Avivah Werner

Category: nutrition

  • The vet was so angry – our different views on dog nutrition

    Five days after we adopted our dog Nala from the shelter, she woke up listless and not interested in her food.

    The vet at the shelter told me not to be alarmed if she experienced digestive upset the first week, that it’s common and to be expected due to the changes in her life.

    Nonetheless, since she’s so new to us, I wanted to confirm that everything was okay and made an appointment at the vet.

    Our usual vet was on vacation and her secretary recommended someone else. Before I even walked into the building for the appointment, Nala was feeling so much better that I wondered if I should cancel the appointment.

    But I decided to get her checked out anyway.

    Everything was fine until the vet asked what I fed her the day before, and I responded, “Chicken.”

    “Chicken?!” she asked in disbelief. “With bones?”

    “Yes, it was raw”, I assured her, knowing that the potential issue in giving bones is only when they are cooked.

    (Before deciding to feed our dog a raw carnivore diet, which is frankly intuitive for carnivorous animals descended from wolves, I first did research on how to do it in a balanced and healthy way. I found the teachings of veterinary surgeon Dr. Ian Billinghurst, ‘father’ of the raw feeding approach, with over four decades of experience, particularly valuable.)

    She became accusatory and hostile, and it was obvious she viewed me as a wildly irresponsible dog owner who was on track to be a dog killer.

    “No, you absolutely can not give that! Would you eat raw chicken? You can’t give it to your dog, either! She’ll get salmonella or e-coli poisoning.”

    I was in disbelief at the absurdity of her question. Since when is the guideline of what to feed a pet based on what a person eats? Dogs have a different digestive system than humans, and are scavengers who routinely bury their food only to dig it up to eat weeks later after it’s rotted. I think Nala can handle a raw chicken wing.

    But instead of saying any of what I was thinking, I asked for clarification: “So you’re saying the chicken and meat has to be cooked?”

    “No! No meat or chicken at all! They need to have appropriate dog food.”

    Conveniently, she happens to sell the perfectly formulated combination of grains, seed oils and meat byproducts that is known as kibble. “It’s expensive, but it’s very good quality.”

    I don’t care how many scientists worked on that formulation. It’s not biologically appropriate and there’s no way the quality can compete with what I’m feeding her.

    I have a section of the freezer packed with her food: chicken wings, turkey necks, chicken hearts, liver, beef tongue, beef roast, and on Shabbos morning when I go to shul, I leave her a meaty beef bone to chew on. I also give her eggs and raw goat milk. I feed according to the 80/10/10 ratios: 80 percent protein, 10 percent bone, 10 percent organ meat (half of that is liver).

    The vet diagnosed Nala with a mild digestive infection – from the chicken, she said – and gave me antibiotics for her. (I didn’t use them – I gave her vitamin C powder in her water as soon as we got home.) I didn’t bother making any query about digestive upset the first week in a new home being expected.

    After presenting me with a bill of almost 500 shekels, she again stressed that dogs can’t eat food that people eat.

    “It’s not like it was once upon a time, when people gave their pets table scraps and the pets only lived three years. Now you’ve learned a lesson for next time.”

    Actually, dogs lived dramatically longer when they lived off table scraps instead of kibble, and once they began eating commercial dog food, human diseases like cancer and diabetes became common.

    She was right about one thing: I learned a lesson. It just wasn’t the lesson she thought she had taught me, to only give my dog kibble.

    I learned that we are woefully misaligned and I will not be going back.

    After I got home and did some more research, I learned that veterinary nutritional training is paid for by the pet food companies. The things I’ve learned about pet nutrition will keep animals much healthier and living longer lives, but it’s not what is being taught.

    I understand that the vet and I are products of different education and different paradigms. My biggest issue wasn’t that we disagreed, but that she wasn’t respectful and communicated in a hostile manner. I speak to a lot of people about a lot of things, and am comfortable with different viewpoints being shared. I’m not okay with disrespect.

    She did admonish me to immediately get pet health insurance, since as a young dog Nala is expected to have a lifetime of vet visits in her future. We have different ideas about that, too.

    I took our last dog to vet once in six years for a diagnosis, then treated him at home with vitamin C.

    I didn’t raw feed him but I did minimize the kibble since it became obvious he hated it and would only eat it if he were desperate. He had very good health, with people constantly mistaking him for a much younger dog, and his past owners were shocked he was still living when we spoke the year before he died.

    I’m confident that this nutritional approach will give my dog the best possible life, so we’ll be sticking with what we’re doing.

    Avivah

  • Are the new US dietary guidelines a cause for celebration?

    There’s been a lot of exultation being expressed about the changes to the US dietary pyramid recommendations, and my initial response on viewing it was to be pleasantly surprised.

    I know that RFK eats a diet very similar to mine (close to carnivore) and he’s very knowledgeable about real nutrition, but I couldn’t imagine how any meaningful changes would be supported.

    When I saw the new food pyramid picture, I thought it was too good to be true. After all, a lot of money would be lost by major food producers if these guidelines were followed. Not only that, the masses of people with improving health would create a huge financial loss to the pharmaceutical industry. Tremendous earnings are involved in the food pyramid and the stakes are very high – for the individual’s health, and for the revenue potential of the biggest companies in the US.

    There are a lot of lobbyists battling to keep the status quo, and I presume that every single bit of change on this pyramid was fought for. I give a lot of credit to those who pushed for the changes.

    Here are the specific guidelines of the new pyramid, ten pages in all. It’s worth reading because you’ll understand the most important detail is one you might think insignificant.

    First, the good news and improvements are immediately visible. Look at all that beautiful whole food! Look at meat, chicken and cheese being the foundation of a good diet! All high fat, high nutrient density foods, long been demonized and now being highlighted as ideal.

    Look how carefully the lower carb vegetables make up the higher amount of the diet, with low carb berries and avocados close to the foundation; sugary fruits like bananas and grapes are listed higher up, being they should be eaten more moderately.

    All this is amazing. So much of what they wrote in the guidelines is really good. Not perfect, but very good.

    Healthy fats are part of the healthy foundation. Let’s look at the literature to see what they’re calling healthy fats. I was happy to see the following, making for a long overdue official policy change in the attitude towards saturated fats.

    “Incorporate healthy fats: Healthy fats are plentiful in many whole
    foods, such as meats, poultry, eggs, omega-3–rich seafood, nuts, seeds, full-fat dairy, olives, and avocados.”

    “When cooking with or adding fats to meals, prioritize oils with essential fatty acids, such as olive oil. Other options can include butter or beef tallow.”

    What??? Butter and beef tallow? Long claimed to be heart clogging, now being listed as fats to prioritize? I thought for a moment that angels were singing.

    And then I came to the next line, and this is the nail in the coffin for this food pyramid:

    “In general, saturated fat consumption should not exceed 10% of total daily calories. Significantly limiting highly processed foods will help meet this goal. More high-quality research is needed to determine which types of dietary fats best support long-term health.“

    Let’s ignore that mealy mouthed, wishy washy final statement. There have been tons of studies done and we know what dietary fats support long term health: saturated fats. This statement was clearly included to appease someone.

    Let’s look at the other two sentences before that. Do you think that fast food is high in saturated fat? Do you think that highly processed foods are high in saturated fats?

    Not if they’re prepared with seed oils they aren’t.

    All a processed food producer of a high saturated fat product needs to change to be within guidelines is to shift from palm oil to canola. Then their labels can claim they meet the health guidelines, making them appear to be a healthy option.

    If limiting processed foods isn’t going to keep your saturated fat intake down to 10%, what will you have to limit?

    You will have to cut down your intake on the exact foods that are listed as foundational: meat, chicken, eggs, butter, tallow! So logistically speaking, these are the foods that will have to be minimized to fit the guidelines of the recommended diet.

    The protein guidelines have been increased, which is great. What can be served that will meat the increased protein guidelines, and stay within the 10% saturated fat cap?

    Plant proteins.

    You don’t see plant proteins pictured in the new pyramid, but they are mentioned in the document and it’s the details that matter, not the hyped up picture.

    What fats will they use, if they can’t use saturated fats without going over the guidelines?

    Seed oils.

    You may say, who cares about the details? These are great changes! No one reads the specifics of the guidelines; people will look at the picture and will be encouraged to eat more of those high nutrient dense foods.

    For the individuals who do that, it’s a huge gain for them.

    HOWEVER. All food served through federal food programs will need to align with the guidelines. How many people does that affect? All school meals (60% of school children get school lunches), elderly food programs (1-2 million people), food programs for the poor, military, and prison meals (2 million adults) need to comply with the guidelines. All food in hospitals and nursing homes will have to comply with these guidelines. That’s a huge percentage of the US population that is affected by these guidelines.

    You see, the food that is government funded to many millions of Americans isn’t going to change much at all. I’m guessing the biggest change to the government approved menus, will be Pop Tarts being replaced by the Impossible Burger. I am really skeptical that will produce notable gains in health.

    Presumably nutritionists and doctors will be trained using these guidelines, and again, they’ll be promoting nutritional information that is very limited and won’t result in good health.

    (I found an article detailing the issues with this pyramid by Nina Teicholz, author of The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet. It’s definitely worth a read, since she was on the inside trying to pass meaningful changes that would benefit the health of the US citizens.)

    Now you understand how these guidelines could pass. It’s not going to make nearly as many changes to the health or pockets as it would appear at first glance.

    ——————-

    For me, it doesn’t make a difference one way or another what the guidelines are. I’ve done my own research over many years about nutrition and other aspects of health. I’ll continue to do those things, whether they are recommended or not.

    Every one of you has the ability to take responsibility for your own health. It’s literally in your hands, the hand that puts food in your mouth.

    Don’t abdicate that responsibility to anyone else.

    Don’t be distracted by politicians or grandstanding.

    Keep your focus on your own choice, and keep taking the next step in the direction you want to go.

    Avivah

  • What I feed my family these days – carnivore/zero carb/low carb

    >>After your last post I have so many questions.
    1. How do you feed your little ones? Are they also on a zero carb diet? I have little ones who won’t touch eggs, so I’m trying to figure out if I can easily make a zero carb diet work for our whole family, particularly breakfast meals.2. Isn’t it more expensive to eat a zero carb diet, particularly with eating kosher meats?3. What would I give the kids for snacks while traveling? <<

    My family is meat heavy, but some have no carbs, some minimal carbs and some moderate carbs.

    I’ll preface with my perspective on eating. I don’t try to make carnivore foods that imitate high carb treat foods; I don’t experience any benefit in that for me. I’m changing my thinking about eating just as much as I’m changing the food I eat, and part of that shift is to see food as tasty fuel rather than entertainment or something to fill a space inside.

    I eat like a queen but it’s simple and filling. Likely it will seem boring to read about; can it really be that simple? Yes, it really can. I’ve gotten clear on what I like and what feels good, and I stick with that.

    I eat mostly ground meat, usually as hamburgers or meatballs, and hot out of the pan I top them with ground raw beef tallow. The heat of the meat partially melts it and it’s so delicious and incredibly filling. I usually eat a half kilo for a meal and eat twice a day. To keep costs down, I fill in with chicken wings and eggs but if cost were no issue I’d only have meat. My dairy intake is low. Occasionally I’ll have some cheese but I get a twinge in my hip a day or two later when I do. I sometimes have sour cream with sunnyside up eggs cooked in butter. That’s about it.

    My husband started eating like this a couple of months after me, so it’s been 9.5 months. (He ate strictly zero carb for two and a half years several years ago.) He eats almost the same as me, except he prefers roast beef to ground meat and has more eggs than I do. Twice a week we prepare two or three roasts, slice it all up once it’s cooked and he heats up the amount he wants to eat at a meal. He used to have butter but after going zero carb realized it was the cause of breathing difficulties at night (who would have thought?!?). He made ghee (clarified butter) but that still wasn’t ideal for him so now he doesn’t have any dairy at all and he no longer uses an inhaler.

    My fifteen year old son asked if he could join us in eating this way; I don’t remember exactly when he began but I think it’s been about three months. My only hesitation was cost – I’d love to have everyone in the family eat this way but I can’t yet stretch my budget that far. His daily breakfast is eight eggs in butter, an individual container of sour cream and now that they’re in season, an avocado. He prefers sour cream with 27% fat content, but since the 15% sour cream is much less expensive, he eats that as well. He usually has chicken wings, ground meat or roast later in the day. His comprehension of gemara and thinking skills have become notably sharper and his 30 year old chavrusa has commented on the change.

    My twelve year old has been eating like this for 4.5 months. Earlier on I made more involved foods to pack for his lunch box like cold cut wraps and chicken bread, and every day tried to make different dishes. Like me, he’s settled into what he likes and it’s pretty similar from day to day: chicken wings, meatballs and hardboiled eggs. Very occasionally I send tuna or egg salad, cottage cheese and sour cream. We’ve seen some significant health improvements for him, he’s calmer and it’s easier for him to transition from one activity to another, and his teachers have commented about how fast he learns things now. His adherence has been good though he does sometimes eat higher carb foods out of the house, and sometimes has fruit at home.

    He and my husband prepare a carnivore platter to take to shul on Shabbos mornings so he has something to eat instead of everything else served, which is almost exclusively white flour and sugar. This is some combination of hot dogs, cold cuts, meatballs, steak bites and devilled eggs (people around them have wanted to eat from their platter because it’s so appealing!). It’s very impressive how he sticks with this when surrounded by everyone else eating the standard kiddush fare.

    Now for the three younger kids, they love, love, love meat and chicken. I send them standard lunch box fare – a sandwich or two, a fruit, a vegetable, sometimes a hardboiled egg or cheese. Before they leave in the morning all four of them have either chicken wings or hardboiled eggs, sometimes meatballs. For months I’ve started the day by cooking a pot of hardboiled eggs while cooking the meat or chicken main for ds12’s lunch box. When they saw there chicken wings that didn’t go into his lunch, they would ask to have them and it’s turned into a regular preferred breakfast for them.

    On Shabbos mornings they have cottage cheese and sour cream with chopped fruit mixed in.

    The three boys get school lunches that include a protein, starch, cooked vegetable – ds12 and ds8 bring them home and eat when they arrive. Ds12 just eats the protein. Ds7 gets lunch at school but dd7 doesn’t and as soon as she walks in the door, informs me she’s hungry and asks to make herself meatballs. Today I said I’d make her eggs instead, and she specified she wants meat eggs, not cooked in butter, so I cooked two eggs in tallow and crumbled in a meatball and she was happy.

    The younger three have fruit as a snack, and dinner is usually low carb. It’s an ongoing challenge for me to make a meal that adapts well for ds12, and lately I’ve been making low carb meals that all of the kids eat.

    Here’s our dinners from the last week- I make large quantities and the children eat as much as they want.

    • Sunday – tuna toasties (tuna, homemade mayo, diced pickles, mixed and then grilled on bread – no bread for ds12, just the tuna salad)
    • Monday – ground beef with sauteed cabbage
    • Tuesday – chicken giblets, sprouted lentil stir fry (carrots, onion, fennel, zucchini) – ds12 didn’t have the stir fry
    • Wednesday – thick chicken egg drop soup
    • Thursday – egg pizzas (large omelets with tomato sauce and olives on top)
    • Sunday – ground beef moussaka

    For those who include dairy and/or don’t eat kosher, there are many more combinations possible.

    As far as cost, some people would eat less expensive or more expensive hechsherim than we do and that would affect the price. Many people have said they don’t spend more eating carnivore than they did previously, since they no longer have to buy all the other items. I’m a very frugal shopper and I’m spending more on groceries than I did in the past.

    When eating meat, there’s a satiety factor that can is significant and surprising. There’s much less need or desire for other foods, and as a result, the kids stay full longer and request fewer snacks after a zero carb meal. Interestingly, I’ve noticed that if I add a vegetable to my meals, then I feel more hungry and eat more meat with my vegetables than I would have if I only had the meat alone. It’s counterintuitive but that’s my experience, and it seems similar to what I see with the kids.

    It’s been interesting for me to see their taste buds shift, particularly since when the twins came to us a year and a half ago, they were used to cookies for breakfast and jello snacks after school. I think part of their eating preferences is due to seeing two parents and two older brothers eating like this, so they have a very positive association with it and want to eat what we eat.

    If you don’t serve eggs, you have dairy, fish, meat and chicken left. I’ve let go of serving stereotypical ‘breakfast’ food – what makes hamburger okay for dinner but unappetizing for breakfast?

    Sometimes I want to make more variety for them and look up all kinds of ideas, but our children so strongly prefer plain meat and chicken that the response to my efforts hasn’t been very gratifying. They’re happier with a chicken wing than with all the different muffins and quiches and pancakes, so I stay with what they like.

    When we travel, we make the same kind of things we have at home – meatballs and hardboiled eggs are easy. We took a bunch of these when we travelled for my son’s wedding in Jerusalem. There are foods you can easily purchase like cheese sticks, meat sticks, hot dogs and cold cuts (they have some sweetener added so not ideal but still a better option than other things). I’ve also made muffins that are a combination of eggs and ground beef and other ideas, but keeping it simple really is working best for us.

    Avivah

  • Why I changed my diet to zero carb/carnivore

    A couple of weeks ago I shared about the health improvements I’ve seen since upgrading my nutrition, and naturally a number of you asked me to share what I’ve changed.

    Eight years ago, I encountered a dietary approach that was new to me. I did some brief reading on a personal website of someone sharing her experience, and while I appreciated it was beneficial to the individual sharing about it, I didn’t read more deeply with the intent to understand.

    A year later, I came across information about this same approach, but this time I was intellectually curious enough to do a LOT of reading. After a deep dive, I was intrigued by the level of healing I had never seen before on any eating plan I had investigated – not whole foods, vegetarian, vegan, keto, WAP (Weston A. Price) – all of which I’ve experimented with personally at length.

    What was most fascinating and surprising to me was seeing the healing of significant mental health issues that are assumed to be treatable only with medication. I had never seen testimonials of people with issues like these healed by any other diet. I also saw a tremendous amount of physical healing of many issues that generally aren’t considered dietically related (everything, everything, everything about your health is impacted by what you eat!!!). It was just amazing.

    My husband has a much more sensitive digestive system than I do and as a result, has to be very careful about what he eats. I told my husband about the many testimonials of physical healing I read about, and it was about seven years ago that I suggested he consider following these guidelines.

    My husband has a lot of faith in my research, and began immediately without even reading any more about it. I began with him and felt great for the five weeks I did it but budgetarily it was a strain for us and since I wasn’t suffering any health issues or discomfort in any way, wanted to direct our food budget resources to him. He stayed with it for two and a half years before shifting back into GAPS due to finances.

    Since then I’ve continued learning and reading about this approach. When I first came across it, it was known about by a relatively small group of people who had tried everything else to heal and were desperate enough to do something different. I came to believe this was an ideal way of eating but almost never spoke of what I learned: I wasn’t doing it myself, and secondly because it was completely opposite all mainstream nutrition advice so there’s so much to explain. I expected it would remain far outside of the social norms forever.

    However, there were some high profile individuals who shared about their success eating like this. As a result, interest in this approach has grown and particularly in the last couple of years it has really gained traction.

    This way of eating has become popularly known as the carnivore diet, though the term I originally heard used and still prefer is zero carb. I follow the guidelines of the original group where it’s kept really simple: meat, chicken, eggs, fish, beef fat and butter. I stay away from dairy for the most part (the hardest thing for me to give up was our own raw goat dairy, and why I took a very long time to commit to trying this).

    I’ve been eating this way for ten months. Despite my reticence to share about this, this is something that can help with so many health issues and it would be selfish to keep it to myself.

    Unfortunately our public nutritional guidelines are so completely corrupted that there’s no way for a person to achieve good health long term by following those guidelines. The official guidelines will lead to the doctor’s office and long term medications for physical and psychological diagnoses.

    In contrast, zero carb eating can reverse many chronic conditions and keep a person healthy with minimal input from the medical system in most cases.

    When I began researching this topic, there was very little available online. Most of the information was in Facebook groups. But now you can find so many people with lots of experience with this way of eating talking about it at length, including medical doctors from all disciplines.

    If you want to know about why not vegetables (Dr. Anthony Chaffee), or what about cholesterol/ won’t this give you a heart attack (heart surgeon Dr. Philip Ovadia), or how does it affect your mental health (pyschiatrist Dr. Georgia Eades), how to eat for fertility (Dr. Robert Kiltz), how it affects your eye health (Dr. Lisa Wiedeman), or every aspect of general health (Dr. Ken Berry, Dr. Shawn Baker) you have so much information available. I have listened to hundreds of interviews of people sharing their personal health transformations (No Carb Life has eight hundred so far; a number of other Youtube channels have many great interviews as well).

    I believe this is the way of eating that will give the most health benefits to the average human, and though it’s not necessary for everyone, in that vast majority of people it will be very beneficial. I was in pretty good health but still have seen improvements in hormone balancing, joint pain, metabolism, energy and mental clarity.

    It’s wonderful that something so simple can make such a big difference, and maybe that’s the hardest part about it. We’ve been conditioned to believe that achieving good health is complicated and difficult, when actually our bodies are intended to be healthy and move towards healing and wellness when given the nutritional building blocks it needs.

    Avivah

  • Eliminating joint pain by cleaning up my diet

    Nine months ago I sat down and made a list of health concerns, however small they seemed.

    The main thing that concerned me was a pain in my hip. I’ve written here about going to the osteopath for that and getting relief from it. He said it was caused by misalignment, and I noticed it happened whenever I was very busy. So I would rest more often. Then it started happening more often. To compensate, when standing I would shift my weight to my other leg.

    As a result of my compensation, I began getting discomfort in my left knee, which then travelled to the bottom of the left foot and manifested as a tightness of the muscles. When the osteopath worked on my foot, he said something about the plantar fascia, and then I realized it was the beginning of plantar fasciitis. Oy.

    I asked him what I was supposed to do to stay in alignment, but I was doing everything suggested and I still needed regular appointments (about every 4 – 6 weeks). Then I heard an interview with a doctor who was asked how she chose her specialty of endocrinology, and she said she had been an osteopath and began noticing how many of her patients in their forties and fifties were coming for weekly appointments because their bodies couldn’t hold the alignment. She wanted to study hormones to help women stay in good health.

    I don’t remember what she said after that, but realizing that me not being able to stay in alignment was something others in my age range were experiencing was a jolt and got me thinking.

    (I also felt stiffness when standing up after sitting for a while, and mild soreness in the joints of my hands periodically. It seemed minor but I included this in my list. )

    It occurred to me that the pain I was having might be caused by internal inflammation rather than the localized muscle discomfort I was assuming it to be. If so, I was making a mistake by treating the symptoms of pain rather than addressing the underlying cause.

    Along with my thoughts about the possible physical causes, I reflected on my expectations of what it means to get older. I didn’t want to internalize the societal belief that getting older means more pain and less mobility, and I was ready to actively challenge that belief. I wanted to create a new expectation for myself, that as I get older I will be active and energetic, flexible and healthy.

    Once I was honest with myself about what I was feeling, I resolved to do something different. If it was possible my hip pain was caused by inflammation, then I needed to reduce the inflammation. How could I do that?

    By changing my diet.

    I resisted this for a long time because my diet was pretty good; most people would say it was very good. But once I was willing to be honest with myself, I knew I needed to make some changes.

    I eliminated every possible source of inflammation, and soon began feeling more energy. I began losing some of the weight I put on after the car accident that had left me completely sedentary. But the hip pain didn’t go away as quickly as I expected.

    In the first three weeks the plantar fasciitis disappeared, then the pain in my left knee, but I still had some periodic discomfort in my right hip. But I began noticing my overall movement became much more comfortable and fluid; I easily and quickly shifted from sitting or laying down to standing up. I got up and down from the floor without thinking about it. My hands never felt any soreness.

    The pain in my hip faded and I don’t know when it completely disappeared because I stopped being aware of it. It might have been a month or even six weeks until it was completely gone.

    One day my husband and I took the kids for a walk and he lagged behind me with one of them. When he caught up to me, he asked me if I was aware that I was walking differently. Again, changes happen over time and he hadn’t noticed my gait had changed as a result of the pain until he saw me walking without pain. He commented on it again a week later, marvelling and saying the difference was miraculous, that I walk with the same fluidity I had in my twenties.

    Recently over the two weeks of holidays, I ate some foods I don’t usually eat – things you would call ‘healthy’. I had some moussaka – with eggplant, ground beef, homemade tomato sauce and a coconut cream ‘cheese’ topping. I ate some halva ice cream – made with dates, coconut cream and tahini. I had some fresh fruit and some compote, some slices of cheese, three small pieces of potato. These were the only changes to my usual way of eating, all seemingly small quantities over a two week period.

    The homemade ice cream was clearly a sugar overload for me – I napped afterward as if I had taken a sleeping pill. As far as the other foods, my digestion wasn’t as perfect as it usually is.

    What took a little longer was for my hip to begin hurting again.

    It didn’t happen immediately after I ate a peach or a slice of cheese. But the pain is a powerful reminder of what I used to feel and I’m so glad for the reminder. It’s remarkably easy to forget the negatives when they’re no longer part of your life and to take good health for granted. I didn’t intend this to be a test of what I’m sensitive to, but that’s what it’s been.

    I have been blessed for many months now to consistently feel very good physically and emotionally, and have taken that for granted. Now it’s easy for me to see when something I eat detracts from that, and I’m glad for the motivating nudge to recommit to giving my body the fuel it needs to feel its best.

    Avivah

  • This week in the kitchen – compote, apple cider vinegar, sauerkraut and pickles

    This morning I wanted to get an early start in the kitchen this morning. I needed to take dd6 to an introductory meeting at her kindergarten at 9:45, and I was hoping to get some traction on some food preservation before then.

    My husband brought home a bunch of apples yesterday. Sometimes I don’t get to fresh produce right away and I always regret it, because it’s so much easier to process food when it’s fresh and blemish-free. I have a apple corer-slicer-peeler but my apple corer sections apples into six pieces and is so much faster that I’m willing to use apples with peels on them. I wasn’t looking at the clock but I felt mighty quick in filling up two large pots with the prepared apples.

    I haven’t done much food preservation lately, and today decided to make apple compote, which translated into fifteen quarts/liters once it was cooked. I add a little water, some vanilla and let it cook down slowly. It’s so flavorful and as it was cooking, several times dd6 and gd4 asked me what that good smell was! Usually I add cinnamon but I didn’t feel like it this time. Of course I canned all of those lovely jars so I can keep them on a shelf instead of in a fridge. It makes me smile thinking of pulling them out in a few months for dessert for Shabbos dinner.

    The next logical step was to do something with all the beautiful cores, so I decided to make apple cider vinegar.

    Making apple cider vinegar is really easy: first fill a jar halfway with apple scraps.

    Add water to fill the jar until about an inch from the top. Add a tablespoon of sugar per cup of water you used.

    Cover it with a cloth and stir it once a day for a couple of weeks.

    Then let it sit for a couple of months until it’s ready, and strain it out. That’s it.

    I keep mine on the counter for the first couple of weeks so I can stir it daily to be sure everything stays submerged under the liquid , then put it away somewhere out of my immediate kitchen zone to finish fermenting. Last year I was really happy with how delicious the apple cider vinegar was. I told you then that it was so good I wanted to drink it by the cupful!

    I got all that finished and had about forty five minutes to spend with my grandchildren before I needed to leave with dd6 at 9:40 am.

    Later in the day, I turned my attention to the cabbages.

    I wanted to turn them into sauerkraut, but I don’t have a cellar or basement or even a home that is usually air conditioned to keep the temperature low for an extended time. If I would shred the cabbage as I usually do, it would ferment within three days. Everything ferments much more quickly in the heat. I decided to chop the cabbage coarsely for the next batch so it would take a longer time to ferment. I made two four liter buckets full, which will be much less once it breaks down and compacts, but will still be a nice amount.

    That was enough food preservation for today, first of all because I was tired and secondly because then I needed to make dinner, put the kids to bed early and leave to ds6.5’s introductory school meeting, this one only for mothers. It was on arriving there that I learned he’s going to be going into first grade, not gan chova (pre1A). His teacher looks wonderful, as all of the teachers in this school have been. I’ve been very happy with this school and feel so fortunate that by moving here, our boys have a great place to learn.

    Tomorrow I have a meeting with ds6 and his new teacher. They started hiring staff a week ago and it looks like the gan is actually going to start on time on September 1st! Since my husband and older boys won’t be home at that time of day, I’m going to be taking the other three kids with me to this meeting. It will be short and everyone will enjoy seeing his school – the twins went to Siblings Day at ds11’s school and saw his class and ds6/5’s gan. And then I took everyone to see dd6’s gan prior to the meeting today.

    Back to food preservation: a couple of days ago, for the first time in ages I made lacto fermented pickles. In the past I’ve sometimes made amazing, delicious pickles, but it’s so unpredictable how they’ll turn out – sometimes they are just not good. I finally decided to try it again, this time using bay leaves as the tannin source (tannin being the ingredient that keeps the pickles crunchy). Grape leaves are recommended and I have loads of them on my vine, but I have another year until we can harvest the grapes, and I don’t know if the grape leaves have the same status. No, it wasn’t important enough to me to call a rabbi to ask.

    I wanted to use tea bags but I didn’t know where my husband put them and when I saw that bay leaves are a tannin source, figured I’d use them. I bought a kilo bag of bay leaves over a year ago. Do you have any idea how huge a quantity that is? I’ve hardly made a dent in them. So if these work well for crunchy pickles, there’s a lot more I need to use up. If you live locally and want some bay leaves, I’m happy to share. 🙂

    After a day and a half, I put them in the fridge. I hope the experiment will be successful, since most of us in the family really like pickles, and they’re so much healthier, tastier and cheaper when you make them yourself.

    Avivah

  • Getting ready for the fall season, plans for the week

    Last week we were busy getting our yard ready for the rain, which turned into a race against the weather!

    I’m so glad we enlarged our goat pen before the holidays, because there was so much to do to get things in the yard waterproofed before the first rain of the year (for about seven consecutive months a year we don’t get rain here in Israel). First and most important was the goat pen: the boys built a roof frame, then lined it with what they were told was a waterproof tarp.

    We were rushing to get the hay covered as the rain began. It quickly turned into a downpour, and we were relieved to have finished the goat pen roof in time…until it became clear that the waterproof tarps we used weren’t waterproof after all, when we saw the water was dripping through onto our unhappy goats.

    Talk about finding alternative solutions quickly! I suggested grabbing the large blue foam mats that we used under the pool and stapling them up; they did that in the pouring rain and then we all ran for cover.

    They took the entire roof off to redo it on a sunny day, but it began raining before it was put back on. They once again ran to get it over the goats, but the pen had gotten soaked and the next day I and one of the boys had to completely clean everything out.

    Until now, I’ve been cleaning out the dirty hay by shoveling it into a thirty liter barrel, then carrying to the chicken run and dumping it in. I do a load every two or three days. The chickens love picking out any insect larvae and with their constant scratching and pecking, break down the hay and in essence, compost it. My plan has been to eventually pull all that composted hay out of their coop to use on the garden beds.

    With the sudden huge pile of wet hay, it was too much work to take it all to the chicken coop, so I changed direction and after shoveling it all onto the garden beds, suggested to my son he let the chickens out into the yard to work the hay. They’ve been loving free-ranging again, and we’re enjoying our ‘chicken tv’ again, as we sit in the yard watching their antics.

    Speaking of the chickens, we need to cover more of their coop area with a waterproof material as well. Since part of their coop is rain-proof, we put our focus on getting the rabbits and goats waterproofed. Then after the downpour I noticed some of them were wet; I suppose they didn’t want to limit themselves to staying in the dry area. So this week my son will extend that for them.

    **********************

    Today my plans include making a huge pot of compote, then canning it all up so we can enjoy it in the winter.

    I’ve done all my winter clothes shopping for the boys, but I still need to organize it all. We’re at the stage of the days being hot but the mornings being cold enough for winter wear. So in the next couple of days I hope to finish getting all the clothes sorted.

    Also in the next couple of days I need to figure out how to transport a buck to our home for breeding. I’ve been pushing this off until the pen was enlarged and then rainproofed; now I need to get this done or risk missing the breeding season. (Goats need to be bred to continue to produce milk.) I think we’ll keep him here for a few weeks, and will see how that affects what has been a smooth running daily routine with our three females. Male goats have a reputation for not being fun to have around and their presence supposedly makes the milk taste more ‘goaty’.

    When I ordered two bales of hay, it was with the thought it would get me through until the next hay season. Then we got a third goat (it was going to be for my daughter and then ended up a better fit for us), and now with the male goat…we’re going to be needing much more hay than I initially planned for! In a non-shmita year, I would order a bale at a time, but now even though I have a lot left, I need to order more this week while the hay farmer still has non-shmita bales (from the year before last) available.

    **********************

    When I bought barrels for animal feed from a private seller a few months ago, he offered me a couple of rusty hoes for free (just the head, no handles). Seeing they were heavy duty metal, I accepted them, figuring we could sand them down and get new handles for them. I’ve been very disappointed with how poor the quality of new garden tools are – almost every rake and shovel I’ve bought has broken after less than a year of use. Not heavy duty use, either. The first shovel that I bought seven or eight years ago is still going strong, though, even though it’s seen much more use than all of the new implements put together.

    I haven’t gotten to sanding them down these rusty hoes yet (and it’s not on my list of immediate projects to do since they’re usable without sanding) but we did get new handles that fit perfectly at the hardware store. Additionally, I’ve bought a couple new shovels and two hand trowels. The trowels look like excellent quality and if I can keep track of them and not lose them (I tend to put them down and then forget where I put them…) they should last a long time.

    After a year of not touching the garden because of shmitta, there has been a lot of work to do – weeding, trimming, pruning. I’ve gotten a lot of garden clean-up done in the last couple of weeks. This week I’d like to get some seeds into the ground and will see if I can get a crop before it gets cold. The vegetables I’m thinking about traditionally are planted in the spring so I don’t know if planting now is being smart by optimizing the planting season or being overly optimistic. We have a warm climate and sometimes even in January it’s warm so it theoretically could work; all I have to lose is some seeds and some time, so I’m willing to experiment.

    ************************

    There’s lots more to do this week, but these are my ‘discretionary’ projects. I’m conscious of how much these activities add to my day, but I do them to the degree that it works for me, and it’s a nice feeling to be purposefully busy.

    Avivah

  • Freezer crisis mostly averted, but I am SO busy doing damage control

    Well, it looks like my freezer has given up the ghost.

    Unfortunately, it was packed with meat, chicken and fish that I had ordered for the holidays. I was able to put a good amount into the top freezer of my fridge and my smaller fridge in my guest apartment. I cooked generously for Shabbos, using some of the defrosting item. But about fifteen pounds of beef bones and six pounds of tilapia couldn’t be fit anywhere, no matter how tightly we packed it in. And just when I thought that’s all I had left to deal with, I found another six pounds of tilapia, three large roasts and a package of ground beef.

    Tonight we’ll be hosting a mens’ gathering for Rosh Hashana, with a focus on shared inspiration and words of Torah. I was intending to make some refreshments, but my husband suggested we upgrade the menu and serve some of the tilapia that is defrosted. That should be nice and I think the men will enjoy it. I’m thinking of trying something new – making pickled fish. That will be a project using the tilapia tomorrow.

    I made ten different meat/chicken meals for my boys (using the defrosting chicken and meat) and plunked them in the canner. Unfortunately, the canner malfunctioned – steam was leaking out and it wasn’t building adequate pressure. I’ve never had this issue and I was feeling somewhat pressured that right when I have all this stuff that needs to be preserved to save it, my canner isn’t working.

    I searched online for what could be causing the problem and tried canning a load using the suggestions I found. No luck. The next night I examined the top of the canner closely, trying to see what could be causing the problem. I was already imagining having to order replacement parts from the US, and how maybe that wouldn’t even solve the problem, when I noticed that a piece that screws together was a little loose. I tightened it, put in a new load and held my breath waiting to see if it would build pressure.

    I was so thankful when it worked!

    (Have you ever noticed how you’re more appreciative for something after it hasn’t been working and then starts functioning well?)

    Now I’m canning up the beef bones that are small enough to fit in a jar; I bought them to use for cholent and can still use the canned bones in this way. The bigger bones are being made into a huge pot of broth. I’m going to reduce it down and then can it, since that’s the most efficient way for me to use it. I’ll do a load of meat in the canner tonight, and tomorrow I’ll can the broth.

    Whew. Each canner load takes three and a half hours from start to finish. It’s been a bit of a marathon.

    I bought this freezer several years ago from someone who personally imported it from the US, and there’s nothing for sale here near that size. It’s huge and I’ve really appreciated having it. When I buy a case of meat, it slides right in. But there’s a point where you have to be willing to let go of things that are costing too much time or energy to maintain. Three months ago I had this same problem, and paid 600 shekels to have the refrigerant gas refilled. I hoped it would last for several years. It hasn’t and continuing repair costs aren’t justified.

    The freezer is still cool, though not freezing, so I’m going to hold on to it as a cooler until after the holidays. Thanks to this freezer issue and the need to deal with so much meat/chicken, I got behind with the produce, and now have grapes and lemons waiting to be made into juice, and apples, nectarines and pears waiting to be made into compote. I am thankful for the abundance we have, and I’m also very conscious of the work that goes into preserving it all. That’s often how frugality is – you can save a lot but there’s a cost in your time and energy.

    With Rosh Hashana coming up next week, I need to get all of this produce out of my fridge and make room for cooked holiday foods. I hope tomorrow to make the last batch of grape juice. then make a pot of compote using the ripest fruit. The apples and lemons can go into my freezer-turned-cooler; that will be helpful in acting as a holding place and giving me some breathing space while I focus on all the meats and fish.

    Avivah

  • Sending food, sending love

    In my last post, I shared about processing jars of home cooked stews and meats for my boys in a dorm. It’s shelf-stable and they just have to heat it up. In response, someone commented:

    >>The soup/stew solution seems like a really good start, but hard on you.<<

    I appreciated the intent to offer suggestions that would make it easier for me and put the ball in their court.

    My kids are very capable – very. Though I understate my kids’ abilities and capacities when writing about them, I can safely say you won’t find many boys their ages as capable as they are. They can certainly shop and cook for themselves; they don’t need me to help them find a solution for this. Since they don’t have cooking facilities, their solutions are unlikely to be as good as mine, but they aren’t spoiled and have a make-do-with-a-good-attitude ethic.

    But you know what? I want to do this for them. In so many ways, doing this for them says, ‘I love you’. Every time they heat up a jar of food I prepared for them, whether they think of it consciously or not, they’re imbibing some of my love, knowing that I went out of my way because I love them, and connecting to that love.

    I’m not interested in skimping on that. I’m not so busy with more important things in my life that this is a pressure for me, or one more thing to do on my overly full to-do list. I do have a list that doesn’t seem to get much smaller regardless of what I do, but being present for my children and having a relationship with them is high on my list – even if they’re far away and it’s a non-verbal food interaction. Not only is making this food not hard on me, I welcome the opportunity to show them how much they matter to me.

    There are different ways to show love, and people perceive love that is given to them in different ways. For my older son, I know this is meaningful for him. Someone else might say, ‘Meh, nice but it really doesn’t matter much to me.’

    I’m so, so aware of how quickly time goes by, how short the time with our children is. The process of growing up is gradual, a constant spreading of one’s wings and becoming more independent. Independence doesn’t happen suddenly when they go away to school or get married. The relationship with a child changes as they go through increasing levels of independence, and by necessity your active role in their lives shifts.

    We tend to associate food with times we spent with love ones, with warm memories, with feelings of being cared about and taken care of. Good food, served with love, has the ability to reach a person in ways that other things don’t.

    I can give my boys money to buy food if they need to, and I’m glad to do it. But feeling loved through the money for food is more distant than feeling loved by eating the food itself.

    Preparing food so my boys can have a home cooked meal whenever they’re hungry is something I can do for my older son this year. This is when he needs it and especially appreciates it. Next year he’ll be in yeshiva gedolah, where the food is usually much better, so this probably won’t be needed.

    I’m embracing the opportunity that I have now to send my sons love from a distance. It only looks like jars of food sitting on their shelves. But now you know what it really is.

    Avivah

  • How I’m providing nourishing food to our boys in a dorm

    >>I know how you cook and care about feeding your family nourishing meals- how do you “handle” (for lack of better word, handle seems a bit dramatic), your kids’ diets while they are away in their schools?  <<

    We’ve found the meals in Israeli dorms in the past to be decent, with good amounts of protein and fresh produce. It helps that my children aren’t picky eaters. I don’t really worry about their food once they’re out of the house; I assume they’ll make the choices that are right for them and work within the parameters of what’s available. They do appreciate home cooked food much more when they come home, though!

    However, at the current yeshiva both my boys are at, the menu seems to be scaled down; it’s heavy on the starches and light on proteins; there’s hardly any fresh produce. This isn’t a complaint; I think this is typical of yeshiva ketanas, and that the yeshiva high school my boys attended in the past had unusually good food. In any case, we have a situation we haven’t had come up before.

    When I spoke with my sixteen year old son at the end of last week, he mentioned how helpful it was that I sent them with so much tuna, since he eats a can every day.

    I sent it thinking it would be something he would have once in a while, and asked him why he was eating it so often. He explained that if he doesn’t have it a couple of hours after lunch, he’s so hungry he can’t think about anything but eating dinner the entire afternoon. He’s never said anything like this, so I asked him about what and how much he was eating. Since he has a cavity that just started that he wants to heal, he’s trying to avoid processed carbs. That’s the bulk of what is served at his school, and since he’s not able to fill up on bread/pasta/white rice, the small amounts of protein leave him unsatisfied.

    I wondered what I could do about this. What could I send him other than tuna? I wanted him to have foods that would be satiating. Cookies and crackers wouldn’t be helpful, nor would any of the snack foods available in the stores. I couldn’t think of anything that would be filling that doesn’t need refrigeration or involve some kind of preparation.

    Then I had a brainstorm. I asked him if he had room in the dorm for electric burners and a pot. He said he did. I asked if I sent him home canned foods, would he heat them up and eat them? Yes, he would.

    I offered to make him some hearty homemade soups to supplement his diet and asked what he wanted. He requested split pea soup, so that’s what I started with. I made a thick stew with a generous amount of rich broth, to pack in nutrition and calories; he could eat as-is or thin it down for a more typical soup consistency.

    I pressure canned seven liters of the soup, as well as seven pints of chicken wings. When ds15 returned back to yeshiva after Shabbos, he was traveling by bus with just a backpack and therefore could only take only a few of the jars back with him. Ds16 called to tell me that even without being able to heat it up, he enjoyed it at room temperature.

    One jar is four cups of soup, and is enough for both boys to supplement one school lunch. Based on their feedback, though, from now on I’m going to can pint sized jars for them, so they can eat separately according to their schedules. This week I’ll make them some beef stew, and by periodically canning different dishes, they’ll have some variety.

    This Shabbos both boys will be coming home, and I’m planning to send them back to yeshiva with a suitcase containing the burners, pot, and jars of food. They’ll bring the empty jars home for me to reuse. I’m also going to send some fresh vegetables and fruit, and a frozen bottle of raw goat milk. I suggested he buy yogurts and produce at a local store to supplement.

    This is a first for me. Until now, the food served at the dorms has been adequate for all of our boys. In this case, I’m sure they could have found a different solution, but this is one that I feel good about nutritionally. I hope this will be a good solution to keep them nourished from a distance!

    Avivah