Avivah Werner

Category: nutrition

  • The problem with toothpaste

    It’s been two years since I wrote about how to use your diet to improve your dental health.  I also wrote about my thoughts on toothbrushing not being a critical factor to healthy teeth and cavity prevention.  And when I wrote about the many uses of baking soda as well as about the uses of coconut oil, I mentioned that I use baking soda and coconut oil as toothpaste alternatives.  Though I haven’t been using commercial toothpastes for over four years, I’ve never shared my reasons here.

    I have several concerns about toothpaste.  One is fluoride, which is a commercial waste product and toxin that despite all the hype hasn’t been proven to prevent tooth decay. (If you’re interested in learning more fluoride, you can start at this site).  It’s baffled me for years that there are warnings on the tube of toothpaste like “Do not swallow” and “In case of accidental ingestion, contact the poison control center” since swallowing a pea sized amount of toothpaste can poison a young child – but while we lock up chemical cleansers so they don’t get into it, we don’t even consider the free access our kids have to toothpaste.  Not only do we not keep them away from it, we lovingly open their tiny mouths and rub it all over their teeth.

    Then there’s the another thing that puzzles me.  Dentists tell you to brush well after eating sweets, and then the paste you use to brush your teeth is filled with sweeteners.  Doesn’t that seem….well, contradictory?  You dip your brush in something sweet to rub away the residues of sweet food?

    There are ingredients like the detergent sodium lauryl sulfate that may cause irritation to sensitive gums (linked to canker sores for many people).  And then there’s a very problematic ingredient called glycerin.  A good diet can substantially increase the strength of your teeth, and even remineralize them when decay has occurred (yes, that means you can heal your teeth through high quality nutrition).  Your teeth can only remineralize if they are clean, but glycerin coats your teeth with a film that prevents them from being able to absorb nutrients (and it takes 27 rinses to wash off the glycerin).  You can see how this is working against your efforts to build stronger teeth!

    These are some of the reasons we don’t use toothpaste.  I’ll write about what what you can use as toothpaste alternatives as well as share about my kids’ dental history in another post.

    (This post is part of Fight Back Friday.)

    Avivah

  • How to render animal fat

    >>How do you render animal fat?<<

    Sometimes I forget that many things I do that have become second nature to me need explanation!   Rendering fat is very, very easy, and it’s a frugal thing to do since most people tend to throw away the skin and fat; you can save money while simultaneously benefiting your health.

    Take the fat of your choice (chicken, duck, beef), and cut it into chunks if it’s large.  It doesn’t need to be ground or minced, but if you have big pieces from beef, cutting it into 2 inch chunks will help it melt faster.  I don’t usually have any pieces big enough to cut.  You can separate any flesh from it, but I don’t bother since that’s more easily done at the end.  Put the chunks of fat into a pot on the very lowest flame/heat setting on your stovetop so that it will very slowly melt – if you put it too high, it will burn.  As the fat melts, it becomes clear.  Keep the pot covered to keep the heat in, and after a few hours (sometimes significantly less) on low, the fat will be totally liquified.  Be sure to take a look at it every once in a while to be sure it’s not cooking too fast.

    Once it’s fully melted, you can do one of three things, depending on how you’re planning to use and store the fat once it’s rendered.  1) Carefully pour the liquified fat through a fine mesh strainer/cheesecloth to catch the little drippings.  This will give you the best result in terms of asthetics; additionally, by straining out all of the protein sediment, it will stay good for a very long time.  2) Use a slotted spoon to take the cracklings out, saving them to use in a savory dish.  3) Don’t bother straining it because you’ll be using the rendered fat in cooking (vs baking) and you don’t care about if there are a few little pieces. Whatever you choose, store it in a container with a tight fitting lid.

    I tend to go with option 2 or 3, since I only use animal fat for sauteeing, not baking (coconut oil is my ‘go to’ fat for baking).  And I use it so quickly that it doesn’t matter to me if it will only stay good for a few weeks vs a few months.  If I’m doing a huge batch, though, I’ll take the extra few minutes to strain it out.

    I also reserve the liquid that is left at the bottom of the pan after roasting poultry or meat.  When it’s refrigerated, it naturally separates, with the fat rising to the top and the gravy sinking to the bottom.  I scrape off the fat layer to saute with and add the congealed broth that is left to  a stew or casserole – it packs in a lot of flavor.  When I make broth and refrigerate it overnight, the fat will congeal on top.  If it’s a very concentrated pot of broth (ie large amount of bones to water), then I skim the fat or the broth tastes too greasy.  This is particularly important when I do lamb broth, since it tastes like drinking oil if you don’t skim it first.

    Is anyone familiar with gribenes? My mother used to make these on Pesach (Passover).  Gribenes are a traditional Jewish food, the kind of things people now consider a heart attack waiting to happen, but if you know about saturated fats and why they’re so important to your body, you can enjoy them with a clear mind.  🙂

    Gribenes are basically just crispy fried chicken skins.  To make them, you take some unrendered fat and chicken skin (cut it in strips).  Chop up an onion, and put it together in the pot with the fat and chicken skins.  Keep the flame on low until the fat has melted, then turn it up to medium and keep cooking until the onions and skins are golden. Sprinkle with a little salt, and enjoy!  My kids like these hot from the pan as is, but it’s a nice addition to chopped liver or any mashed potato dish (on Pesach, you know that means you can put it into everything :lol:).

    Note: kosher supermarkets sell chicken fat around Pesach (Passover) time, not so much the rest of the year.  Our local store sells schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) throughout the year, but it’s way more expensive than making your own (I haven’t checked for a long time, but I think it was over $5 lb).

    (This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursday.)

    Avivah

    (My apologies for mentioning Pesach when Purim is still over two weeks away; everyone who felt anxious at the mention can now stop hyperventilating. :))

  • Busy in the kitchen today

    Well, we’ve hit an eighty year record for snowfall here in our state!  It’s still coming down and there’s more called for in the beginning of the week. Dh doesn’t have work today, and it’s so nice to have him home in the middle of the week with us.  I keep feeling like it’s Friday today.  We’re all staying warm and snug inside – we’ve had so much snow that everyone stayed inside until after lunch.  Now they’re going out to build an igloo.   When everyone is inside all day, it’s a different feeling than the daily busyness; it’s more relaxed and peaceful.

    Usually Sundays are my prep days and when I post my weekly menu, I also post my food prep plans for the day/week.  I’ve been busy in the kitchen today doing a little of this and a little of that. I can’t say I’m doing more today than usual, but maybe because of the snowed in feeling, I feel like I am! 🙂

    I made a recipe for lunch that’s getting mixed reviews from the kids – peanut soup.  I sauteed a 3 large onions and a head garlic in lots of coconut oil, stirred in arrowroot powder, than added a can coconut milk, lots of chicken stock, 2 jars of organic chunky peanut butter (not sweetened), and spices.  I very loosely based it on a Joy of Cooking recipe, and used the peanut butter in the proportions they recommended, though it seemed like a lot to me.  It’s very tasty, but a little too peanut buttery – I’ll cut the peanut butter by half next time and I think it will be perfect.

    The bulk ferments I started last week are ready now and are really good.  That was the first time I prepared ferments in such large quantities – usually I make my ferments a gallon at a time (I realize for many people a gallon would be preparing in bulk :)) but this time I used two five gallon buckets (food grade).  Something I like about lacto fermenting is how extremely easy it is; my ferments are whatever I feel like throwing together that day.  I made one bucket of cortido (Latin American sauerkraut): I used 4 or 5 very large heads of napa, 4 large daikon (each about 18 inches long), 22 regular sized carrots, 3 huge Spanish onions, and 1/2 gallon of lacto fermented purple sauerkraut (just red cabbage) to add some color and hasten the fermenting process along.  I planned to add garlic and fresh ginger but dd washed the food processor before I had a chance to chop them up, and I didn’t feel like taking it back out to add it.  🙂 I’ve never used napa before – usually I use cabbage – but cabbage takes so long to be ready and I thought this would work faster.  It did.  And even before it’s soft, it still tastes great – it has a nice crunch instead of the rubbery and squeaky feeling of not quite ready cabbage.

    The other bucket is a large batch of pickled green beans. I needed to clear some freezer space so I used up 2 or 3 five pound bags of organic green beans that were taking up room.  Last time I made these I was very happy with the flavor but not the consistency; I wanted them to be crisp but they weren’t.  I thought I might have left them to ferment too long and this time I planned to refrigerate them sooner.  No luck.  It wasn’t until 2 days after I started the green beans that I remembered that I needed a source of tannic acid.  The only thing I could remember being good for this was grape leaves (don’t have any), oak leaves (don’t have any), and strawberry leaves (my plants are dormant right now).   When the summer comes around I’ll be sure to add it to keep them crispy.

    I have four or five heads of cabbage that I’m planning to do something with today – I think I’ll start a batch of curried sauerkraut – it’s just cabbage, carrots, onions, and curry.  I’ll use a five gallon bucket for that, too!   If I make it now it will be ready when the napa cortido is finished.  Sauerkraut always takes longer than anything else so I like to make it with plenty of lead time.

    Dh is using the juice from the ferments as as called for in the introductory GAPS diet and will soon be including larger amounts of the fermented vegetables themselves, which is one reason I’m making larger than usual quantities.  I didn’t want to run out.  🙂  And with this cold weather, it’s not like they need to be refrigerated, so I’m keeping them in an unheated room in the basement once they’re finished.

    Yesterday I did a massive defrosting of our full size freezer.  It is so old and really needs to be replaced; the frost builds up super fast.  I filled a five gallon bucket with frost and ice that I cleared, and then there were another couple of gallons after that.  That takes up a lot of space!  It’s nice to have it done so I can see what we actually have in there – the frost is so bad that it ices things in and covers it up so it’s impossible to see what’s there.  Now that it’s done I see that my supposedly packed freezer is really not very full at all.

    Today for the first time we’re making fish stock.  I’ve thought of doing this before and even gotten fish heads for it, but it just didn’t appeal to me so I never did.  Dh wants to have some, though, because he’s getting a little tired of chicken broth (staple in the introductory phase of GAPS) and wants some variety. I use chicken broth for everything and assuming the fish broth is tasty, will have to think how to integrate this.  He’ll eat it as it is, though, so it certainly won’t go to waste.

    The four pounds of walnuts that I soaked and dried were ready to be put away yesterday but I left them in the dehydrator until today; it’s nice to get them done.  Along with the 12 cups of sliced almonds I did on Sunday night, we have enough soaked nuts prepared for the next couple of weeks.

    Lastly, the beans for tonight’s dinner (baked beans and hot dogs) and tomorrow’s breakfast (breakfast tacos) are bubbling away on the stove.

    And it’s only 2pm! 🙂

    (This post is part of Tuesday Twister.)

    Avivah

  • Grass fed beef at a great price!

    Back in December, I shared my thoughts about the King Corn documentary, and in the comments section (where lots of good information is shared but most people miss seeing it!), Miriam shared about a source for kosher grass-fed beef (Golden West Glatt – where it says ‘source’ in red letters in the sentence right before this is a link to their site).  When I checked out the prices, they looked pretty good!  Until that point, I had only been aware of one kosher source in the country and at almost $10 a pound for ground beef (the cheapest cut), it was simply out of our budget.

    Years ago I spoke with an Amish farmer who agreed to sell me the whole cow, but it was such a complicated and expensive process to arrange for everything (couldn’t use his facilities, would have had to truck the cow somewhere, rent processing space from a kosher butcher and hire a private slaughterer!) so I gave up on the idea.  When I heard about an affordable option that didn’t require me to do anything but pull out a credit card, I was excited that grass-fed beef might finally be on the horizon for us.  🙂

    I contacted the company to find out about how the animals were raised, and here’s the response I got:  ”They are grass-fed and then grain finished which means they are given corn and alfalfa. They are also very humanely raised, meaning that the animals are grass-fed and bedded down at night as well as shielded from inclement weather.”  They aren’t organic, which to me is less important than being grass-fed.  (A little peeve of mine are organic chickens that are marketed as exclusively grain fed.sigh.gif)

    At that point they didn’t have ground beef in stock (I was looking for the least expensive cut I could get:)), but they soon added it and I placed an order for 40 pounds last week.  The price for ground beef (family packs) is just $3.49 lb!  That price is cheaper than even the the regular kosher ground beef at the supermarket – and after reading Wardeh’s poll on grass-fed beef prices, it seems it’s a pretty good deal for non-kosher buyers, too!  And with shipping at just $9.95 for any size order, it’s an incredible deal – my order of 40 lb was just $150 including shipping – yes, it’s a big chunk of change at one time, but that’s a lot of meat!  (Edited to add – it seems this shipping special just ended. 🙁 )

    In case you’re wondering about the family packs, you get a large box of individually wrapped 1 lb packages. Very compact and easy to store.  (Usually at the store I buy family packs, which are about 3 – 4 lb, and I have to separate it and repackage it into 1 lb chunks before freezing.)  I like buying in bulk so this works well for me, though the minimum size is about twenty pounds, so that might be a bit much for smaller families.  (I think you can buy in smaller amounts for about 3.79 lb.)  The order came today in a large box packed on all sides with thick styrofoam, like a makeshift cooler.  It was in transit for three days, but was still frozen solid when we got it.

    I’m not a discerning connoisseur of meat – to me everything tastes fine, and I’m buying this because I care more about how it’s raised and having the right balance of Omega 3 fats – but  several of you have told me you’re very happy with the flavor and I’m expecting it to be very good!

    (This post is part of Fight Back Fridays.)

    Avivah

    Disclaimer- in case you’re wondering, I don’t make any money off of my recommendations on this blog; I’m just sharing an affordable source for meat that is often hard to find at a decent price.

  • Transform your soup chicken!

    All broth makers share the same experience: they make a fantastic broth, packed with nutrients, and then are left with the meat that has fallen off the bones – tasteless, unappetizing, and uninspiring.  Is there something to do besides choke it down or feed it to your cat? (We don’t feed our cat commercial pet food, so it’s not a waste, but still…)  🙂

    Being the frugalest of the frugal, I’m not about to waste any food that comes into the house if I can help it!  But I’m also not about to torture my family and leave them with bad memories of unpleasant food I forced them to eat so it didn’t go to waste.   Bland soup chicken is easily transformed and made into a really tasty dish.  Here’s what I do:

    Revamped Soup Chicken

    First I shred the chicken.  Then, using chicken or lamb fat that I’ve rendered, I heat the fat and saute the chicken in the fat – this gives it a rich and delicious flavor.  (If you don’t have rendered animal fat, you can use expeller pressed coconut oil, but it’s not going to be nearly as good.)  Then I generously season it with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and anything else that appeals to me that day.  After it’s been sauteed and seasoned, I add it to stir fries, pot pies, tacos/burritos, chimichangas – lots of possibilities!

    Because I tend to think of this as a humble thrifty supper, when we recently had a couple for dinner mid week, I wanted to serve something nicer.  I had a different main dish planned, but something happened and I ended up having to serve this.  I was a little embarrassed when the husband asked me how I cooked it (I thought he was thinking it looked wimpy or not up to their standards – they live on a much higher income than we do), so I gave him a brief answer.  Turned out he really wanted to know because he was trying to figure out why it tasted so good and wanted his wife to make it the same way; he’s a good friend of my husband and kept raving about how good it the next couple of times they spoke!

    Simple, frugal, and good for you, too – can’t beat that combination!

    Do you have tips on how to use your leftover soup chicken?  Share them below in the comments section!

    (This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursdays.)

    Avivah

  • Supercharge your broth for immunity!

    Rich and delicious, a properly made bone broth is packed with nutrition and  flavor.  This winter I’ve been using a fantastic addition to supercharge the nutritional value of our stock so that it has even more immune boosting power than a regular broth, and I’ve never seen anyone share about this great ingredient!

    It’s an ingredient that is so inexpensive, so easy to add – no prepping – and so effective, that you’re going to want to add this to your pantry right away!  What is it?  Astragalus root.  Are you scratching your head?

    Astragalus has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for generations and is a real food that builds immunity.  It looks kind of like a small wooden tongue depressor when you buy the slices.  You can find it at your local health food store or buy it online (I got mine here – scroll down page to see it).  In the pound of astragalus root slices that I bought for $10 there are probably a couple hundred slices.

    To use it, you simply pop a few slices into your pot along with the onions, garlic, and any other vegetables you’re adding to your stock.  Since it’s a woody root and doesn’t become soft and delicious with cooking, you’ll simply remove it along with the bones before you serve it.  So simple!

    Since I use our bone broths as the basis for any stew or soup I make, cook grains with it, and drink it, it’s a foundation of my cooking.  Using astragalus is an easy way to supercharge your broth to help keep you healthy this winter!

    (This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays.)

    Avivah

  • Weekly menu plan

    Last night when I sat down to plan our weekly menu, I pushed a piece of paper and pan towards the older kids and told them to write down anything they’d like to have this week.  This week’s menu is pretty much based on whatever they said they wanted.  You won’t see many vegetables listed, and that’s because I need to do some vegetable shopping – haven’t bought any produce for three weeks- so whatever I end up getting will flesh out the meals for the week.

    Shabbos (Sabbath) – night – challah, chicken soup, roast chicken, ratatouille, potato kugel, beet salad, dried fruit (figs, dates, raisins, prunes), peanut butter cups; lunch – chicken, cholent (beef stew), kishke (stuffing), sweet potato pie, carrot raisin salad, beet salad, coconut chocolate bars

    Sunday- brunch – blueberry pancakes with sour cream; snack- broccoli-cheese sticks; dinner – chicken, salads

    Monday – b – polenta with sour cream; l – leftovers from Shabbos ; d – potato soup and dumplings

    Tuesday – b – coconut flour biscuits; triple berry compote (blueberries, blackberries, raspberries); l- potato soup with veggies; d – turkey stir fry with quinoa and sauteed vegetables

    Wednesday- b – Amish oatmeal; l – pizza (lately we’ve been making two kinds of crusts, the usual whole wheat crust, and then a gluten free crust made of nut flour), carrot fries; d- hearty split pea soup

    Thursday – b – omelets; l – split pea soup; d – to be determined

    (Breakfasts will be supplemented by milk.)

    Today I have a pot of turkey broth started that will be the basis of the potato soup and split pea soup; that will add lots of great flavor and nutrient density to them.  Also, dh is starting the GAPS diet and broth is the primary foundation of the first stage, so as much broth as I already make every week (about 20 quarts or so), I’ll be making even more now!  I learned about this diet a year or two ago as part of my ongoing unofficial nutritional research.  I recently suggested it would be helpful to him in improving his digestion.  We bought the book and it hasn’t yet arrived, but the diet is online for free.  I keep meaning to post about the importance of diet as the foundation for healing just about everything, but it’s such a big topic that I’ve been pushing it off for months!  There’s so much you can do to help yourself and your family build their health just through the food you feed them.  As I wrote last night, food is powerful in a number of ways!

    The turkey from the broth will be used for the turkey stir fry on Tuesday night.  I’ll share later on in the week about how easy it is to make flavorless soup chicken delicious!

    Today I’m trying an experiment. I’ve been doing some experimental cooking/baking to minimize grains over the past couple of months, and a while ago found a recipe for pizza crust that uses cauliflower as the base.  I haven’t yet tried it (I’ve preferred the hazelnut crust I’ve been using) but was thinking that I can adapt the concept to make broccoli-cheese sticks that will make a great snack.  I’ll let you know if the experiment is successful and share the details if it is.

    I’m also going to cook up the triple berry compote today so it will be on hand to serve on Tuesday morning.  This is another experiment of mine (those of you who have been reading here for a while know that most of my cooking is experimental!) but I’m sure it will be good.  There’s not much you can do to ruin a blend of three yummy berries, right?

    Otherwise I haven’t been in the kitchen much today; I’ve been poring over fruit tree catalogs, trying to figure out what to order for spring planting.  And then thinking about other kinds of planting I’d like to do; medicinal plants, edible landscaping, and how to best use the small amount of space I have.  The problem is that I’m going to have to choose since there are so many I want and I’ll only be able to have a fraction of them.  Sigh.  I haven’t finished but I’m making some headway. 🙂

    (This post is part of Menu Plan Monday.)

    Avivah

  • Couldn’t breakfast be cheaper?

    >>Maybe it’s because by 7 -7:30 every one but me has to be out of the house, but our breakfast is always fresh bread and spreads, and you have what I’d call “fancy” and varied breakfast every day. Why? Wouldn’t you save time (and maybe expenses) by having only bread and bits for this meal?<<

    I responded to this question in brief in the comments section, but wanted to bring it back up here since there are a couple of other issues that I didn’t respond to there.

    It’s true that if saving time and money was my highest priority for breakfast, I could  cook differently.  For example, I can buy 50 lb of oats for under $25, and at that price I could easily serve oatmeal every day and spend less than $1 total for the entire family for breakfast!   It doesn’t get much cheaper than that!  And as I’ve written in the past, oatmeal can be a fast meal to prepare.

    However, I see mealtimes in a slightly different way than just a time to fuel everyone as fast and cheaply as I can.  Food has emotional power in addition to providing physical nourishment.  When you eat foods that taste good, you tend to have positive associations surrounding the food.  Making different foods that our children enjoy is an easy way to use the emotions associated with food to connect our children with us and one another when we sit down to eat.

    Also, I’m sure everyone has noticed that there’s a widespread belief that healthy food isn’t appealing and the ‘good stuff’ is the typical fare that most Americans are eating.  Along with that belief is the idea that having less to spend on food means being deprived.  My kids don’t see other people eating or shopping like us.  We rarely buy processed foods, and when we do, it’s the kind of processed food that most people consider wildly healthy, we integrate traditional principles of food preparation into all of our meals as a matter of course, and our food budget of $600 monthly (family of 11) is less than anyone I know.

    Every time I serve a meal I have the opportunity to show my kids that healthy foods are delicious and not a reason to feel deprived; that’s daily mental programming towards their attitudes and outlook on food!   And it’s working!  Despite the fact that when kids feel different there’s a tendency to feel like the mainstream view is better and resent being put in the position of not being like everyone else, my kids feel happy to eat the way we do.  They’ve told me (kids ages 10 and up) that when they were younger they thought their friends who could have frozen pizza three times a day were lucky, but now they see it differently.

    Lastly, though I’ve often thought how much simpler my weekly menu planning would be if I just made the same things week in and week out, I enjoy the variety!

    Avivah

  • Too Good to be Healthy Peanut Butter Cups

    The inspiration for these incredibly yummy and good for you treats came from the plastic tray that the all natural falafel patties I bought came in.  I rarely buy processed foods, even natural processed foods, so these trays were an unusual bonus!  The tray had eight round molded spaces where each patty was and looked so nice that I started thinking about what I could use them for.  A couple of days later I had this burst of inspiration!  The final result tasted decadent and looked beautiful, since the molding on the bottom gave it the look of fancy chocolates (I served mine upside down so that the molding was on top).  They looked so good I was tempted to take a picture to show you, but of course I didn’t because that would have meant figuring out how to post them. 🙄

    If you don’t have any creative molds that you rescued from recycling :), don’t despair!  You can use a pan or other flat container and cut them into bars, or you can pour them into metallic mini muffin cups.  They’ll taste good either way.

    Too Good to Be Healthy Peanut Butter Cups

    Chocolate layer: (some of you will recognize this as my healthy chocolate recipe)

    • 1/2 c. cocoa powder
    • 1/4 c. coconut oil
    • 1 t. vanilla
    • 1/8 – 1/4 c. honey

    Melt the coconut oil and stir the other ingredients in; mix until smooth.  Pour the chocolate into the bottom of the pan or fill the molds with a thin layer, leaving half of the chocolate for the topping.  Let cool while you prepare the peanut butter filling.  (The chocolate will have the taste of semi sweet dark chocolate, not milk chocolate. I experimented using coconut milk to see if I could make it more similar to milk chocolate, but wasn’t satisfied with the consistency.)

    filling:

    • 3/4 c. creamy peanut butter (I use organic, with only sea salt added)
    • 2 T. honey
    • 1 t. vanilla
    • 1/4 c. coconut oil
    • 1/3 c. ground nuts (I used pecan meal)

    Melt the coconut oil, stir in honey, vanilla, and then the peanut butter.  When smooth, stir in the ground nuts.  Spread the peanut butter filling on top of the chocolate, whether it’s in a mold or a pan.  Finally, take the remaining chocolate mixture (if it’s started to solidify, heat it gently for a couple of minutes until it’s liquidy and easy to pour) and pour it on top of the peanut butter layer, smoothing it so that the top is even. Refrigerate or freeze.

    Healthy chocolates are super expensive, and these are a fraction of the price!  Not only that, they’re packed with healthy fats and are very satisfying; two make a nice dessert that you don’t have to feel guilty about.  And they are so good you can serve them to your junk food loving friends, too!

    (This post is part of Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays,  Pennywise Platter Thursdays and Fight Back Fridays.)

    Avivah

  • Vitamin C for your health

    Last week, my ds16 had tonsillitis.  I can’t remember any of the kids ever having tonsillitis before; they tend to just get generic colds that don’t last long when they do come down with something.  I’m very inclined to believe that it’s not a coincidence that he got such a bad case now since he recently came off of antibiotics from having his wisdom teeth out.

    This was only the second time in his life he had antibiotics; the other eight kids have never had any antibiotics at all.  (I unfortunately didn’t realize he’d have the antibiotics prescribed for this and hadn’t researched how to deal with it in advance.)   As everyone knows, antibiotics kill off bacteria, good and bad, and it leaves a person’s immune system weakened afterwards, which is why people often get sick again once they come off the antibiotics.

    Ds was feeling really horrible, and I suggested a few things to him, one of which was a specific dosage of vitamin C to take.  The next day, he wasn’t feeling much better, which surprised me somewhat, but the body takes time to heal and it’s unreasonable to expect it to be instantaneous.  The following morning (ie day 3) when he still felt sick, I asked him how much vitamin C he had taken the day before.  He told me he didn’t take any after the first day.  I strongly told him he needed to take some right that minute; I think he took 20 grams (20,000 mg) and then an hour or two later another 20 grams.

    A few hours later he told me he couldn’t believe it, but he felt drastically better (he had been in a lot of pain, stiff neck, hard to swallow).  The next day when I mentioned an alternative remedy for something, this son said, “Mommy, if you say it, I believe you.  I’m not going to doubt you again.  That vitamin C was totally amazing!”

    Most people don’t realize that there are differences in how vitamin C is metabolized by the body, and the specific form you take is imortant.  Sodium ascorbate is the best form to take.  Unfortunately, you will rarely find it in your local health food store.  And if your experience is anything like mine, the people who work there won’t have any idea what you’re talking about when you ask for it.  We buy our  sodium ascorbate in the kilo sized container online.

    The other thing people don’t realize is how much you need to take.  Most people will take one or two doses of 1000 mg when they’re under the weather.  That’s not going to do much.  You’d be shocked by how much vitamin C the body needs when it’s fighting off a cold.  I told ds how much I wanted him to take and he thought it was way too much, but I told him if he was showing bowel tolerance that his body was using every bit of it.  (I read somewhere the Linus Pauling – winner of two Nobel prizes who did lots of research on vitamin C-  would take 16 grams daily when well and up to 110 grams when ill!)

    If you want to figure out the dosage in a more formal way than bowel tolerance, here are a couple of guidelines that I’ve seen recommended.  First of all, you need to figure out the body weight of the person in question in kilograms.  To do that, divide the weight in pounds by 2.2 to get the weight by kilograms.  Multiply the weight in kg x 100 (some say 200 so this is conservative) for the minimum mg per day.  For babies, it’s a little different: 200 – 375 mg per kg of body weight.  We stir the crystals it into a little bit of juice and it’s easy to take like that, even for the little ones.

    There’s lots of interesting reading available about vitamin C and how effective it is in supporting the body to heal many different diseases, but I’ll give you just one site to get you started if you want to learn more.  I haven’t read even a fraction of what there is to learn about vitamin C.  But knowing what I do, it’s very comforting to have it in my arsenal against sickness.  🙂

    (This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays and Works for Me Wednesdays.)

    Avivah