headlines and spin that the budget crisis was over federal funding for abortion or just abortions themselves.  The truth is that the budget war was, and is, over access to basic women's health care.

I stand with my choice to keep my baby when I found out he would not be severely ill and in pain during his life.  I would have stood by my choice either way, because I would have known that I had made it while considering all sides.  I stand by women who make these decisions in secret because of the stigma of abortion.  I stand with Planned Parenthood.  I stand with life and choices both staying in tact whenever possible.  I stand with my sisters, mothers, aunts, daughters, grandmothers, and all the other women I am connected to on this planet as a war rages around their bodies.  I stand with women.

(Exponent II's most recent issue has three pieces on Women and Reproductive Choice, found in the Exponent Generations feature.)

(cross-posted at The Exponent)

Things M Says (part 38)

critiquing me, like a judge on Top Chef


M: "This is a really nice smoothie, probably the best one you've made so far.  It's got a good flavor from the kefir and berries, and it's really cold.  Overall, very delicious Mom."
me: "Um, thanks."

Possibility

Last year I made a phone call to my father after not speaking to him for nearly three years.  It went well at the time.  I forgave him for the abuse in my childhood.  However, few months later I found myself having a breakdown about it and I haven’t called him since.  Two steps forward, one step back.

I was talking with a friend yesterday about that, and he pointed out that having an amazing relationship with my father is automatically tied to the fact that I have already done the hard part of forgiving him.  I hadn’t really considered that until today.  And now I am feeling like that might be something that I want.

How do you move forward from a place like that?  How do I draw boundaries that will keep me safe, but maintain the openness that it will take to have a real relationship with my father?  How do navigate a positive relationship with my former abuser as a feminist trying to heal and let go of the past?

It’s really painful to be faced with the choice of either shutting my parents out because it’s too hard to have a relationship with them, or embarking on the possibility of being hurt all over again.  Of course, there’s a third possibility: that it will be different if I make it different with intention.  Either way, the bottom line is that I want more than just not talking to my parents in order to cope.

Put in My Place

This past Tuesday I woke up to International Women's Day feeling excited.  I practiced mindfulness as I went throughout my morning routine, which was especially busy that day.  I ran to various stores, banks, and dropoffs.  I wanted to get done with my work and then go for a short run, listening to all my favorite female artists on my playlist in honor of the day.

As I got home from picking up my son from school, running milk and water into the house and grabbing bikes to take to the shop while my boys waited in their carseats, I noticed that Tim was at my next door neighbor's house.  Tim is a neighbor from one street over, characterized by his intensity.  He once found my lost keys and walked around the entire neighborhood for an hour until he found me and returned them to me.  He also takes it upon himself to inform all the residents in our area of their alleged infractions of HOA rules.

In fact, just a few days before he had yelled over his fence that we weren't allowed to play in the parking lot while my son learned to ride his bike.  My husband and I argued with him for a few minutes, tried to leave several times, and resolved to ignore him from then on at all costs.  This was mostly because he asked for our address in a menacing way, prompting me to immediately sit up and take notice of the implicit threat in his voice.  I told my husband that I did not feel safe around him after seeing him come after us so aggressively.

Growing up in abuse has made it so I can see abuse coming from a mile away.  I usually go with my gut when I choose not to trust someone.  I take careful inventory of if I feel threatened, belittled, or treated as "lesser-than".  I joke sometimes that I grew up with master manipulators, and I am unimpressed with the efforts of some people that I meet by comparison.  My neighbor Tim set off this alarm in me that day.

So here I am, a few days later, trying my best to avoid him, and finding him almost on my doorstep, literally.  I was standing in my driveway, loading bikes onto the rack, trying to avoid talking to him.  However, Tim saw me and immediately came up and started yelling.  Now that he knew where I lived, he remembered the time he had brought me my keys.

He verbally attacked me for arguing with him, for not being nicer to him because of the keys incident, called me confrontational, said he was glad he knew where I lived now.  Because he's the kind of person who talks over people and doesn't listen, I already knew I didn't stand a chance trying to reason with him again, or trying to engage him at all.  He was right about everything, and he knew it.  From the moment he stepped onto my driveway and into my personal space, my alarm went off full throttle.  I started shaking, but kept my head and repeated these words to him, forcefully, over and over: "I don't want to talk to you", "Get off my property", "Stop talking to me", and "Leave me alone".

He spent ten minutes ignoring my request for bodily safety.  He felt entitled to threaten me with his words and his proximity.  He told me what to do, and how, and without a trace of irony told me how confrontational I am.  He finally stepped away from me as I didn't back down.  I kept shaking and got into my car as he bemoaned to my next door neighbor how awful I was.  I dropped off my bikes at the shop, called the HOA to lodge a complaint, and then called my husband.

As the shock wore off, I realized that I had been harmed in a way that warranted police intervention.*  I deserve to live in my house without fear of verbal attacks, or eventual physical assault (which I'm sure could happen if I talk to this man again).  In fact, I owethat to my sex to stand up for myself.  So I did.  I have healed enough in my life to know what I deserve, and to take it.

On International Women's Day, I honored myself as a person deserving respect.  I took action when I was put in my place by Tim, declaring to humanity everywhere: "No, I will not cower to this controlling man.  I will defend myself and not apologize for it.  I know what is right, and I will boldly stand up for myself."

I am a woman who has worked too long and hard to cower to old, sexist, aggressive neighbors.  But I am a big enough person to see him for the way he is, and let it be.  The greatest experience I could have had for IWD was the reminder of how some people see me.  I feel closer to women all over the world because if it.  And I feel stronger in my sense of self.

*I did call the police, and he was served with a trespass warning.  I haven't seen him since.

(cross-posted at The Exponent)

Parmesan-Crusted Grilled Cheese Sammies

We all know how to make a basic grilled cheese sandwich, bread plus cheese plus butter grilled in a pan.  But wow are these fancified grilled sammies yummy!  Hat tip to my sister, who makes the best crispy parmesan creations ever :)

Parmesan-Crusted Grilled Cheese Sammies

from T-Nee, my sister

2 slices of sprouted whole grain bread, like at Trader Joe's (they have several kinds--I buy the organic kind with no soy on the ingredient list)

slices of raw cheddar cheese

grass-fed butter, like Kerrygold

parmesan cheese, grated with a microplane

garlic powder

dried oregano

dried basil

1. Heat an empty cast iron skillet on medium heat while you get your sandwich ready.

2. Butter a thick layer on to each piece of bread (remember that you need the fats to digest the grains!).  Sprinkle with parmesan and press to make it stick well.  Sprinkle with a little garlic powder, oregano and basil.  Then build the sandwich carefully in the pan with the cheddar in the middle.  

3. Lower the heat to low, and cover pan with a lid.  Grill until the parmesan is browned and crispy, and the cheddar is melting.  Then flip and grill the other side to match.  Serve with tomato soup, or in my case tonight: roasted red-pepper and tomato soup from, you guessed it, Trader Joe's!

Reflections

"Love everybody, all the time, for no reason at all." 

It's the time of year where wintry temperatures, even here in Arizona, evoke thoughts of quiet thoughtfulness.  We look forward to warmth and spring, seeing parts of ourselves in each season of the year.  I love that we cycle through four seasons every year, each shift in weather reminding us what it is like to feel hot, what it's like to sit with family during the holidays, how wonderful it is to plant seeds and watch them grow.

Growing up in the Church planted many ideas that I still carry to this day.  The eternal round idea still appeals to me, even though I have left many other pieces of Mormonism behind.  We have the circle of seasons, cycles of the moon, the biorhythms in our bodies.  Now I interpret it differently.  I think that whatever I send out with my energy, is what I get back.  After all, the Earth is round, not flat.

Today also happens to be graduation day.  Today, at 6:30 sharp, I will be sitting with my youth in our mentoring pair as she graduates from our ten-month program.  I have regrets but I also feel gratified.  Each day I spent with the community at Phoenix Youth at Risk was a leap of faith, a laboratory for change, a group therapy meeting, a magical process.

Mentoring my youth wasn't about changing her, it was about loving her without judgement.  It was ten months of practicing unconditional love, remembering that she was the possibility of all possibilities.  I wasn't very good at loving her.  I let preconceived notions hamper me.  Sometimes I could not see her. I have a problem with that.  Sometimes I don't see my 5-year-old either, or my husband, or my 2-year-old.  It's easy to see them as obstacles.  But then I wake up, remember that they are here happening forme, not to me.

As I reflect on my Mormon upbringing, the mentoring of the last nearly-year, therapy, and meditation, I see that these are mirrors in my life showing me me. So what do I do with that?  I own my shit.  If I own what's mine, then I can move from there.  Because it's only then that I truly see the world and people around me, without the film of my own issues blurring them from me.

"May I be filled with loving-kindness,

May I be well,

May I be peaceful and at ease,

May I be happy."

--Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart 

(cross-posted at The Exponent)

Almond Roca (sugar-free, honey-sweetened)

Ever since the holidays we have been enjoying little bites of almond roca for an occasional sweet treat.  This candy is very easy to make.  Simple directions and a short list of ingredients make for an elegant dessert with a crunch.  I make it plain, but you can melt chocolate and drizzle it on top for a more decadent version.

When I use them, I soak raw nuts and seeds in a salty brine for a day, then dehydrate them a low temperature to improve digestibility.  The soaking removes enzyme inhibitors, which interfere with your body's ability to utilize the enzymes present in these raw morsels.  Then the dehydrating returns them to their crispy state, but doesn't kill the enzymes that are now available for absorption in the body.  It is still better to soak nuts and seeds even if you plan to roast them.  The enzymes will die, but at least the enzyme inhibitors are neutralized.

Almond Roca

1 1/2 cups butter

1 cup honey

1 cup chopped almonds

1. Melt butter gently in a saucepan.  Add honey while the butter melts, stirring constantly until nicely combined.  

2. Using a candy thermometer, heat the mixture over medium-high heat until it reaches the "soft-crack stage" or the "hard-crack stage".  Use "soft-crack" for a softer candy that bends, but then cracks into pieces when broken apart.  Use "hard-crack" for a harder candy that is stiff, and doesn't bend when broken into pieces.

3. After the mixture reaches the desired temperature, stir in the chopped almonds until combined.  Then immediately spread onto a jelly roll pan lined with parchment paper, or that has been buttered to cool.  Let cool for 45 minutes or so.  Transfer to the refrigerator to cool completely.

 4.  When you put your hand on the candy and cannot feel any more heat radiating from it, remove from the refrigerator to break into pieces.  Remove the pan and paper.  Break into any size you like.

5.  You can store the candy at room temperature, but it does get a bit sticky and the pieces hold on to each other.  I kept ours in the fridge until they were mostly gone, then started keeping the remainder in the cupboard.  Either way I prefer to eat them at room temperature, so if you store in the refrigerator, remove about 20 minutes before you want to eat it.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

Comment Issues

Hi readers.  I have been having some formatting trouble with the comments, but for now I have at least returned it to the original options.  I'll keep working on it.  In the meantime, sorry about that!

M and His Butterflies

M got caterpillars for Christmas.  Well, he got a netted container with a voucher for caterpillars anyway. I love Amazon, and we generally buy most things through it, from grocery items to birthdays and Christmas presents.  We sent away from M's caterpillars at the end of December. His caterpillars finally arrived a few weeks ago.  They crawled around, tiny, eating their food for several days.  They grew and grew and eventually hung from their lid, each forming a chrysalis.  Then, we moved the chrysalides to the netted container and watched them every day.

A few days ago, one chrysalis turned dark and a butterfly emerged.  Yesterday, two more followed.  And today, the final butterfly emerged.  M is the proud papa of four painted lady butterflies.  M named them, in order of emergence from their pods: Iam, Isaac, Sheila and Hella.  According to M, Iam and Isaac are boys, and Sheila and Hella are girls.

We have been giving the butterflies slices of orange to munch on until they were all ready to be released outside.  Of course, M had to be ready too.  A few minutes ago, M announced that he was ready to let them go in the backyard.  We took the net outside, opened the top and gently helped them come out.  They hung around the patio for a few minutes, walking around and trying out their wings.  But then one took flight (we could swear it was Sheila) and we yelled "goodbye!" to her.  While we prepared a plate with sugar-water and orange slices to place in the backyard,  two more butterflies flew off to explore the neighborhood.  M and I hope they come back to visit.  Maybe they will fly by to say "hi" and have a little snack.

(I included the Amazon link above for the brand we bought.  We love it, and their customer service was very nice.)

Local Eggs and Produce

I get my eggs every other Saturday at the Phoenix Public Market downtown.  I also always get my produce there, gathering items that cover a wide spectrum.  It's good for our bodies to have variety.  I love some of the heirloom varieties you can find at the different booths.

Jimmie and Celia at Chile Acres are now my friends since I started buying from them over a year ago.  They treat me right, and they treat their chickens right too.  Their birds (they have ducks, too) live outside on pasture, eating bugs, foraging, having garden scraps from the farm.  They do have feed, but it doesn't contain any soy.  When I break the eggs open, the yolks are a very dark orange.  Orange means nutrition.  We love these eggs!

The place I go for produce first every time at the Market is Maya's Farm.  I love all their varying onions and garlics, wonderful herbs, melons, tomatoes, lettuces and the meyer lemons, oh! the meyer lemons!  I also like to know that my produce is fresher and grown in mineral-rich soil, yielding more trace minerals in my foods.  That's part of the reason I try to garden as much as possible too.  I may even start vermicomposting after talking with my friend last night about house-hunting yesterday.  We found a small three-bedroom with a pretty kickass backyard.  Yay!

This post is part of Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade.

Things M Says (part 37)

M, choosing a song on the iPod that R doesn't like:

R: "Can you change it? I'm not digging this song."
M, changing it to the next one: "Are you digging for this one?"

(Quick) Tomato Basil Soup with Parmesan Curls

I love tomato soup. Of course, I grew up getting mine out of a can. Canned soup generally contains monosodium glutamate (MSG), vegetable oils like cottonseed, soybean, canola, safflower or sunflower (which are usually cheap, rancid byproducts of Big Ag), high fructose corn syrup, citric acid (another kind of MSG), autolyzed yeast (yet another kind of MSG), cheap iodized salt, wheat flour (which is white flour, probably "enriched" which really means "devoid of nutritional value"). But now that I know about the ingredients in canned soup, I am happy to make my own.  Since I am in the habit of making my own stocks, I can usually throw a soup together in a few minutes.

I usually follow a basic Tomato Cream Soup recipe from Kim Knoch at The Nourishing Cook. She says you can throw it all together in 3 minutes, and she's right.  I usually double her recipe since I have the large cans of diced tomatoes.

I DO use canned tomatoes, which are not ideal due to BPA in the linings of most canned foods.  Eden Organic is the only canned food manufacturer in the States using BPA-free cans, but even they are unable to use those BPA-free cans for tomatoes.  The FDA won't allow it, due to their acidity.

But until I learn how to can, and how to find the time to do it, I am calling compromise on this one.  Maybe once tomatoes are in season here, I will dice them up for fresh tomato soup.

Tomato Cream Soup

28 ounce can of diced tomatoes, or tomato sauce

4 cups homemade chicken stock

1/2 cup tomato paste

1 cup cream

1 cup whole milk

sea salt and pepper to taste

1. Add all ingredients to a soup pot, blending with a stick blender to desired consistency (if you used diced tomatoes).  Heat through and serve.

After I had made this basic recipe a few times, which is perfect for a cold day or for dipping grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, I wanted to make something a little different.

Tomato Basil Cream Soup with Parmesan Curls

14 ounce can of diced tomatoes

14 ounce can tomato sauce

1/2 cup tomato paste

1 cup cream

1 cup whole milk

sea salt and pepper to taste

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon onion powder

2-3 tablespoons dried basil (or a handful of chopped fresh basil)

parmesan cheese curls, cut with a knife or cheese slicer

1. Combine all ingredients except cheese curls into a large soup pot.  Heat through, blending with a stick blender to your desired consistency.  Serve in bowls with cheese curls floating on top, and with sourdough toasts and grass-fed butter or homemade crackers.

(This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays at Kelly the Kitchen Kop)

Real Food Nutrition and Health E-Course

Food Renegade is one of my oft-checked real food blogs.  I am getting more involved with Real Food Media and blogging here at k-land about real food, nourishing practices, and my family's health.  As I build up momentum, I am inspired by the work some of these bloggers do.  It's not just the beautiful websites and the wholesome recipes, it's the feeling of solidarity to have people with me in the real food arena.  A lot of people doubt the veracity of Nourishing Tradition's claims, or that saturated fat really is good for you, or that our ancestors ate raw dairy, sprouted and sourdoughed grains, pastured meats and eggs.

Starting on February 4th and ending April 8th, Food Renegade's Kristen is starting an e-class, complete with e-book!, that teaches you all the basics to traditional foods.  I love how Kristen puts it:

"Nutrition fascinates me. It's a blend of biology, history, chemistry. It's the story of traditional peoples and what they ate, the story of convenience foods and food manufacturing. It's the story of modern Industrial agriculture, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, genetic engineering, and diminishing top soil while also being the story of humane animal husbandry, biodynamic farming, and a respect for life. It's the story of modern diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Yet it also teaches about true health and aging with stamina."

I feel the exact same way.  I love the intersection of learning about my ancestors and what they ate, wading through current science on nutrition, and then actually incorporating those practices into my kitchen and family menu.  I already have downloaded the ebook, and I am looking forward to the course coming up in a few weeks!

Real Food Nutrition and Health E-Course

And here is a short video to introduce you to what the e-course is all about.  It sounds a lot like Kristen has managed to cover all the basics.  This is great way to jump in to real, whole, traditional food.  Or if you already have committed, it can sharpen your understand of why we all need real food so much.  Enjoy!

The Thousand-Petaled Lotus

When we reach this level, the seed of our soul has sprouted from its roots in the earth, and grown upward through the elements of water, fire, air, sound, and light, and now to the source of all--consciousness itself, experienced through the element of thought.  Each level brings us new degrees of freedom and awareness.  Now the crown chakra blossoms forth with infinite awareness, its thousand petals like antennae, reaching to higher dimensions. --Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith, pg. 320

Last year I went to a retreat in southern Arizona, a yearly event with my husband's law firm.  We get to stay in lovely hotel rooms, eat gorgeous meals, relax at the spa, and golf in spectacular surroundings.  As usual, I shunned golfing and signed up for a full body massage, my favorite thing on the planet.  And since my husband did not want to go to the spa, I found myself with an extra time allotment.  I had never had a facial, so deciding to try something new I put myself in the schedule.

Carefully choosing the simplest line of products the spa offered, I laid back and started talking with the esthetician as she was working.  Partway through our session she asked if it was okay to "work on my chakras".  I tried not to roll my eyes as she got out her chakra stones, reminding myself that I did not know anything about chakras that I had not heard from skeptics or pop culture.  Either way, I would have a personal experience with chakras that I could draw on for information.

The stones clinked into her hand out of the drawstring bag.  She told me that if I had a chakra out of balance then I would feel the stone as being either hot or cold.  She started with the Root Chakra and worked upward, setting a semi-precious stone over each one on top of the sheet that covered me.  I know now that in yoga practice pranic energy in the body can activate dormant spiritual energy called Kundalini, visualized as a snake coiled up in the first (root) chakra at the base of the spine that, when roused, can move upward passing through each of the lower chakras until becoming one with Crown Chakra.

Halfway there, when we reached the Heart Chakra my skin was exposed and the stone felt cold on my skin.  I internally harumphed and thought "of course it feels cold on my skin, it's a stone". Throat Chakra felt neutral.  Third Eye Chakra felt neutral.  After each placing of the stone, she read a small paragraph from a paper explaining what the chakra meant, what color was associated with that chakra, and which stone she was using.  We had reached the final chakra.

I could not have prepared myself for what that last stone-placing would be like.  She took out an amethyst and said that Crown Chakra was associated with knowledge, intelligence, and oneness.  As she started talking she took the amethyst and gently drew a circle with it on the top of my head.  I flinched as the stone drew that white hot disc on my scalp.  The burning felt bright, like looking into the sun.  I was stunned, though I did manage to explain what had just happened.  The only direction I got that day was to "look into balancing your crown chakra".

Since then, I have pondered what my surprising reaction to that amethyst was.  I have since been to a chiropractic appointment where my coronal suture (the top of my head) was very tight and required a shoulder and neck adjustment.  And just last week I got a(nother) massage and the therapist said I have one of the tightest scalps she has ever worked with.  The universe seems to be trying to send me a message: "fix your head!"

Did the amethyst just feel hot because I have tension in my scalp?  Maybe.  Are chakras more than they seem?  Probably.  I cannot deny that I have been profoundly affected by that experience, especially as it keeps resurfacing in my life.  I even have a crown chakra necklace I wear most days, reminding me of my true nature.  My resolutions for the new year are in a similar vein too, to increase mindfulness through daily meditation (and then tweet them under #meditation365).

I have always known that I should meditate, but I never saw the glaring need until this year.  As a survivor of abuse I have a few post-truamatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms.  I have noticed a correlation between my general stress levels and the severity of my symptoms.  I have also noticed a correlation between managing my stress with meditation and being able to sleep well, eat well, and make progress on my weight loss goal.

Physiologically, the crown chakra relates to the brain, especially the higher brain, or cerebral cortex.  Our amazing human brain contains some thirteen billion interconnected nerve cells, capable of making more connections among themselves than the number of start in the entire universe...Our brains, as instruments of awareness, are virtually limitless...From within, we access a dimension that has no locality in time and space...In other words, we carry the whole world inside our heads.  --Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith, pg. 321

I will continue to find connections between my body, mind, awareness, health and spirituality.  What kinds of connections have you, dear readers, found on your spiritual paths?

(cross-posted at The Exponent) 

Submissions for Exponent II Spring 2011 Issue due January 15th

I am writing an article for this submission.  Any of my readers want to contribute?

You can check out the announcement and call for submissions here at The Exponent.

And you can read the current Winter 2010 issue here.

Real Food Resolutions

It's that time of year where almost everyone makes a new year's resolution, and I am no different.  I just wrote a post this morning about meditation and cleaning, two paths that I am endeavoring to take this year on 2011.

In the meantime, I have noticed that one of my favorite bloggers, Kimi over at The Nourishing Gourmet, is hosting a Nourishing Resolutions 2011 carnival today.  So here I am, making my real food resolution list.

Real Food Resolutions:

1. For vitamin K2: Make liver once a week, or serve natto. (Either way we will be having hard cheese and Kerrygold butter almost daily.)
2. For B vitamins: Make a Coconut Smoothie with nutritional yeast added to it at least once a week.  
3. For maintenance: Keep going and maintaining my current nourishing practices by making water kefir, making beet kvass, sprouting wheat for flour, soaking grains, soaking and dehydrating nuts, taking daily cod liver oil and butter oil, daily vitamin C and B complex, maca root, oregano oil, iodine from kelp, and a multivitamin.
4. Participate: Join in a real food carnival once a month.
5. Continue with my weight loss goal: Operation Lose Baby Weight.  (Based on Eat Fat, Lose Fat.)

This post is part of Nourishing Resolutions 2011 Carnival at The Nourishing Gourmet.

Meditation, Drawing, Cleaning, Reading or "2 New Goals"

I love making goals.  I have been involved with Phoenix Youth at Risk for almost a year now.  We make a LOT of goals in the program, and I have seen some amazing things pulled from deep inside me last year.  I love getting out a new goal sheet and filling it out.  I love the clarity I get as I create the vision at the beginning, and I love the clarity that comes after completing the steps and seeing the transformation in my life.  I just love it!

I was inspired by a recent project of my friend G where she completed a drawing every day last year, called #draw365.  I love the idea of doing something once a day, and how satisfying it would be to look back over the accumulation of those days by this time next year.

And then I was thinking and clicking around the internet, I got inspired by another friend mfranti to try out a #clean365 project, since I already do that most days, but it's more random and without an overlying purpose.  This one doesn't stress me out, but will help me stretch a bit to feel and look more organized.  So there is one goal I can make and keep, and tweet under #clean365.

Of course, after the all the drawing and cleaning thoughts I got to thinking about meditation.  I am thinking that I may try a #meditation365 hashtag of my own, or maybe it already exists.  I find myself meditating on my relationship with my children the most.

I had a conversation once with R when M was giving me some grief about a year ago.  I joked "what would the Buddha say?" and he came back with "he would say to see The Boy's suffering".  I was hit with that sentence like a ton of bricks.  Ever since then I have seen my relationship with M (and E) a little more clearly.

Starting with Thich Nhat Hanh's book Peace is Every Step, I'm going to read many books on mindfulness this year, taking inspiration from them to direct my daily meditation.  Upcoming books that I have been eyeing:

• A Path with Heart
• The Simple Feeling of Being
• The Places That Scare You
• The Untethered Soul
• Happy Yoga
• Living with the Devil
• Buddhism Without Beliefs
• Wheels of Life: A User's Guide to the Chakra System
• Light on Yoga
• Yoga and the Quest for the True Self
• The Essential Rumi
• Emptiness Dancing
• Parenting with Love and Logic
• After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

This will be another goal I can realistically make and keep, and even tweet daily under #meditation365.


I suppose I should mention that you can follow me on Twitter here, huh?


(Of course, I will be continuing on with my Operation Lose Baby Weight goal.  I am already very comfortable taking my coconut oil three times a day, keeping my fats plentiful, nourishing, and traditional, and being patient while the weight comes off.  So far I have managed to shed 5 pounds, but there is a lot more where that came from!  That will be my goal until it's completed.)