Tag Archives: nutrition

A Treasured Treat That Just Got Better

Good Morning!  Glorious day! And Happy Friday!

Let me introduce you to Ghee if you have not met her.  ( It is not the cat. The cat is Maggie.  She is just wishing you a beautiful day. )  Ghee is clarified butter.  She is great for cooking since  she has a high heat threshold, 485 degrees.  Compare that to 180 degrees for olive oil.  It is great to use for all types of cooking including baking.  It is casein and lactose free for those that have a sensitivity.  It does not need to be refrigerated although I do.  I don’t need to be refrigerated.  I refrigerate the ghee.

Every time I saute vegetables I get outstanding results.  Guests always comment on what ever food I cooked with Ghee.  It just gives them a yummy warm flavor.

It also has an alkalyzing affect on your body.  I will be going into alkaline vs. acidic environment soon.  We all have very acidic conditions and it is a breeding ground for all sorts of nonsense.

Yep! This would be corn. Can little people like us grow corn? We’ll find out!

When I eat movie theatre popcorn, I dont know about you,  but I leave feeling like I have been injected with tar or something.  I realize I eat a ton of it but the whole deal is terrifying.  Bad salt, bad oil, bad, bad.  The same goes for microwave popcorn.  It takes me a good 24  hours to recover.  It tastes great though, doesn’t it?  Anymore, that is not enough.  My food HAS  to have some redeeming quality.   I’m sure there is some dog food that tastes pretty good. That doesn’t mean I am going to eat it.   I am extremely tempted by the cookie and snack bar at Petco.  Those things have to taste good, right?  Maybe not…..

This popcorn will become your favorite popcorn  and you will want to watch movies JUST so you can make it!  Coconut oil makes it wonderful by itself and sometimes we do not butter it with ghee and it is delicious.  The fats that we use here are  completely beneficial for your precious body.

YUMMY POPCORN

Use  a heavy pot with lid on stove.

Heat on high 1-3 Tablespoons of Organic Unrefined Coconut Oil

Measure out 1/2 cup of preferably organic popcorn (many groceries sell it in bulk now)

Cook the popcorn the usual way on the stove on high.

Heat several tablespoons of ghee to top the popcorn.  Salt with Celtic sea salt or another of your favorite sea salt or seasoning.

Enjoy the movie!  If its good, let me know, I’ll watch.

God bless,

Karen

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Are You a Well Oiled Machine?

This morning’s walk to feed T-bone and Rib Eye

Like secret service men I send my dogs out in front of me on our walks.  They perform  snake patrol.

Most of us are oiled machines, but the operative word is “well”.  I want to wade into this water gently and thoughtfully because we have been hearing a line of bunk for so many years that it has become truth and it is killing us.  Also, I want to try to be simple and not bring all the technical stuff into the mix because, a) I dont understand it and b) it is b.o.r.i.n.g.  We are only getting some of the story and the part of the story being left out is quite necessary for us to hear.

I would love for us to begin to open our minds to think differently than we have been trained.  A whole food is wonderful until it is introduced to  processing and chemicals.  Until. Until. Until.  Things change after that. Dramatically.  Processing and chemical treatment change the composition of food.  Period.  We don’t get the same benefits of corn when it is tortured and brutalized.   No regard to its natural state has been considered.  When you over cook anything, you kill it.  So instead of approaching a food with -is it low fat, no trans fat, high fat, – it would be kinder on your body to ask if it was processed, how and was there anything added.  Anytime they add something, it usually means they have had to take something.

Before I begin, let me state that fat is imperative for healthy living.  When we talk about a low-fat diet we are eliminating crucial elements from our diet.  This is what fat in our diet does for us:

OUR CELL MEMBRANES ARE MADE UP OF 50% FAT.  They will die without it.  What a squeaky machine we are without it!

FAT SOLUBLE VITAMINS , A, D, E, K  NEED FAT TO CARRY THE VITAMINS THROUGH OUR BODIES.  THESE ARE CRITICAL VITAMINS.

FATS PROTECT THE LIVER FROM TOXINS

FATS ENHANCE THE IMMUNE SYSTEM

FATS LOWERS LIPOPROTEIN WHICH INDICATES A POTENTIAL HEART DISEASE ISSUE.

FATS ARE NEEDED FOR CALCIUM TO BE SUCCESSFULLY UTILIZED IN BONE HEALTH.

THE LIST GOES ON

We have learned from the people ( FDA, Food industry, Drug Companies,  Doctors, CIA, FBI, ABCDEFG, etc.) that:

Monounsaturated fats are good.  Olive oil and canola oil are the two main.

Polyunsaturated fats are good.   Margarine, Vegetable oils.

Saturated Fats are bad.  Coconut, Butter, Animal Fat, Creams

So far,  so good.

WHAT WE HAVE NOT LEARNED:

Monounsaturated Fats (olive oil and canola oil) cannot sustain their nutrient benefits if heated beyond 180 degrees.  thus becoming a non food.   So  really shouldn’t be used for cooking high temps.  I am really guilty of this and am trying to be more conscious of it.  I used to bake with it too which is not recommended.  Also, because of a high demand they are being processed to an extent that many of them come to your table nutrient deficient.  Look for FIRST COLD PRESSED. UNFILTERED AND CLOUDY.  Many groceries wont have this.  Most groceries will have first cold pressed but you will probably have to  order the unrefined online or shop at specialty stores.

Polyunsaturated Fats are the biggy here.  ugh.

Excess consumption of polyunsaturated oils has been shown to contribute to a large number of disease conditions including increased cancer and heart disease; immune system dysfunction; damage to the liver, reproductive organs and lungs; digestive disorders; depressed learning ability; impaired growth; and weight gain.*

New evidence links exposure to free radicals with premature aging, with autoimmune diseases such as arthritis and with Parkinson’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Alzheimer’s and cataracts.**

They go through an extensive process which  can be a heating/steaming situation 3 times!  What would you call that once processed?  Probably not something that our precious bodies would recognize as food.  Again,  NON FOOD ITEM.

When it is heated on our stove it becomes rancid and oxidizes.  So when I think about eating something that is rancid… ugh … and just because I can’t see the rancidness, doesn’t mean it is not there.  Would I eat a piece of bread with green mold on it?  Of course not!

Saturated Fats.  This is the good part!  They are very good for you    IF ( and that is a big IF. ) they are not processed to death. Again, we have to become every conscious how food is treated before coming to our door.  Dr. Oz and the likes of him are having to eat their words on this subject. He mentioned a few months ago he has a tablespoon of coconut oil everyday.  It was not too long ago that coconut oil was a NO NO.   If these fats are not tainted with chemicals and heavy processing, they are hands down the best source of fat and have huge benefits.  All the benefits I list above, call for saturated fats.  I have eaten all that I desire of butter, ghee, coconut oil, and animal fats  in the past 7 years and my health soars!  I eat mucho.  My tryglecerides were so low that a doctor recently told me that if he  hadn’t known better he would have thought his patient came from a concentration camp.  He had never seen them so low.  In other words…from a different world.  My cholesterol levels are perfect.  Please remember,  I used to not be healthy.  AND I don’t gain weight as a result of my intake.  God would not make food for us and then have us all become ill from it.  We have tainted our own food supply.

It is vital that we get our food from good sources.  That is the key here.  Not –  low fat, high fat, sideways fat, straight fat.  It has to be nontainted, non processed, GOOD FAT.    Consider your source always.

It is my prayer that we begin to look at this from a new angle …..Instead of being on a low fat diet or a low carb diet, or a high protein, or whatever diet ( those are food groups for heavens sake!  Needed for survival!)  Try going on a low chemical diet.  Or a low processed diet.  Or a low antibiotic diet.  or a low steroid diet.  Or  a local diet.   Or organic diet.  Those are NOT food groups.  Does that make sense?

And…. margarine….What IS THAT anyway?

Have a Super day!

God bless,

Karen

  *A general review of citations for problems with polyunsaturate consumption is found in Pinckney, Edward R, MD, and Cathey Pinckney, The Cholesterol Controversy, 1973, Sherbourne Press, Los Angeles, 127-131; Research indicating the correlation of polyunsaturates with learning problems is found in Harmon, D, et al, J Am Geriatrics Soc, 1976, 24:1: 292-8; Meerson, Z, et al, Bull Exp Bio Med, 1983, 96:9:70-71;Regarding weight gain, levels of linoleic acid in adipose tissues reflect the amount of linoleic acid in the diet. Valero, et al, Ann NutrMetabolism, Nov/Dec 1990, 34:6:323-327; Felton, C V, et al, Lancet, 1994, 344:1195-96

**Machlin, I J, and A Bendich, FASEB Journal, 1987, 1:441-445

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