Extra spinach?

Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, add some minced garlic and saute for one minute. Add some sea salt, and a dash of pepper, and your beautiful SPINACH, and saute until done. Yum!

Did you know?

That it takes 16-17 pounds of grain to feed a cow to make one pound of beef?  That's a lot of grain we could be using to help the hungry, don't you think?

Yummy Breakfast

If you have leftover brown rice from dinner yesterday, here's a good breakfast.

brown rice

rice milk

maple syrup

cinnamon

raisins

Add everything to taste, heat it up, and serve.  Very yummy!

Quick lunch

brown rice, steamed broccoli, bragg's liquid aminos (health food store)... mmm!

Quinoa

I have a new fetish.. it's called quinoa *if you have never heard of that, it's pronounced keen-wah. And it's G-O-O-D! I've seen it at a few grocery stores, but it's outrageously expensive I think. I bought a 50-pound bag of it from Walton Feed for I believe $55.00. If you would like to try it, let me know and you can try some of mine before you invest in it. It's supposedly the SUPERGRAIN of the grains. It has three times as much calcium and twice as much phosphorus as wheat, and supposedly if you eat it while you are pregnant regularly, you'll have an ample supply of milk-

I love it because

A: it tastes way good

B: it cooks very quickly

C: it's nutritious.

My sister was excited to try quinoa and cooked it just like oatmeal, ate it, almost threw up, and never touched it again. Until I told her you have to rinse it until the bitter smell is gone, then cook it. Bring it to a boil in twice the amount of water as quinoa, simmer 15 minutes.. serve.

Here's a recipe:

quinoa

sweet potatoes

coconut oil

sea salt

Cube your peeled sweet potatoes into small cubes, toss until evenly coated in a couple tablespoons coconut oil (or olive oil-both way good), put on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with salt, and roast for 20-25 minutes. Once the potatoes are done, layer the top of of a bowl of quinoa and serve. Slap this together with a fresh salad and you've got dinner folks!

Enjoy.. let me know if you like it.

Potato Parade

We love this at my house, but there is a few different ways you can make it.  

Ingredients:

sweet potatos

yams

yukon gold potatoes

carrots

You can use however much of each ingredient that you want.

I cut them into bite-size pieces, steam them (or you can roast them), put them in a bowl with a couple tbsp of butter, sea salt, and enjoy.. 

We went camping last weekend, and instead of hobo dinners, I tried this in tinfoil.  I just cut them up like usual, slabbed on a dab of butter, some Jane's Crazy Mixed up Salt (or garlic salt/sea salt would be fine), and cooked them in the fire.  The ones that weren't burnt were mighty tasty!

Yay!

Check out this article from KSL today:

Brighton High bans fried food

Produce Co-Op

Has anyone heard of a produce co-op where you get produce from a local (within 100 miles) source every two weeks?  I went to the farmer's market in Logan last week (Saturdays from 9-1 at Merlin Olsen park) and found a Logan Co-op.  I believe there is one in Brigham also.  Anyone have any information or experience?  Would anyone be interested if I found more information?

Great Education

I purchased a book called "Introducing Solids to Your Child" a couple of weeks ago. I finished reading it yesterday and can't stop thinking about all the great information it gave. If any of you know me, you know I get excited about something and then I have to share it. So I wanted to let you know that if you are interested in feeding your family more health consciously and want to know more about the benefits of whole food (food in it's natural form instead of processed), if milk really is good for us, what is in the meat we buy at the store, and how our bodies process food additives, pesticides, and other dangerous things in our food, I highly recommend it. You can buy the e-book for only $10, or the paperback book for $20. It's 182 pages, so if you're not impatient like me, I'd suggest the paperback book. If you'd rather not buy it, but are still interested in this, please let me know and I'd be happy to lend you mind. I think it's THAT important.

Some of the great things I learned were these:

Whole, natural foods are so widely available today, and cheaper than buying processed food.

MSG, a food additive to make things taste better and make us want more, is actually killing brain cells *MSG is in SO many things under so many labels: ramen noodles, almost all fast food places, chips, and about a billion other things.

Milk sold at the store comes from hormone injected cows and those things transfer to our bodies. If you do drink milk, try and know where it came from. We luckily have a family cow so our milk isn't injected with a bunch of harmful stuff and the cow is grass-fed.

Sugar is so addictive and is causing so many problems for our kids today. A teacher who banned sugar at her elementary school saw a 15% increase in test scores at her school. That is amazing!

More than anything, I love being educated. I've read these things other places also and have been practicing a lot of them for the past 6 months and have noticed a dramatic difference in my home. These things are affecting our kids and I can't help but talk about it. I believe diet has everything to do with everything. The moods we are in, concentrating, being happy and grateful, our body working correctly, sleeping...

Here is the link:

Introducing Solid Food

The key for me is this: health food seemed like something for me that I always thought about doing but it was a whole different realm. How sad is that! That whole, natural food that people have been eating for thousands of years is now WEIRD to us, and processed crap is NORMAL. OK.. that is backwards, but we just don't think about it because we have been led to believe by various organizations and good heck the grocery store aisles that chemically produced food is GOOD for our bodies. Well how is it that we have so many health problems now in our schools/homes: depression, addiction, irritability, hyperactivity, poor digestion, overweight, etc. There is a way to change, and it is not hard. We just need direction and education, and with the internet that is so widely available. I've learned to trust my instinct. I don't need to rely on other people to tell me what is true, and what is not. I can read something, think about it, even test it out.

For example, when I lost my breatmilk, formula to me was the only option, even though I felt deep down it was not good. Instead of just doing it anyway because to me that was the only option, I started researching alternatives. The more I learned, the worse I felt about formula, and the more options I saw. I learned that goat milk is the next closest thing to human milk and is so much easier to digest because the fat molecules are smaller. So I started talking to people that has used goat milk as an alternative, and step by step I got led to a lady right here in my very town that has done this. Now my baby is on raw goat milk and doing excellent! I am no longer fighting the bad feeling I had about formula, I know he is healthy, and I learned a very valuable lesson in trusting my instinct. God is aware of what is happening to the earth, and we need to make better choices if we want to feel better, and teach our children. So do you all think I'm crazy now? It just breaks my heart to see people so unhappy and irritable, when I know that the food we are eating is causing it. Believe me, I've been there. And I do NOT want to go back there. But we just don't know better until we learn. So let's learn! This is something that we can do to help our families be happier.

So tell me: What are some of the things that you have been doing in your home to be healthier? What is the thing that is holding you back from eating healthier?

What can I help you with? I'm no expert, but I've been researching a LOT of information, and would love to help direct you to some great resources. I have great friends and a great family, and live in a great valley. I would like to give back :)