Avivah Werner

Category: nutrition

  • Thinking for yourself

    Last night I was speaking with someone I’ve gotten to know over the last month or so who just got a cancer diagnosis.  She got the impression that I’m more healthy than her typical aquaintance, I guess.  So she told me about her diagnosis and said she was open to alternative approaches, but didn’t know where to start.  I love Google and the amazing amounts of info a person can find to help themselves, but I also know how overwhelming a huge amount of information can be to someone not used to doing this kind of research.  So a couple of nights ago when I was up with the baby, I figured I’d do some reading on natural cancer cures and get her started with some good links.  I have a decent sense of what is good info and what isn’t, plus I’m a fast reader, so I thought I would help her by giving her a solid starting point.  After 3 hours of reading, I sent her an email detailing three sites I suggested she start with, as well as some specifics regarding vitamin C. 

    But it seems to be so hard for someone not used to thinking for themselves to make decisions, even when they have the information!  People have gotten used to thinking of people with degrees in a field as the experts (like doctors), and have disempowered themselves with this kind of thinking.  It’s hard to overcome that kind of disempowerment just because you want to suddenly do things differently, and I understand that. 

    At the same time, my approach to everything from childbirth to parenting or homeschooling is based on empowering others to think for themselves, not telling them the exact steps to follow.  The steps that each of us need to follow to be successful is different, since we each define success and happiness differently.  She kept asking me what she should do, and after discussing some basic points to work on with her, I told her she needs to make these kind of decisions about her health herself.  You can’t turn to others (including me) and say, “Just tell me what to do so everything will be okay”.  Who can make that kind of guarantee for someone else? 

     So she asked what I would do if it were me.  And I told her that I personally wouldn’t do chemo and would only deal with it alternatively – but that was consistent with who I am and my holistic approach to life.  (I actually had to deal with this three years ago, when I had a swelling on my neck.  A friend noticed and told me to get it checked out-  I did and the endocrinologist took one alarmed look and started talking about immediate surgery for a tumor that large, suspecting thyroid cancer.  To make a long story short, it disappeared when I eliminated sugar from my diet, without the help of chemo, surgery, or further diagnostic testing after the initial biopsy.)  She had to think about who she is and what approach she can feel good about, and she would have to feel comfortable about her decision.

    But after almost an hour of conversation in this vein, she plaintively said, “But you aren’t telling me what to do!”   I’ll be honest – I  don’t know how to help those who want me to do their thinking for them, and once I’ve tried my best to help, I don’t have a lot of patience to keep having a conversation.  I have very, very little time that I can speak on the phone, I was jiggling a cranky baby the entire time, and it was 10:30 pm by now.  I’m willing to spend time with people when they are truly open to what I’m saying, but I can’t listen to someone go in circles.  It’s not productive for them and frustrating to me.  I realized that nothing I was saying was helping, since I had spent so much time speaking to her not only about specific things she could do, but explaining how crucial it is to claim her personal power with a diagnosis like this and not depend on everyone else to take care of her. 

    So I finally said, “If you want someone to tell you what to do, go to your doctors.  They’ll be happy to do that.  And if you’re okay with the results of their decisions, then fine. But regardless of who makes the decisions about your health, you’re the one who is going to have to live with the consequences.”

    So my point in sharing this is to say, don’t give away your power by being afraid to learn more and to apply what you learn, by feeling insecure that you don’t know enough or you aren’t enough in some way.  Personal power doesn’t come from depending on other people to tell you what you need.  It comes from taking the initiative in any area to see what you need, and finding a way to accomplish your goals.  It is so empowering to realize how many things we can do in various areas of our lives to help ourselves and our families! 

    Avivah

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  • Snacks for kids

    So you might be thinking after all my talk about nutrition that my poor kids have a deprived diet and that you feel pretty bad for them.  Don’t they ever get snacks?  Well, yes.  But not much.  Yep, they’re deprived.  But don’t tell them, because they don’t think so. 🙂

    I make treats for the Shabbos meals, but during the week they mostly stick to three meals a day.  I try to make nourishing meals and make sure that the quantities are sufficient for them to really be full when they are finished.   I want my kids to recognize when they are hungry and not constantly graze.  Too often, we eat because we are bored or out of emotion, and that’s a damaging habit that kids can too easily get into.  I can’t ensure that they won’t become emotional eaters when they are older, but I don’t have to set them up for it from a young age.

    I differentiate between special desserts I make for our weekend meals and weekday snacks.  Usually if I make a snack, it’s because dinner is delayed and I don’t want them being hungry while they’re waiting for dinner to be ready.  Here are some weekday snacks I periodically make for my kids:

    – popcorn (popped in coconut oil or butter)

    – celery with peanut butter

    -trail mix/nuts

    – soft pretzels/breadsticks

    – veggie sticks/fruit

    What kind of things do I make for Shabbos treats?

    – fruit – but usually something different than what I give them for breakfast, like grapes, fresh pineapple, melon – usually cherries wouldn’t be on this list because of the cost but after yesterday’s big bargain, they’re getting cherries with their breakfast until they’re gone!

    – dried fruit

    – nuts

    – home baked goodies – made with nutritious ingredients like coconut oil, honey/sucanat, etc.

    – carob chews/ fudge

    Last night I made a note to myself to try some new recipes this week for snack/desserts: sprouted grain crackers and sunflower seed brownies; if they turn out well, I’ll add them to my culinary repertoire.  🙂

    Avivah

  • Tips for improving dental health

    Since I know that other moms are probably also interested in how to improve their children’s dental health, I thought I would share some information that I’ve found valuable.  First of all, improving dental health is integrally linked with improving the overall state of the body’s health. The state of your teeth is a reflection of what’s going on in your body.  This contradicts the typical way of looking at the teeth as only cosmetic and independent from the rest of the body, but is a very important distinction. 

    The following is what I’ve gleaned from various sources, and made notes on for myself – I’m far from an expert on nutrition.  From what I understand, improving your dental health is a two pronged approach: 1) eliminating/minimizing low quality foods that deplete the nutrients from your body, and 2) adding high quality food that build up the body to your diet. 

    What are foods that should be minimize, and ideally eliminated?  There are reasons that each of the following are problematic, but I’ll just share the list of what to work on for now:
    – sugars/sweeteners
    – hydrogenated fats, margarine
    -iodized salt
    – processed foods
    – pasteurized milk products
    – soy foods
    – unsoaked grains (even whole grains)

    Of this list, I still sometimes use unsoaked whole grains and flour (but I’ve made big improvements in that area!), but otherwise I pretty much have eliminated everything else.

    The body needs both calcium and phosphorus, and a lack of it seems to be the cause of tooth decay. Whole grains and soy foods are high in phytic acid, which bind with the phosphorus and escort a significant amount of the nutrients in those foods right out of your body. Soaking them neutralizes the phytic acid so that your body can benefit from the nutrients in your food.

    Increasing foods that build the body up:
    – bone broths
    – cod liver oil
    – butter oil

    These are the three things I’ve seen most highly recommended to build up teeth. Of these three, I’ve so far only done the bone broths. I use broth quite a bit so that it’s part of our regular diet, even when the kids don’t see it (like to cook rice in). 

    Other good things for general health that also positively effect the teeth and should be included as much as possible in the diet are:

    – raw milk
    – raw butter
    – raw honey
    – sea salt
    – lacto fermented veggies (they strengthen digestion and assimilation)
    – soaked/sprouted/fermented grains and flours
    – pastured eggs
    – saturated fats (animal fats and coconut oil)
    – high quality animal protein (meat, chicken, fish)
    – lots of veggies

     Of this list, I do most of them most of the time.  Sometimes I use supermarket eggs or regular store butter, but otherwise I’ve integrated all of the other suggestions into our diet.  You’ll notice that some of these are replacements for the list of things to eliminate, raw milk for pasteurized milk, sea salt for iodized salt, soaked grains for unsoaked grains, etc.  So it’s more like you’re substituting one thing for another than actually adding new strange things to your diet.

    By the way, as a substitute for margarine and hydrogenated vegetable oil, I use coconut oil.  It perfectly substitutes for shortening.  I also occasionally use extra virgin cold pressed olive oil.  I also render beef/lamb fat and use that to add nutritional value to dishes.  (This is a great irony to me, since this is the kind of thing I used to very much avoid eating, thinking it was bad healthwise.)

    Herbs for strengthening teeth:
    – horsetail, lemon grass, red raspberry, nettle, lemon balm – I’m guessing these are good because of the vitamin c, but I can’t say for sure.

    Avivah

  • Think toothbrushing is crucial? Think again!

    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

    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

  • Vegetable bargains

    I popped out to the store today to pick up some refreshments for our homeschooling gathering tomorrow, and when I was there saw some veggies on sale.  There are vegetables on sale, and then there are veggies that are super cheap.  These were in the latter category – on the reduced rack.

    There was a point that I shunned reduced produce racks, thinking they were semi rotten vegetables that the store owner was still trying to crank some profit from.   But I’ve since learned that often there is just an overstock of a given vegetable and they want to sell the produce quickly before it goes bad.  I stay away from produce that looks really bad, since I don’t find it worth my time or money to cut away all the yukky spots. 

    To find these reduced racks, look for small privately owned markets that discount produce substantially when it’s ripe or a little overripe.  I’ve found a local Asian market and a Russian market both have these, along with another local smallish store.The large supermarkets very rarely have these sections -I’ve only twice in years found reduced produce at national chains – both times ripe (not overripe) bananas.  They just throw away anything with imperfections. 

    The challenge with reduced produce is that it has a short shelf life, and you need to use it pretty promptly.  For a family like ours, that’s not usually a problem, since the kids love fruits and vegetables and go through it fast.  But sometimes I’ve gotten carried away by the super cheap prices and gotten too much, and then had to make a real effort to use it so it didn’t go bad. 

    Now that I’ve learned about making fermented vegetables, I don’t have that kind of pressure anymore.  Today I bought a lot of tomatoes and peppers, and then prepared two quarts of tomato pepper relish when I got home (you’d be amazed how many plum tomatoes you have to use to fill up a two quart jar!).  I also added some tomatoes to the batch of salsa I made, which was way too spicy for my taste.  (My policy is to make a recipe the first time as it’s written, so I know what it’s supposed to taste like before I make my adaptations to it.)  It’s nice that I can just add some vegetables to already fermented vegetables and then put it back on the shelf to ferment some more. 

    My dd13 made two versions of cortido (Latin American sauerkraut), using the pineapple vinegar we made as the fermenting agent instead of sea salt for two quarts and sea salt for the other two quarts.  (The pineapple vinegar was interesting and easy to make – you put the core and skin of a pineapple in a jar with some oregano and water to cover, and let it sit out, covered for 3 days.  Then strain it out and voila – pineapple vinegar!) 

    Avivah

  • Making lacto fermented vegetables

    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.  🙂

  • Making sourdough bread

    Here’s another of my new culinary experiments – sourdough bread.  I began my making the starter, and I’ve found it very interesting to see how it works.  I never knew much about it, but it seemed intimidating to me.  Basically, a starter is homemade yeast.  You just mix some water and flour, leaving it covered at room temperature for a day.  Then the next day add a cup of flour and water each, and continue this for seven days, while it continues to stay at room temperature (covered so nothing gets in it).  I found it fascinating to see how the microorganisms all around us can be grown in a way that contributes to our health. (Ideally you should use non chlorinated water but I’ve done it with sink water and it’s still worked.  You can also let the water sit overnight so that the chlorine evaporates.)

    At the end of seven days, you use some of the starter as the leavening agent for bread, and mix in some more water, flour, and salt.  (I used the recipe in Nourishing Traditions.)  Stick it in a loaf pan, place it in y0ur unheated oven, and let it rise overnight.  Letting it rise long enough is really important to the quality of the final loaf – the second time we made it, dd13 was doing it and she let it rise for only an hour in a warm oven (she’s used to baking yeasted doughs) and the final result was so heavy that it was hard to chew.  Bake for about an hour at 350 degrees.  We baked it when we got up in the morning and enjoyed it fresh from the oven with butter for breakfast.  Yum!  It was a dense loaf, but very flavorful.  Since it was so much heavier than regular yeast loaves, it only took a couple of slices to be satisfied.

    I think that I’ll start to make this once a week since everyone is enjoying it.

  • Replacing white sugar

    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

    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