Category Archives: nutrition

Think toothbrushing is crucial? Think again!

dental health, nutrition

This past week I took all of the kids in for their six month dental check ups.  After my 5 yo was checked, the dentist told me that he’s been doing a good job brushing since everything looked good.  I smiled and said that was nice to hear.  Then the 9 yo was checked, and she told me the same thing.  At that, I had to tell her the truth – that it was more a credit to their diet than to their diligent toothbrushing.

The horrifying truth is, the 5 yo hardly ever brushes, and the 9 yo isn’t much better.  Yeah, they’re supposed to brush their teeth every night (that’s what I tell them to do after dinner when I send them upstairs to put on their pajamas and get ready for bed- and until very recently I thought that’s what they did), but a few nights before the trip to the dentist, my 9 yo son informed me that it had been weeks since he brushed his teeth.  I’d like to think he has a poor sense of time and meant days, but in the best of scenarios, it wasn’t too regular.

The dentist couldn’t believe it.  She told me that she can generally tell who brushes well and who doesn’t by the kind of teeth they have, and that she never could have guessed that they don’t brush regularly.  My kids were just totally contradicting her experience.

Then she checked my 13 yo daughter, who is really responsible about everything, and when it comes to toothbrushing, she never misses a day.  Even when her braces were taken off, all of her teeth were perfectly white – most kids have yellowish marks around the whiter area of the teeth where the braces were.  Anyway, here’s the big irony – she had a cavity.  Miss Perfect Brusher.  Okay, so it was between the teeth and the bracket from her braces kept her from being able to get in there.  But still.  So much for regular brushing being the answer to cavities.  I’m not saying it doesn’t help – but there’s more to dental health than how often you brush.  Think about it – in traditional societies, people never brushed, and in cultures throughout the world, tooth decay was minimal.

So I told the dentist that my recent research on dental health has led me to believe that this child will always be the most vulnerable of all my kids to cavities.  Why?  Of all my kids, she’s the one with the worst teeth and is not coincidentally the one with whom I was vegan for part of my pregnancy with her. She’s also the one who had very crooked teeth (prior to her braces – her teeth are perfect now) and has hypoplasia on one back molar (this is caused by a malfunction in utero of the formation of dental enamel – you don’t see the results until the teeth emerge but that’s when the quality of it is determined).  I didn’t understand how she needed a root canal at the age of three when I only gave them a teaspoon of sugar daily in their breakfast oatmeal and minimal sweets once a week, otherwise had lots of veggies and whole grains (very little animal protein – just chicken once a week), only gave her water to drink (no soda or juice) – now I know.  She didn’t get the minerals she needed in utero at the crucial time to build strong teeth.  Apparently this is very common to vegetarians and children of vegetarian.  Kids need minerals that they don’t get in sufficient quantity in a vegan diet to develop strong teeth.

So while I wouldn’t tell my kids not to brush their teeth, it’s certainly overrated, and the role of superior nutrition is virtually never heard about – but it’s the nutrition that makes the real difference!

Avivah

Natural diaper rash remedy

nutrition

Yesterday morning, when I changed my toddler’s diaper, he was screaming while I was cringing at how red and inflamed his little bottom was.  I haven’t had to deal often with diaper rash, but occasionally it does happen.

Several days ago, I asked for a suggestion at the health food store, and it was suggested that I use castor oil with some aloe in it.  I didn’t have any aloe, but since I did have castor oil, that’s what I used.  And it worked – except on the areas that it couldn’t reach, specifically where the elastic of the diaper enclosed the inner leg and the inner crack of his bottom (where they specifically said not to apply it).  But now those areas were raw and almost bleeding – it was painful just to look at it.

So I tried more castor oil, and then put some cloth underwear on him so I would know immediately when he was wet and he wouldn’t have to sit in it for even a few minutes before he was changed.    Then because he was crying that the underwear were rubbing the same place on his upper thighs, I took off the underwear and let him go without anything.  He didn’t like that at all and kept trying to bring me a diaper to put on him, but I thought the air would be helpful.  And maybe it was helpful, but not helpful enough.  Fresh air and keeping the bottom dry are useful suggestions, but they are more effective in terms of prevention.  As a cure for a nasty diaper rash, it just takes too long. 

He was crying all day, walking in an awkward way to avoid anything touching that area, and only sitting on his knees.  My dh had the van for the day so I had no way to get to a store to buy any kind of ointment.  Finally, I decided to try the natural remedy that my 13 yo daughter has suggested to me several times.  (She’s read a book we have around the house about natural home remedies and has alot of info in her head as a result.)  I couldn’t see how it could work, but I was desperate to do something to help him, so I tried it. 

The remedy is to brown some flour in a pan and then apply it to the diaper area when it’s cooled down.  That’s the entire remedy.  He had been crying at every diaper change (as well as a good part of the day), but amazingly, as soon as this flour was sprinkled on him, he stopped crying.  Then he started acting more like his usual cheerful self, playing and running around.  When we next changed his diaper, we couldn’t believe the noticeable improvement.   It was late afternoon by the time we tried it, so I only was able to change him once (and sprinkle the flour on) before putting him in for the night.   By this morning, it was much much better – we can see a slight bit of redness, but he has no pain or discomfort at all.  All within a half a day’s time.

Since flour is something that everyone has in the house, and it takes just a few minutes to prepare this remedy, I thought that I should share something this easy and this effective with you! 

Avivah

Making lacto fermented vegetables

food preservation, lacto fermentation, nutrition, recipes

This was a new thing that I started doing about three weeks ago, and it’s been very successful.  Like the sourdough bread, I thought it would be a big deal to make, and it’s amazing how incredibly simple it is.

Let me backtrack a minute and say what lacto fermented vegetables are, and what the benefit of them is.  It’s a natural method of pickling that was used by traditional societies throughout the world until vinegar was created and replaced lacto fermentation because the results were easily duplicated and consistent.  But vinegar kills all the microorganisms, while lacto fermentation enhances the nutritional value of vegetables by enhancing the growth of lactobacilli, which enhances the vitamins, aids digestion and helps produce other helpful enzymes.  Lacto fermented veggies are a good addition to any meal because they help all the foods be better digested.

So here’s how incredibly easy it is: you take a quart sized jar, chop or shred up the vegetables you want to ferment, and pack it in as firmly as possible so that the juices of the vegetable(s) cover the top.  If there isn’t enough juice for that, you add some filtered water to cover.  Add some spices if you want.  Put in some sea salt at the top (I use Celtic sea salt for this), close the lid, and voila – after two days to three days your veggies are ready.  That’s the basic process in a nutshell. It took me making about six different recipes to realize that it was all this basic process, since there were little variations of ingredients and spicing for all of them.

Using this basic process, we’ve so far made: cucumber pickles (my 5 and 7 yo kids did these), pickled tomatoes and peppers, ginger carrots, kimchi (so far the favorite), beets, roasted red peppers, turnips, sauerkraut, preserved lemons, salsa, horseradish, garlic, daikon, and a veggie mix of my own creation (second favorite).  A bonus is that they look very attractive lined up on the kitchen counter.  🙂

Though they can be ready in as few as 2 – 3 days, they can stay out for lots longer than that.  That’s nice because there aren’t suddenly lots of pickled vegetables that all have to be eaten at the same time.   And I don’t know about you, but I often find that I don’t serve as many salads or fresh veggies at mealtimes because of the time it takes to prepare.  Now even at my busiest, I can whip out two or three of these at mealtime – no preparation needed but to put it in a serving bowl!

I’ve also made pineapple vinegar, but have yet to use it for anything.  I’m planning to use it for salad dressing and for some of my next batch of fermented vegetables, but I still have about 8 jars on the counter, fermenting away, so I’m not rushing to make any more right now. I combined the two quarts of preserved lemon into one jar when it was finished and drained out a bunch of the liquid for salad dressing – it’s delish!  I’ve been using it every day by itself as dressing for my lunchtime salad.  Since I poured it into a salad dressing container (there was just a little of the original stuff left so I poured it out to make room for this), everyone, guest included, has been using it on their salads and is none the wiser.  🙂

Replacing white sugar

health, nutrition, parenting

Okay, so the last three weeks I’ve been in super healthy mode.  Every once in a while I decide to upgrade the nutritional status of my family, when I’ve gotten used to past upgrades.

The first major, major change is I’ve finally decided to totally get rid of white sugar in the house.  I don’t really buy processed food, so the sugar that we were using was just in the foods we made, mostly baked goods.  But since white sugar has absolutely no nutritional value and contributes to most diseases, it seemed like there wasn’t any reason to keep it in.  I’ve resisted this for a while because the sugar substitutes are so much more expensive.

But I’ve finally done it!

I bought honey, stevia, and sucanat, and have settled on using sucanat as our main sweetener.  Well, for the family, anyway, because I’m back to my sweetener free food plan, which I went off during pregnancy after a long time on it.  I haven’t really found a way to use the stevia yet, the honey I’m using for hot drinks for the most part, and the sucanat is easy to use when replacing sugar because it’s such a similar consistency.

In case you’re wondering what sucanat is, it’s dehydrated natural cane juice.  It’s the color of brown sugar but grainier.  You can get in health food stores, but after buying one bag there to try it out, I went to my bulk food supplier and got it for much cheaper.  Just because it’s a healthy sweetener doesn’t mean that I’m using lots of it – I’m not.  I try to remember the idea that sweet baked goods are treats, not everyday foods.  I’ve been making less muffins as a result.

If you’re wondering how the kids are taking to this, it really hasn’t been a big deal.  Part of it is that I don’t spring these kind of things on my family and leave them feeling like I forced it on them.  I really believe in getting them on board by sharing the info that changed my thinking on – I don’t actively try to convince them.  And because there are easy replacements for the sugar, they don’t miss anything.  In fact, they really like knowing that the sweeteners we’re using are good for them!

Avivah

Sprouting grains

food preservation, nutrition

Today I did something I’ve thought about doing for a long time but never did – I sprouted wheat grains!  Are you wondering why in the world I would want to do that? 

Grains have phytic acid in them, and this blocks the nutrients present in the grains from being fully utilized.  So while you might feel really healthy when your diet is filled with whole grains, not nearly as many of the nutrients are  absorbed by your body as you might expect.  There are a couple of ways to remedy this.  The suggestion I’ve seen most often recommended for improving the quality of flour is to soak the flour in an acidic medium before baking with it.  But this didn’t appeal to me since it would change the quality of the bread. 

Then I remembered reading somewhere about someone who soaked and sprouted her wheat, then dehydrated it, and then ground it.  That option would give me a good quality flour and the flour would maintain it’s usual consistency for baking.  So I decided to try that.

The sprouting went much more quickly than I expected.  I needed to sprout a large amount of wheat, so I couldn’t use the usual quart jar that I use for sprouting salad sprouts.  I filled up a large pot a little more than halfway with grain, then filled it up close to the top with water.  In the morning, the pot was almost full since the water was mostly absorbed.  I poured out the remaining water and rinsed the wheat with fresh water before draining it again.  I was concerned about how effectively it would sprout due to the large amount that I was working with, but it really worked out fine.  I stirred it around when I swished water in, so that whatever was in the middle or top would switch places.  I did this a total of three times.

The wheat sprouted after a day and a half, much faster than I was expecting.   I didn’t even notice the tiny sprouts at first; my kids had to bring it to my attention.  Then I put all of the sprouted wheat into a big turkey roaster to dehydrate on a low temp in the oven, and periodically stirred it.

On one of the early stirrings, dd decided to taste one of the grains, and thought it was so good that she asked if she could eat some.  At first I thought she was joking, but then I realized it would potentially make a nice dish, so I agreed that we could cook a few cupfuls up.  I served it with butter and honey, and everyone gobbled it all up for lunch, and requested more.  I agreed again, but told them we would need to start more wheat sprouting so we would have the flour to bake with when we needed – that was the point of doing all this!  Today we started another large amount of wheat soaking, maybe about 15 cups or so (two potfuls this time). 

It’s amazing how easy this was – I initially envisioned it would be very time consuming (which is why I was reluctant to try it for so long), but the hands on time for it was maybe ten minutes total.  Most of the time involved was waiting.  I think the hardest part is just thinking and planning a couple of days ahead so that the grains are ready for grinding when you want to make bread.

Avivah

Using up turkey bones

frugal strategies, nutrition

After two weeks of no food shopping, I went out last night and stocked up on chicken for the month, as well as a few other things.  Without checking, I assumed I would have room in the freezer for it (especially since I hadn’t put anything in for two weeks), which is usually true.  Well, that was a mistake.  My freezer is very full, for which I’m grateful.  But since I didn’t realize this until I got home, I put myself in a challenging situation of having alot of perishable food and no place to store it.  Believe me, I’m not complaining about having too much food.  But I was very busy for hours last night trying to find a solution (and I’m still working on it today!).

I started by rearranging the fridge to make room for the new groceries.  Since earlier in the day I defrosted a large amount of fish to make two new recipes in bulk, I took that out.  Then I prepared two fish pies and several loaves of a three layer fish dish – so there was more room in the fridge – but then I needed freezer space to store it!  It was a classic catch 22 situation, and one that was repeated every time I tried to make more room.

I realized last night that I had some fresh turkey bones in the fridge so I made a pot of stock (that now needs to go into the freezer).  I deboned it and have a pan full of turkey for a stir fry or pot pie now, but then my kids told me we have more turkey bones in the freezer.  So I figured I would just cook up another batch and be finished with all of the bones at once.

Because of their shape, they take up a disproportionate amount of room, so even though I would need to put stock and a pan or two of shredded turkey back in the freezer, I figured I would have some space gain.  I asked my ds8 to bring up all the bones – and he brought up three big supermarket bags full!  I didn’t realize they had been accumulating – I vaguely remember dh bringing them home and asking what to do with them, and me telling him to put them in the freezer.  But I didn’t see how much he had, and assumed it was the same amount as usual (enough for one pot of soup).  Usually I don’t  have more than one batch in the freezer at a time at the very most, but there was a lot after Thanksgiving (in case you’re wondering how we could possibly have so many turkey carcasses, we got them for free from a friend who owns a restaurant).  I’m now on my second bagful, so we’re down about 8 carcasses.  Just 10 or so carcasses still waiting to be dealt with!!  My sink and counter are full of them!

I’ve decided to spend all day making stock and since it’s so concentrated, I can freeze it in small amounts.  When I defrost it, I’ll add plenty of water and each container of stock will be the base for a delicious soup.  Since I’ll have an entire shelf available in the freezer with all of those bones taken out, I’m planning to spend some time cooking ahead all the chicken I brought home and then pans of chicken will replace the bones.  And then I should have a little more room in the fridge – so I can go shopping for vegetables. 🙂

By the way, do you know how extremely good for you properly prepared bone broths/stocks are (not the stuff that comes in a can from the supermarket)?  I didn’t, until reading Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon a couple of years ago, a combination of a cookbook and nutritional information resource.  She goes into detail about the benefits – a gelatin rich broth (the gelatin is released by the bones that are cooked for a long time) supply hydrophilic colloids to the diet (you’ll have to read the book to know what that means!), and are protein sparing and thereby allow the body to fully utilize the proteins taken in.  Gelatin also is useful in the treatment of many chronic diseases.   Broths also contain amino acids, cartilage, and collagen, which have been used to treat a number of health ills.  In short, they are very nourishing and if you are on a limited food budget, they are not only inexpensive to make, but can substitute for meat in the diet.  You can cook your grains in them, use it to flavor other dishes, or use it as a base for incredibly flavorful soup.  I always marvel at how everyone seems to think that you need a powdered MSG filled soup mix to give a soup flavor – definitely not!

Last winter I posted instructions on how to make stock from scratch, so if you want to try your hand at it, you can click here.

Avivah

Coughing and feeling yucky

nutrition

Everyone’s been under the weather here for the last few days, when the weather suddenly got very cold.  I always find that sudden weather changes result in the kids getting sick.  This time it’s a runny nose and chesty cough. 

My very good friend organized our synagogue Chanuka party to encourage a sense of community among members, and my older girls are volunteering (they just left to take care of setting up and whatever else they need to do before it starts a little later today).  I’m sure it will be a lot of fun and a nice opportunity to spend time with people I don’t get to regularly see much of.  But I don’t think we’ll go, as much as all the kids are hoping that we will.  

When my husband gets home, I think I’ll run out and buy a homeopathic remedy.  We have one remedy for coughing (spongia tosta), but it’s for a dry barking cough, and isn’t really a good fit for the kind of cough they have.   Homeopathics are very specific, and the best benefits come from accurately matching the symptoms and remedy.  I don’t know nearly enough about homeopathics, so I did research online.  (I just love the internet – it’s fantastic how much great and useful information you can get right away.) 

I don’t take the kids to doctors unless they really get sick, which means they rarely go.  For something like this, the doctor would confirm that there’s some kind of virus going around and that there isn’t any medication that will help, that it will pass with time (I know this from experience, which is why I don’t bother going anymore).  Once when I went to the pediatrician with a child hit hard by a virus, she told me the above, and added that most parents want to leave the doctor’s office with a prescription, since that it makes them feel they are doing something to help their child.  

Avivah

Rickets on the rise in US

nutrition

Do you remember years ago learning about rickets?  I seem to remember hearing that it was found most in children living in dreary tenement buildings in the early part of the last century who suffered from malnutrition because of poverty.

 Well, now it seems that rickets is on the rise right here in the US.  What causes rickets?  Lack of vitamin d, found in fortified milk but naturally absorbed by spending time in the sun.  We now have a generation of children who are spending most of their days inside on their computers, game boys, and watching tv.  They aren’t getting any sunlight and they aren’t getting exercise. There are plenty of concerns I’ve had about this, but the concern about rickets  is one that never occurred to me.

What is even more concerning is that many children who aren’t in bad enough shape to be diagnosed with rickets are still suffering from softer than normal bones – hence the increase in broken bones among kids nowadays.  Since strong bones are formed as children and that’s what we take with us into our adult years, we should be concerned if a large number of children aren’t building their bones up when they are young. 

 Interestingly, I was just thinking about if broken bones are becoming more common last week – a 10th grader in my carpool just broke his foot playing basketball, and my son told me that it’s not uncommon in school for kids in his high school to break bones while playing.  As a parent, I found this very alarming. I don’t remember it being common at any point in my childhood for my agemates to break a bone.  In the article that I linked to, they state that exercise and good nutrition are strongly linked to strong bones (obvious, but a good point still), and that kids nowadays are significantly more likely to break a bone than in past generations.  This also points to why in some families breaking a bone is common while it others it rarely occurs – because the nutrition and lifestyle practices of the families are very different and thereby support different kind of outcomes.

Check out this recent article on the topic of rickets.

Avoiding rickets and building strong bones isn’t rocket science – give your kids good quality food to eat and make sure they get outside regularly for some sun and exercise – how much easier could it be?  Obviously for lots of parents, not easy enough.

Avivah

Egg substitutes

nutrition, recipes

For many years, I thought that being a vegetarian was a healthier way of eating, and that being a vegan was an ideal.  Fortunately, I never quite managed complete veganism (except for a two month period), but we usually used animal products only once a week.  I was easily able to go for weeks with no eggs in the house since I virtually never used eggs, just substitutes for eggs.

 Well, I’ve continued to learn about nutrition and no longer believe that removing animal products from the diet is beneficial.  Actually, I now think it’s harmful.  But I’ve watched the price of eggs go so drastically high that I decided it’s time to dig out my old egg replacer recipes.

You can buy egg replacers, but they’re usually pretty expensive.  Whether you are a vegan, looking to cut down on cholesterol, or just looking to cut your baking costs, here  are some egg substitute recipes that you may find useful. 

My favorite is the first, which my 7 yod whipped up a large batch of today- this is a substitute for what is sold in the stores as Ener-G Egg Replacer, and you can use it for any kind of baked goods.  We were able to make quadruple the recipe for under $4, which should last us for months:

1 c. potato starch

3/4 c. tapioca flour (sold in health food stores)

2 t. baking powder

Mix it all together, store in an airtight container.  Lasts for ages!  (With this in the pantry, I always appreciate that’s it not a problem to realize in the middle of a recipe that I don’t have enough eggs.  :))  To use, mix 1 1/2 t. of the mix with 2 T. water – this replaces one egg in a recipe.  1 1/2 t. mix and 1 T. water = 1 yolk.

Some more substitutes:

1 T. cornstarch + 2 T water = 1 egg (good for quick breads, but not cakes)

1 T soy flour + 2 T water = 1 egg

1T. oil, 1 T. water, 1 t. baking powder = 1 egg (good for quick breads, but not cakes)

2 t. flax meal + 2 T warm water = 1 egg (beat until consistency of an egg)

 Avivah

Twins? Interesting way to ask

nutrition, pregnancy

I told you a couple of days ago about the strong likelihood of twins, and thought that it would be pretty agonizing to wait for another four weeks for the next midwife’s visit to know for sure. I don’t do ultrasounds as a matter of routine, but was really starting to think about getting one done just to find out for sure.

Since the midwife told me to start eating a diet for twins, that same day I called a friend with twins and asked her if she had any books to lend. She asked who they were for, and was quite surprised when I told her they might be for me, since she saw me the day before and didn’t realize I was expecting. I explained the situation, why the midwife thought what she did and why she was waiting one more month. When I got there, she took me down to her office and took out her crystal pendulum. (I didn’t know she would do this, and didn’t even think of it as option to explore using.)

A little background here – this friend has lots of experience with alternative healing type of approaches, and I got to see her use the pendulum several years ago when we were neighbors. At that time, my young daughter was coughing very badly all night long, and I had asked her for recommendations for which homeopathic remedy to use. She took out her pendulum, and asked several questions about specific remedies, and told me what to use based on that.

The way the pendulum works is that it helps accesses the intuitive mind and bypasses the conscious/intellectual mind, channeling unseen energies. The person asking and person being asked don’t know the answers consciously, but on the soul level, the answers are known. That’s how I explain it, anyway. It sounds hocusy-pocusy and many people don’t know why or how it works, just that it works. So the pendulum will spin to the left for a ‘no’, and to the right for a ‘yes’. Only yes or no questions can be asked.

Back to my story. I went downstairs with my friend, and she told me to hold out my hand, and took it. Then she took out her pendulum and I watched her hand stay perfectly still as it started spinning right, then left. After several minutes, she picked up the book Having Twins from her desk and said, “Here, you need this.” I told her, “No way, I want to hear the questions asked out loud, you can’t just think them to yourself and then give me the book!” She told me she wanted to check first about the possibility of polyhydramnios and the health of the baby/ies and didn’t want to ask it out loud in case the answers weren’t good.

So she did it out loud for me – here were the questions:
– Is Avivah a male? (left)
– Is Avivah pregnant? (right)
– Is Avivah pregnant with twins? (right)
– Does Avivah have polyhydramnios? (left)
– Are both babies healthy? (right)
– Is Avivah pregnant with identical twins? (Not saying :))
– Is Avivah pregnant with fraternal twins? (the opposite answer of above)
– Is Avivah pregnant with two girl babies?
– Is Avivah pregnant with two boy babies?
– Is Avivah pregnant with a girl and boy?

The answer to the last three was a ‘no’ to two of the questions and ‘yes’ for one of them. I’ll keep all of you in suspense and let you know in a few months if the specifics are right. As you can see, there were some questions that might seem redundant (like the identical/fraternal one), but are a good checking mechanism.  One possibility to stay aware of, though, is that the emotions of the one using the crytal can ‘cross’ with the one being tested.  And since this friend has had twins, that’s something for me to keep in mind.

She asked me before all of this what my intuition was telling me, and I told her that I don’t like to say what my intuitive thoughts are until after I know the facts. This process did confirm my own intuition (or is it wishful thinking?), and fit in with a dream I had the night before the midwife came (that we suddenly needed a larger dining room table to fit everyone), which suddenly came flooding back to me as soon as the midwife did the measurements.  That would still make sense if we were just having a singleton, though.

So that was interesting. It remains to be seen if it was accurate or not, so I”ll still be waiting for the most part for an official confirmation before mentioning anything (in real life) to anyone one way or another.

Avivah