Our Backyard Homestead

Rabbits 5, Stephanie 0

It has been a few years since the rabbits and I have been at war, but battle is underway and the rabbits are way ahead in the game!  With all of the delicious lettuce growing everywhere, you would think I had provided plenty to keep them happy.  Have they touched my plentiful lettuce?  Nope.  They have however, feasted on every single kale plant that I have planted. 

I put in eight new plants on Monday and haven't been out to check on how they have fared in the past 36 hours.  The odds are not in my favor!

Carrot pulp, Cranberry Muffins ~ Grain and Dairy Free

We have been happily juicing since August (more on that soon) but I hate it that all of the pulp goes to feed the chickens or the compost pile.  Better than the trash can, yes, but I keep thinking that we should be using it.  The past few weeks, I have been segregating my carrot pulp from the rest and have been experimenting with muffins.  It took a few batches to get it right, but I think we have finally achieved a winner!  Since I am worried that I am going to loose the sheet of paper that my notes are written on, I thought I would share on the blog.

Carrot Pulp, Cranberry Muffins

• 1 large banana, well mashed
• 2 c. carrot pulp, any large chunks removed
• 4 large eggs
• 2 Tbsp olive or melted coconut oil
• 2 Tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 3/4 cup almond flour
• 2 Tbsp coconut flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup cranberries (we use frozen)

Mix wet ingredients well.  Add in dry ingredients and stir until well incorporated.  Batter will be very thick.  Stir in cranberries and fill muffin pan.  Be sure to grease pan if you do not use paper liners.  Fill muffin cups nearly full.  Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

 

And now a few notes and the picture how to:

• I wanted a recipe that mixed the grain free "flour" options.  I do not love coconut flour only baked goods and almond flour is so expensive not to mention extremely nutrient dense.  The carrot pulp is also quite dry and functions somewhat like a flour in this mix.  The cranberries add moisture as the muffins bake.
• Grain free recipes tend to be more dense and do not rise much.  Because we are starch free, we cannot use baking powder. 
• I think that some sunflower seeds, walnuts or pecans would be a lovely addition.  However, I am met with resistance from a few children.
• Ginger would likely be a nice addition, however, it contains starch.  We will test this soon and hopefully ginger can migrate into the safe category.
• Of note for anyone strictly starch free, the banana is also to be avoided in a strict non-starch diet.  We eliminated them for a while, but it seems that they are not problematic.  The riper the banana, the less starch it will contain.

Batter:

Before baking:

Finished baking. They do rise a little and might even pass for a grain filled muffin, but so much better for you!

My favorite baking cups!  These brands of unbleached liners are much like using parchment paper.  Baked goods do not stick much, if all to the paper.   I can't decide which brand I like better.  Beyond Gourmet fit in the pan better, but if you attempt to pull a hot muffin out, they stick a bit, much like normal paper liners.  The If You Care brand is amazing at how it does not stick to the muffin AT ALL!  However, they are oddly shaped, almost as if they are stretched out and then bunch up in the muffin pan and create a gap in an otherwise perfect muffin.  I thought it was just a bad box that I bought on clearance but it has been quite consistent of every box used since.

The flours mix nicely to create a very palatable texture.

 

The Unhealthy Truth

My goal this week is to write about some of the books and documentaries that have changed the way I think about food.  Most of them have made such a big impact, that I haven't been sure how to concentrate my words into a focused review.  I have decided it is time that I must share my favorite resources beyond my circle of Facebook friends that likely have me set to ignore after all of my food related posting!

The week we embarked upon our elimination diet, we ran to the library with 15 minutes to spare before closing and my daughter and I scooped every elimination diet book off the shelf.  One of the books looked very interesting, but I didn't have time to read it.  As I was returning books, I was about to drop The Unhealthy Truth by Robyn O'Brien into the slot, but had this overwhelming feeling that I needed to hang onto it and read it.  I came home that evening and read it nearly cover to cover. 

Finally, I had possible answers and evidence for the conclusions that I had already drawn based on the positive results of our elimination diet.  I had read Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, as well as a few others.  I had watched numerous food documentaries including Food, Inc. which still ranks as one of the best places to start if you are new to the world of questioning the wisdom of the Standard American Diet.  The Unhealthy Truth rocked my world!  There was so much information in that book, and finally, I had answers for why my kids were struggling to eat what I thought were the same foods that I ate as a child.  Except there is one problem, the foods we are eating today look nothing like the food we grew up on.  There are additives, preservatives, sugars and genetically modified foods that have never been proven safe for humans.

While the book is aimed at parents, I suggest that every person that eats should read this book.  I could go on and on with a detailed review of the book, but there are many, much more able than I, that have posted informative reviews on Amazon (linked above).  In my opinion, the very best way to interest you in the book is to let the author speak for herself.  Take the 20 minutes and watch her speech; your health is at stake!

Our Gluten Free Anniversary

One year ago this week, we abruptly embarked upon our gluten free journey.  I had just returned home from a wonderful weekend conference on mothering and my kids and hubby had planned a pancake feast.  Mind you, this was with freshly ground whole grains from the many pails of wheat berries stored in my son's closet, boys don't need closet space, right?  Immediately following dinner, both my daughter and I had miserable stomach aches.  We had eaten this meal probably hundreds of times and never felt like this.  It turns out that the ever so seemingly healthy buttermilk that my husband had purchased contained corn starch...in buttermilk?!  A year later, with a glucoamylase deficiency for our daughter under our belt, it all makes sense.

In light of the fact that my child lacks the enzyme to properly digest starches, it pains me to know that we spent most of the year "gluten free" which is code for starch, starch and more starch.  Now despite the fact that most gluten free prepared foods and recipes you make yourself are filled with a variety of starches, she did improve immensely by eliminating wheat, as did I.  However, there were still symptoms that were not fully resolved which caused much second guessing and questioning over if we were doing the right thing.  By fall, we were getting gluten 2-3 times a week, still minor, but her health began to plummet and my pain returned.

One year later, I have a new level of confidence and am working to change our vocabulary.  We are not on a "diet."  This is a lifestyle and we will remain wheat free as a family.  Why?  Well, 3 our of 5 of us seem to have issues with starch.  While the other two of us will not be undergoing invasive testing to be certain, it is likely that we have the deficiency, though maybe not as severe.  And secondly, 5 out of 5 of us feel better, have more energy and don't need to snack all of the time when we don't eat wheat.

In my frenzy of trying to figure out what eating starch free looks like, I came across a book that has cleared up so many of my lingering questions from the previous year of wheat elimination.  If I could stand on my head and sing in order to convince everyone to read this book, I would!!  Actually, I recommend the audio version.  I am not sure my ADD self would have made it through some of the more technical parts.  The book is called Wheat Belly and is written by a cardiologist, William Davis, MD.  He discusses how wheat today has been hybridized so intensely, that it genetically looks nothing like the wheat that our parents or grandparents were eating prior to the 1970s.  The research he ties together gave me all of the courage I needed to walk by the bakery at the grocery store and scoff.  We read his book after we had been gluten free for nearly a year and 100% grain free for 6 weeks.  Much of what he discusses in the book is exactly what we had personally witnessed in our family!

Check out Dr. Davis' blog and get a glimpse at what he has to say in the book by listening to this podcast.  Thanks to Dr. Davis, it looks like my son will be getting his closet back.  Prior to reading his book, I hoped that we might be able to tolerate soaked or fermented wheat.  However, now that I fully understand why our wheat elimination a year ago brought so much success so quickly, the future of freshly baked bread is looking grim.

Swiss chard ~ a plant everyone should grow

If there were only one thing I could plant, I have come to the conclusion that I think it should be swiss chard.  And you need not have a garden in order to grow it.  It is a beautiful and colorful addition to your landscaping.  My favorite kind of plants are, number one, easy to grow.  Swiss chard fits this bill amazingly well.  It requires next to no care and will grow year around in a warm winter like the one we are having now.  In past years when we actually had a winter, the chard died out after a few nights in the 20s, but sprang right back to life in the spring.

Here are two of my plants, picture taken in mid-January.  I have since cleaned out all of the dead leaves and it is much prettier and quite less full since we have been using the nutrition packed leaves for juicing the past few weeks.

My favorite kind of plants are, number two, pretty.  I know that I should consider nutritional value over aesthetics, however, I can't help it, I love to grow pretty things.  Pretty things that grow with little care are all the better.  And pretty things that grow with little care and are a nutritional powerhouse sound like just the perfect thing to grow! 

That brings me to reason number three for my favorite kind of plants, nutrition.  For my family this is a two fold deal, it could be the most nutritious food in the world but if it tastes terrible, we won't eat it.  Well, sadly I must admit that my first year or two of growing swiss chard this is exactly the category that swiss chard fell into.  Then one day I read an article of how to cook with swiss chard and decided that we should attempt to eat it.  Chopped and tossed into a soup in the last few minutes of cooking, it was delicious.

Suddenly we lost our swiss chard phobia.  The kids noticed that baby chard leaves were in the salad mix they were eating.  We started juicing this summer and it only seemed natural that we should include swiss chard.  At first, I was scared to add much to the juice for fear that it would be too strong, but just this week I went a little crazy with the amount of chard and yet the juice was delicious. 

It has taken me a while to mature into a well rounded swiss chard grower, but alas, if today you were to tell me I could only plant one thing in my garden, chard would be the one!

What then, can we eat?

A recurring question this past month has been related to what can we eat??  Well, to answer that question, I thought I would continue to share some of our meals along the way.  There is plenty of yummy food to eat, but in an era where whole grains reign as king on the "official" food pyramid, our new diet does seem a bit radical. 

We are not a family that is big on fish, but not wanting to rely on grass fed beef alone, I am working to add variety to the menu.  One of my favorite cookbooks prior to our going gluten free was What the Bible has to Say about Healthy Living Cookbook.  There are still many recipes that we can use or adapt now that we are grain free and one of our favorites is Maple Almond Salmon.  As a matter of fact, this recipe is the ONLY one that has been a success in getting the entire family to eat fish for dinner.  It is very important in choosing salmon to be sure that you look for "wild caught" fish only.  Farmed salmon does not have the same nutritional benefit as wild.  It might be cheaper, but cheap food costs you much more in the long run with the silent damage it is doing to your health.

For sides, I served caramelized onions.  I simply cooked nearly 3 pounds of onions in a little butter for close to an hour.  After the onions cooked on medium high heat for around 20 minutes, I reduced the heat and added about 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar.  I continued simmer until dinner was ready.  The most difficult part of the onions was chopping that many!!

We also had roasted asparagus and garden fresh salad picked just minutes before dinner.  An easy homemade balsamic vinaigrette was delicious.  I have been dependent upon processed foods such as salad dressing for so long, it continues to amaze me how simple, delicious and liberating it can be to kick the box, can or package to the curb.

One month of starch free living

Today marks our one month anniversary of living life without starch.  I won't lie, it has not been all roses and sunshine as we have adjusted to living entirely grain and starch free, but we have survived.  My girl turned 10 yesterday and we celebrated with a SunCup rather than a birthday cake.  Actually, we will celebrate on Thursday and I will be attempting a cheesecake for that event.

It does seem that glucoamylase deficiency has been the root cause of her issues for her entire lifetime.  Since cutting starches out, she has had very few complaints.  Compared to the month of December when she was being forced to eat gluten and experiencing knee pain nearly every day, this is amazing!  Her health seems to be returning slowly and hopefully as her gut continues to heal, her vitamin deficiencies will resolve and she will begin to experience life on full power.

I am convinced that if you truly want to feel great and loose weight, grain free is the way to go.  I am shocked by how much healthy fat I have eaten this past month, yet how pounds continue to fall off.  I had my cholesterol checked at the beginning of the month and will have it rechecked soon.  As a product of the "low-fat" generation, I continue to have difficulty wrapping my brain around eating the way we are.  A book that helping to address this radical shift in nutrional thought that I am currently reading is  Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan, MD.   I was blown away with the chapters on fats and sugars and look forward to finishing the book.  Another book on my to read list is called Wheat Belly by William Davis, MD.  His blog and the especially the comments from people that have given up wheat/gluten are quite impressive and mirror the experience of my daughter and myself.

The end February marks our one year anniversary of going gluten free and I only wish I had done so much sooner.  Deep down in my mommy instincts, I knew that I needed to attempt an extreme elimination diet for the sake of my child, but it always seemed too hard, too big, too inconvenient.   This has been a life changing year for both of us and it haunts me to know the answer was so simple and so within our power, yet the power of mighty addictive carbs and the all too easy box of cereal kept us in bondage and in pain for so long.  It is truly liberating to be free and feel amazing.