On Drinking Cows Milk

I had a friend email me today and asked me a sincere question with regards to giving her children cow's milk. She is reading a book called The China Study (great book but very frank about animal proteins) and she is now wondering if she should be giving her children cow's milk to drink.

I will explain my opinion on cow's milk, dairy, and drinking water.

I feel that humans are not designed to drink cow's milk or to use dairy. We are designed to nurse our children on their mother's milk and then be weaned to solid foods and pure water, not go from the breast to cow's milk. There is much science, to support my beliefs on this subject and one only has to google "is cow's milk good for you?" to see immediately that this is a hot topic and that there are many sites that will support the drinking of water over milk. There is also a huge (millions and millions of dollars worth) campaign yearly that educates us and our children to drink cow's milk...that would be the Dairyman's Association.

We live in a world and culture where never using any dairy is quite a task to accomplish. My friend is truly searching for answers and is concerned about her children and wants to ensure that they will ingest all the protein and nutrients that their little bodies need to be healthy and strong. I will use my family and my two youngest daughters as examples. We adopted out two youngest children, both girls. I was already nursing our youngest son who was 5 months old when we got Addy, so I chose to nurse her. I nursed them both for a year (I know I deserve a metal!) and then at one year old I moved them to solid food and water. I would have nursed longer if I only had one baby, but two and going a year was pretty monumental. After nursing, I did not move them to cow's milk, I moved them to water. I had read lots of information and I felt that they would be healthier not drinking cow's milk and just drinking water. This ended up being correct. (in another blog I will discuss juice in babies bottles...not good for the teeth or future teeth.)

Now my last daughter was not nursed at all, no breast milk there and so she had formula for about 10 months and was then put on solid food and water. She has never (to my knowledge) ever drank a glass of cow's milk in her 5 year old little life. She is tall, thin, healthy, and ENERGETIC. She loves all vegetables, loves beans, and nuts, and she has healthy teeth.

We don't eat much dairy. I did confess in an earlier post my love of ice-cream which we try to eat only one time per month. So my children do get some sugary dairy-goo in the form of ice-cream every few weeks or less. Sophie (our youngest daughter) never would think to ask for a glass of milk. It is not a part of her life or culture. She does drink water all day though in her own Dora cup.

I am not for juice, or pop, or smoothies either for that matter. I believe that food is best chewed, for many reasons, some physiological, some emotional. I also feel that juice is too much fructose at one time. We eat lots of fruit around here. Pop is obvious: no nutritional value at all, plus it proves negative on our health.

Cow's milk is for calves. In all studies, and in all countries where milk is drank often and in large quantities osteoporosis develops. I won't give a deep science lesson in full here, but these statistics are due to the way the milk is processed in the body and the way the bones leach out calcium to assist in the digestion of milk. The body actually ends up with less protein and calcium when the milk/dairy product is processed in the body than when it started out. We end up with a deficit of calcium in our body after eating dairy. This is why hip fractures are so prevalent in places in the world where milk is drank a lot.

I know this is a sobering and not too fun thought. Our culture uses dairy in just about every dish we eat or prepare. Most people love the taste of cow's milk. We drink it daily and we give it to our children because we love them and we are trying to keep their little bones healthy and strong. Sadly, this is not the case, milk does not provide the calcium our bodies need that will keep our bones strong. I did not want to believe this at all at first. I read many books on this subject and I was finally convinced it is true. I have proved it within the walls of my own family. I have eight children, and my last two have not had cow's milk to drink in their lives at all. We have been living without milk in our lives for over a decade now and we are fine. Please note that cow's milk does not naturally have vitamin D in it, this is added in the processing of it prior to giving it to the public.

The Dairyman's Association is huge and powerful and their advertising campaigns are very convincing. It does not matter though, the science stands firm, that we don't need to drink or use dairy in our diets to be healthy and have strong bones. Using dairy actually does the opposite of what we hope to accomplish, it weakens our bones.

So you might ask: "Where do we get the protein and calcium we need for our bodies if we don't use dairy products?" Great question! The answer may surprise you as it did me...PLANTS! This is where elephants, cows for that matter, and gorillas get their calcium and protein sources from. If we eat salads, dark green leafy vegetables, and nuts and seeds, we will have plenty of calcium and protein in our diets and our bodies will thank us for it!

To learn more on this subject I invite you to read:
The China Study by Dr. T. Collin Campbell
Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman His website is:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/
Also check out the articles on the website called notmilk.com

Some of the articles on notmilk.com come across a bit harsh, so I just watch what I read. I did learn a great deal of good information about the drinking or not drinking of milk though there on this site so it was worth it for me.

I hope this post helps your family at least think about milk in a new light. Our culture really does revolve in a large part around our eating. Changing something in our diet is hard. Best of luck. I am out there trying to eat healthy too.

Yours,
Chris

Healthy Whole Wheat Bread

One of my family's favorite things to smell when they walk through our front door is fresh baked whole wheat bread. I will share with you my recipe. I have tweaked it from a good friend's recipe (thanks Jenni!) and we love this. I hope you enjoy it too.


Whole Wheat Bread

4 cups very warm water
4 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup wheat gluten
2 Tablespoons yeast

Mix all these ingredients in your mixer until they are wet and well mixed (about 45 seconds - one minute). Let this mixture "sponge" (it will swell up in the bowl) for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, add the following:

1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup honey
1 Tablespoon salt
3-4 cups whole wheat flour...sometimes I have to add as much as 4.5 cups, to get it to where I wanted the dough. Dough is a funny thing, that each batch is a bit different.

Let this all mix for 6 minutes. Turn oven on to 320 degrees. After six minutes separate dough into 4 bread pans and allow to rise about 5 minutes, just make sure the dough doesn't raise above the pans, or your bread will get WAY too high.

Bake for 30 minutes at 320 degree....then eat and enjoy!

Save Guilt for Sin

A cousin of mine, Brenda used to have a sign in her kitchen that read "Save Guilt for Sin." I love this saying because it reminds me to keep things in better perspective, a problem for me most of the time. We women (and men too probably) spend far too much time feeling "guilty" about things that are just life or a part of it. For example, we just got through Christmas...did we all eat healthy the whole time? Probably not, but sitting around feeling guilty about meals eaten over the past month is sort of silly. Guilt should be saved for more serious issues in our lives.

I say like Brenda, Save Guilt For Sin, because what really motivates me to do better in my life is love, not guilt. If I love those around me, and love me, then I see things more clearly and I want to do better at living a healthy full life.

Be kind to yourself no matter what you ate, how much you didn't exercise in December (OK in November too), how much sugar you gave to your kids, and how little you flossed your teeth. Get rid of guilt and start working on loving you so you can get to the real important part of your day....LIVING IT!

Keep on Running Keep on Running

I ran into a very inspirational friend this past week. She has lost over 100 pounds this past year. She is now a runner. When I saw her I was shocked. I had seen her off and on this past year and I knew she was losing weight, but wow the end results were really something to see! She looks healthy, younger, and happy. We had a fun chance to talk and she inspired me to start running again.

To back up a bit, approximately 1000 years ago, I used to run in high school, and then I ran a lot on my LDS mission when I had a companion who would also run with me. I fell of the wagon when I got home though, dated a not so nice man who didn't treated me like he should have (dumb me) and then I gained a bunch of weight. After all these years and talking to my runner friend, she said something incredible to me that I must share with you: She said "Chris if you want to be a runner again, do it...your body will remember." That really struck a cord with me as this is something we talk about in midwifery...the body remembers from one birth to the next. She said a whole lot of other things that were so wonderful that day. This kind friend also offered to be a mentor to me to help me get some much needed weight off my body and to encourage me to keep on running. We have been talking on the phone and emailing a lot. It has been incredible and her support and encouragement is invaluable to me.

I have to say that I am loving running again. I am taking it slowly as I am not in high school anymore and my body knows this, even though I don't! Each morning before my family gets up and I study for midwifery, I get on my running shoes and I work up a nice sweat and do something hard for me. It is a wonderful feeling to be challenging my body in this way.

If you ever wanted to be a runner, or if you used to be one and you thought you were too old, or too fat, or too late, don't think those thoughts anymore. Take it slowly, don't go out there and kill yourself, but set small attainable goals and each day keep on running and you will be surprised how much fun this really is. You will love it and your body will thank you for it.

I read a book by John Bingham called The Penguiun. He also has a great website at JohnBingham.com. This site is filled with inspirational information and it is all encouraging to the person who may not want to be a competitor at running, but just wants to run for health and fun. His writing style is easy and refreshing. This wonderful man did not start running until late in life and has now gone on to do incredible things. I hope he will encourage you as he has me.

Have a great day, and run run run!

Living Without My Mother

I have not blogged here in quite some time. I lost my mother to cancer last month and our entire family have been consumed in the caring of my mother, then her funeral, and then taking care of her home, and her estate.

I have learned so many wonderful lessons during this tough time. I have learned that it would have been SO much harder to have lost my mom had we not been really close. As crazy as that sounds, it is true. Being close to someone is wonderful and it makes the separation of death bearable. I guess it is because there are not regrets. I can honestly say that I have no regrets where my mom is concerned. I know she loved me. She knows I loved and adored her too. I called my mom every single day at least once but generally three or ten times. She and I enjoyed talking on the phone together each morning. She only lived 2 blocks from my home, so in-between all of our phone conversations, I made sure to stop by her home a few times per week, just so she could make sure what I looked like I guess.

I have learned that grieving is not depression. It is just simply grieving. Tears and emotions come, and then they go and I am still here, and all is well. I have a strong belief system in my LDS religion that grounds me and saves me. For this great blessing I again have Mom to thank as she raised me in this wonderful religion.

Grieving does take energy. I have also learned that I need more sleep. I need more nourishing foods. I need to cry it seems each day. Not for a long time, but the tears do flow. Running on my treadmill daily is also therapeutic.

I am so grateful for my family. For a wonderful brother who has been right by my side this whole entire time. He has been ever faithful to me in all respects, in all decisions, in all ways. He is my friend, in every sense of the word. His wife is an amazing person who is my sister. I love her so deeply. I have a niece and four nephews who have made this all bearable too. My dear husband who is my best friend has been by me daily and always there no matter how late the hour to talk to me and listen to my tearful yet happy tales of my Mom. My children have also been beacons of energy and caring friends. When you lose someone as dear as a Mommy you realize how much you need your family around you. My close friends have also been so helpful and caring. My best friend from high school came and stayed with me during the week of Mom's funeral. She lives a long way from me and her love was remarkable. Her support impressive. My local friends are also so dear and caring and their love can not be underestimated in how deeply they have helped me get through this hard time.

Death once faced, is do-able. It seems that prior to actually going through this, that I would break apart or something. I don't want to diminish the intensity of the situation or be disrespectful of my mother's life and legacy. I adored her and I do miss her. It is a great thing though to have faced something so difficult and to be able to still see that life is very good. I have not just vanished into a place that is dark. My mother would want me to be as she would say "practical." Which I don't always tend to be for the record! My mother was a good woman who taught me to respect life, to love the Lord, and to live my life. One thing Mom did for me that I treasure is that she listened to me all the time. She loved my dreams and she would listen for long periods of time to me find joy in hearing about my goals and my life. She would say "Chris I am pleased you are becoming a midwife. It would scare me to death, but I am glad for you."

Because of my mother's teachings I feel a love and frankly a responsibility to live a full life. To really live my life and to move forward and to be happy. Grieving is not being unhappy. It is just grieving. My Bishop said something wonderful to me after my mother died, he said "Grieving is the highest level of love we have for someone." I think he is right.

I miss my mom, that is the hard part. I miss her wonderful smell of fancy perfume. I miss her home that was filled with lovely furniture, gorgeous flower arrangements, and lovely everything....my mother was an amazing decorator! I miss her pretty blue eyes and her lovely hands with long nails. I miss her laugh, her voice, her pretty face and hair. I miss her touching my face and saying "I love you Rosebud." These things choke me up. But, I also have a strong belief system and I am eternally thankful to the Lord, who lived and died for me that I may one day be in Heaven with not just my lovely mother, but all of my family, that I adore so much. My mother was a lady, and it is an honor to be her daughter.

If you have lost a loved one, my heart reaches out to you. The Lord is mindful of us, His love is what makes it all as I say do-able.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Yummy Orange Rice

I made a delicious rice the other day that you might like to try. I invented this little recipe all myself, so I am quite proud of it.

Here is what I did:

I took 2 onions and chopped them up finely and placed them in a large stock pot where I had heating 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

I let this fry for about 2 minutes and then I added: 2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon of ground cumin, 1 teaspoon of curry powder.

I allowed this to fry and then I added 3/4 cup of organic sugar. Once this was frying it sort of created a runny mixture, I then added one entire frozen can of unsweetened orange juice undiluted into the mixture.

I then added 4 1/2 cups of rice (Basmati) and allowed this to cook for 1-2 minutes. I then added 9 cups of water, allowed this to boil, then turned down the heat and let this cook for 20 minutes at which time I turned off the stove and kept the lid on the rice and let it continue to steam for an additional 10 minutes.

Fluff rice with a fork, and serve. YUM!

Blessings 40 days After the Flood

I want to share today some of the wonderful blessings that have come to me and my family by having a huge flood. I will back up and tell you what happened this past August. Our cousins were visiting with us from out of state and while I was out shopping with my daughters and female cousin, someone in our family that was home accidentally clogged our upstairs toilet. Thinking it might just shut off or something, they left. Well the toilet kept running for several hours! This created damage for our basement as well as our upstairs. Long story short, we ended up replacing carpet in four bedrooms, most of our basement, and in a library upstairs, and our entire hardwood area (over 1000 feet) had to be replaced. We also had to remodel our upstairs bathroom. Most of our home was repainted. We pulled all the carpets ourselves and did all the painting to save money. It ended up being $15,000 in damages!

We built our home 10 years ago and I have continued to say that I will NEVER move again, it is just too much work. Well when you have a flood, you get to move, you just don't go anywhere. Here is how it went for us: We moved all the furniture that was on the carpet, to the hardwood areas. We have a large home and a lot of hardwood on the main floor. So we moved the three bedrooms that were upstairs on the main floor hard-wood areas. We have many books. We have lots of everything actually. One day in all of this crazy moving stuff this little light went off in my head..."We have too much junk!" I thought. I had heard a saying that went like this "If it does not enhance your life, get rid of it." I looked at all the books I had collected over the years and it dawned on me I was being ridiculous. I do happen to have a library card. Why in the world did I need my own library? Well I decided in that moment of all that crap piled around me that I was going to change my life. No more stuff that did not enhance my life! So I started de-junking right then and there. I got rid of over 200 books, and 100 movies that day. This started a chain reaction and I then went through all of my clothes. I got rid of all the clothes that are too small, too large, the ones labeled "I will wear that someday" and all the shoes that I don't ever wear. I love to cook, but I also had to de-junk my pots and pans. I got rid of my baking tins that I never use, bowls that don't match my sets any longer, extra potato peelers (I mean how many potatoes can I peel at once anyway?) and all of my odds and ends of plastic bowls and on and on. I just started looking at my home and asking if this picture really enhanced my life, or that knick-knack really meant that much to me? I got rid of cookbooks I have never cooked from, coats that no one likes, towels that were thread bare, and tons of sheets that we never use. We had snow boots that fit nobody, trikes no one rides, shovels that are broken and earrings that don't have a mate. All now gone!

I am far from done de-junking my home, but we have made a ton of progress. We no longer wear shoes in our home. With our new pretty floors, I want to keep them clean all the time. I now have a shoe shelf that sits right inside our door way and we actually use it! We all have clean bedrooms and every bed in our home is made each day. Our fridge is clean all the time. Just yesterday which was Saturday I told the children it was time to clean the house. In the past "pre-flood" we would use our Saturdays for heavy cleaning and that took most of our day. Yesterday not so, we had our whole home clean and tidy in about 40 minutes. For us this is a miracle. We have a three car garage and we have not parked in it in two years...well all that has changed...our new van is sitting in there asleep as I write this blog entry! I am amazed how the excitement I have felt about getting organized has caught on to my family. Again another success just yesterday: My son Jake was finishing up cleaning his room, which only took about 10 minutes and he decided on his own to clean up his closet. It was admittedly a bit out of control. Within a half hour, it was so clean I was shocked. He had hung up all his shirts and organized them, his shoes were in a tidy row and he had his toys all clean and orderly. This was without his mother nagging him!

I have realized that I am not a naturally organized person. (I know; Duh!) My mother is. It is hard to compare her to me though as she had two children that were seven years apart. Her home was always neat and tidy. When I married, I had 8 children in 15 years. My home was very different than the one I grew up in. I like some things better in the home I created, but I did not like my lack of organization. This flood has helped me have a reason to get rid of stuff. I just simply didn't want to put it all back. But then I just kept going and organizing lots of areas. As I said, it is an ongoing project, but I am slowly working through my closets, my shelves and my drawers. It is very rewarding to me to see myself becoming a more organized person. I have realized a couple of important things that perhaps you can relate to. First off, my new mantra is:”If it does not enhance my life....get rid of it!” So now instead of just accepting that something should be at a certain place, I evaluate if it enhances my life or the life of those I love. Secondly, I am not naturally organized, so if I have less to manage, life becomes much easier for me. I am learning that I don't need to live with so much. Less really is better. I don't need a library to dust. I have lots to do in my life that for me is far more important than managing stuff. The blessings that have come to our family are truly amazing. We are no longer embarrassed of our home if someone just drops by, it is usually clean. We don't trip on things any more. We have more time to do what we want to do. We can find things when we need then. We feel pride in our home, and it just simply feels more cozy to be here. Our home is a very pretty home, but I think we forgot that when we were messier. We appreciate and use what we have now. There is less visual “noise” when a home is clean, I feel much more at peace.

There is something magical that happens when you start cleaning out old junk and become organized. It is sort of infectious. You want to do more and more. My children are noticing things that they never noticed were out of place or dirty before. Just yesterday our oldest daughter Bailey was found in the kitchen cleaning our microwave! I had not asked her to do it either. YAY! When one area gets clean, the contrast of another area starts to show, and we all want things to look nicer, so we are all finding new areas to get cleaned up. It is very exciting!

I don't recommend over flowing your toilets, but if you are like me, and being organized is an issue for you, you might want to start by de-junking one drawer. Then work on your linen closet. I felt pride in cleaning out my silverware drawer the other day. I realized how many miss matched forks we had, and I went out and purchased new ones and got rid of the ones we don't like or that don't match anything. Having an organized and clean home is a life long goal and it is not something that happens over night. If I work at it a little bit each day though, it does eventually start to work. My family which is huge compared to most is now “on board” with me. They actually mocked me at first and were offended that I was getting rid of our “stuff.” I kept going though and was sensitive to be throwing out my stuff not theirs. My room got cleaned first...then it started to grow. They started to see the vision and it really did catch on with my whole family!

I wish you clean closets, less clothing to wash and iron. I hope you will be able to have only the pots and pans you need. I wish for all of us to have only in our lives what truly enhances our lives. It is a wonderful way to live. I am finally at almost 50 years old seeing this.

Happy closet cleaning!

We are alive! Just wet, but all is well.

I apologize for not writing in here long before now. We had a huge flood in our home and we have been dealing with that mess for a couple of weeks. We actually had to move out of our home for most of last week but we are home now and I hope to get back on track of writing in here more regularly.

What the heck is Seitan...and Making Seitan

Some refer to Seitan as "Wheat Meat." Seitan (Pronounced SAY-Tahn) is a wonderful, fabulous, tasty, high-protein, incredible, yummy meat substitute that looks a lot like meat, but without all the unhealthy elements of meat. When I make Seitan for our brood of eight children, the kitchen smells so fantastic and inviting that my children beg me to give them a piece when it first comes out of the steamer.

As a protein source, Seitan contains about 31 grams of protein per 4 ounce serving (which means it has more plant protein per serving than tofu), provides a modest amount of B vitamins and iron and contains no saturated fat or cholesterol. A 3 1/2 ounce serving contains 118 calories, 18% protein and less than 1% unsaturated fat. The same amount of beef has 207 calories and 32.2% protein and is high in saturated fats. As recent studies have shown, our need for protein is much lower than previously believed and any opportunity to remove saturated fats from our diet would be an excellent improvement.

I have tried many recipes for Seitan. I have baked it, boiled it but my all time preferred way to cook it is by steaming it. My favorite recipe is credited to Terry Hope Romero who wrote my favorite vegan cookbook called "Viva Vegan!" Her book is wonderful and every recipe I have tried has turned out beautifully.

The main ingredient that you will need to make your own Seitan is called Wheat Gluten. You may make your own but I am not that ambitious yet, so I purchase my gluten in bulk at my local grocer for pennies. It resembles flour but is finer and softer and is a slight beige color.

I will include Ms. Romero's recipe for you at the end of this post. First, you may ask what would you use Seitan for? We use it in any way that one might use animal protein. I fry it in stir fries, I drop it in soups, we chop it and use it in casseroles, we wrap tortillas around it for fajitas, and many more delectable meals. We marinate it in anything from BBQ sauce to exotic oriental and Tia sauces. One of our all time favorite tricks to use our Seitan is to steam Jasmine rice, and then to cube up some fresh warm Seitan and to take my home-made Crab Apple Jelly and boil it into a sauce and use it as a sort of sweet and sour sauce over the rice and chunks of Seitan. You could also take grape jelly and put it in the microwave and do the same sort of thing. Microwaving jelly allows it to become a liquid. I like to use our own home made jellies because I prosses them with organic sugars.

Here is that Seitan recipe for you. If you take the time to make this recipe you will enjoy a healthy and delicious food that will impress you...I promise!

Steamed White Seitan
by Terry Hope Romero (Go purchase her book she has 200 other recipes in it that will blow your mind!)

1 1/2 cups cold vegetable broth
4 cloves garlic grated
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups vital wheat gluten
1/4 cup chickpea (garbanzo) flour (I grate my own flour in my Vitamix and I purchase the garbanzo beans in bulk at WinCo Foods)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt

In a measuring cup whisk together the broth, garlic, and olive oil. In a large bowl combine the wheat gluten, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, thyme, paprika, cumin, and salt and form a well in the center. Pour liquid ingredients into the well and stir with a rubber spatula until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl. Knead the dough for 2-3 minutes to develop the gluten. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes, then knead again for about 30 seconds. Place the dough on a cutting board and with a sharp knife cut into 4 equal parts. Shape each piece of dough into a small "loaf." Place each loaf into a piece of foil making sure to allow the foil enough room for the Seitan to expand during steaming. Place foil wrapped dough into steamer basket and steam for 30 minutes. After steaming allow the dough to cool for a few minutes before handling.

You now have a beautiful Seitan that you can use in your recipes just as you would use any other meat product.

A word or two from me (Chris) about clean up with gluten. Gluten sticks to cloth or to scrubby kitchen tools quite easily. What I do is use my hands and cool water to get off the remaining gluteny dough from my bowls, and spatulas. Once the gluten is down the sink, I then can use my kitchen dish rag to wash my bowls. I have ruined dishrags in the past because the gluten really does like cloth and even after being laundered I would see little "pills" of gluten on those rags. If I take the 2 minutes to hand wash those utensils with cool water, I don't have these issues.

I hope you love this recipe as much as we do. Please comment and share your experience and if you have any recipes using Seitan, we would love to see them.

Have a great day!

Nutritional Yeast...yum yum!

I first heard about Nutritional Yeast about 5 years ago. Nutritional yeast is a yellow flaky product that looks like flat fish food. (Sounds icky, but it tastes great!) It offers those of us who don't use animal products much a great source of vitamin B12. I am not a huge fan of cheese but I do enjoy the cheesy flavor Nutritional Yeast offers my food. I sprinkle it on my salads, we include it in our Seitan (a substitute meat product we make) and we use it in salad dressings, and many other things we eat. I will include for you several websites that I feel do a great job explaining the nutritional value of including Nutritional Yeast in your diet. There is one comment in the articles that you will read that states that purchasing Nutritional Yeast in bulk form is not the best way to purchase it due to it being exposed to the light so much. I have purchased our Nutritional Yeast for years in bulk form and we have done just great. That is our experience but you may try buying it in smaller quantities if this suits your family better.

I hope you will have an opportunity to try this wonderful and healthy food into your diet. You might want to pop a large bowl of pop-corn and sprinkle some Nutritional Yeast over it and eat this tasty and healthy snack while you read all the fun articles I shared with you! Enjoy! Here are those sites I promised you.

http://www.bulkfoods.com/yeast.htm

http://www.smdp.com/Articles-c-2009-04-24-52910.113116_Singing_the_praisesof_nutritional_yeast.html

http://www.bestnaturalfoods.com/nutritional_yeast.html

It's just another perfect day!

I have a large vinyl sign that is located over my kitchen table that reads "Its Just Another Perfect Day!" It is about 4 feet long. I was inspired by a commercial for a car company that used these words once at a movie with my children. I could not get those words out of my head for days and days. I kept asking myself if such a concept could really be true? Could every single day really be "perfect?" I have a friend who does vinyl lettering as a business and I asked her to make me this fun sign and I put it up on our wall. Just shortly after this sign was up my father passed away. I recall coming back from the hospital after he had died and looking at that sign. I felt very sad, but there was peace inside me that yes it was still a perfect day. My father was a very happy person, and I know he would have wanted me to feel like his day of passing was perfect.

I have found that one of the best ways to health is by deciding to be happy. Health and happiness are choices. I have a dear friend who is currently going through an horrible and sad divorce. I am amazed at this lady's fine example of taking what most would consider a tragedy and making her life beautiful each day. She has decided that life may be hard, but it is going to be very good in spite of her situation. Very inspiring.

Life throws us curve balls, there is no getting around that, but in spite of those hard times, life can be perfect each day. It becomes perfect because we decide it will be perfect. Perfection is not about the perfect budget, or the perfect home, or even perfect health. It is about having a perfect attitude. Not that we are or ever will be perfect, but if we try perfectly, then each day can guide us to happiness, and we can be at peace with what we have and where we are.

I challenge you today to look at your day as just another perfect day and then whatever today gives you I hope for your that you may take it and make it a perfect curriculum for your circumstances to use and make you a better you. I am here rooting for you as I work through my own day too.

Bounce Dyer Sheets

My Uncle sent this to me today...I think it is worth Blogging to you all. It is a "greener" way of doing things. I like that.

Bounce This Along

My mail carrier told me that the U.S. Postal service sent out a message to all letter carriers to put a sheet of Bounce in their uniform pockets to keep yellow-jackets away.

Use them all the time when playing baseball and soccer. I use it when I am working outside. It really works. The insects just veer around you.

All this time you've just been putting Bounce in the dryer!

1. It will chase ants away when you lay a sheet near them. It also repels mice.

2. Spread sheets around foundation areas, or in trailers, or cars that are sitting and it keeps mice from entering your vehicle.

3. It takes the odor out of books and photo albums that don't get opened too often.

4. It repels mosquitoes. Tie a sheet of Bounce through a belt loop when outdoors during mosquito season.

5. Eliminate static electricity from your television (or computer) screen.

6. Since Bounce is designed to help eliminate static cling, wipe your television screen with a used sheet of Bounce to keep dust from resettling..

7. Dissolve soap scum from shower doors. Clean with a sheet of Bounce.

8. To freshen the air in your home - Place an individual sheet of Bounce in a drawer or hang in the closet.

9. Put Bounce sheet in vacuum cleaner.

10. Prevent thread from tangling. Run a threaded needle through a sheet of Bounce before beginning to sew.

11. Prevent musty suitcases. Place an individual sheet of Bounce inside empty luggage before storing.

12. To freshen the air in your car - Place a sheet of Bounce under the front seat.

13. Clean baked-on foods from a cooking pan. Put a sheet in a pan, fill with water, let sit overnight, and sponge clean. The anti-static agent apparently weakens the bond between the food and the pan..

14. Eliminate odors in wastebaskets. Place a sheet of Bounce at the bottom of the wastebasket.

15. Collect cat hair. Rubbing the area with a sheet of Bounce will magnetically attract all the lose hairs.

16. Eliminate static electricity from Venetian blinds. Wipe the blinds with a sheet of Bounce to prevent dust from resettling.

17. Wipe up sawdust from drilling or sand papering. A used sheet of Bounce will collect sawdust like a tack cloth.

18. Eliminate odors in dirty laundry. Place an individual sheet of Bounce at the bottom of a laundry bag or hamper.

19. Deodorize shoes or sneakers. Place a sheet of Bounce in your shoes or sneakers overnight.

20. Golfers put a Bounce sheet in their back pocket to keep the bees away.

21. Put a Bounce sheet in your sleeping bag and tent before folding and storing them. It will keep them smelling fresh.

22. Wet a Bounce sheet, hose down your car, and wipe lovebugs off easily with the wet Bounce.

Happy Healthy Living: Vegeniase

Happy Healthy Living: Vegeniase

Vegeniase

If you love potato salad or cole-slaw or sandwiches smothered in Mayonnaise and you are trying to live a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, you will be happy to learn about a product called VEGENAISE. It looks exactly like typical Mayo but it is a completely animal free product plus it tastes fantastic.

Look here for more details on this wonderful product:

http://vegetarian.about.com/od/guideproductpicks/qt/vegenaise.htm

We use it all the time and we love it.

If you are trying to avoid animal products in you life...you can still smother your garden burger in a yummy Mayo-like sauce...just switch it for Vegenaise and you will enjoy your "burger" guilt free!

Deliverance

If you have not yet had a chance to visit my website on essential oils...shame on you! Just kidding...but it is pretty cool. It is bright orange, one of my favorite colors. We sell an oil called "Deliverance." It is fantastic for beating a summer cold. If you have used other Multi-Level-Marketing companies oils, and you have ever used an oil called "Thieves" or "Spice Traders" Deliverance is our oil very much like these oils, only I like it better.

If you have a sore throat of a fever, just rub Deliverance on your throat or neck or on your back or feet. You may dilute this oil 1 to 5 drops using a carrier oil if you feel it is too hot on your skin. We don't dilute it, but we may be used to it as some folks tell me it is hot on their skin.

Deliverance is an essential oil I always have on hand especially in the fall when it seems that our children catch colds a bit easier.

Check out my website at www.butterflyoils.com and you will see Deliverance under "Blends."

Being Happy With What We Have

I heard a quote once that I really think it true. This is what it says:

It's not about having what you want...
It's about wanting what you have.

I have mentioned briefly in this blog that we have a son (almost 20) who is serving a two year mission for our church. When he left us it was very hard for this Mommy to say goodbye to my oldest child and to realize that I really would not see him for two more years, not even one single time. Tears flowed freely for several weeks. It was really hard to look over to where he sat often and worked on his computer designing websites, or creating computer art work and his chair was empty. I missed him dancing Lindy-Hop routines on my hardwood floor and scratching them with his black and white leather saddle shoes. Most of all I missed our long talks about nutrition and health and spiritual matters. My son is amazingly deep and his conversations mean so much to me. One day not quite a month out on his mission I was really missing him, it was a dark winter day, and I was pretty down. As I thought about my situation, it sort of dawned on me that I had to do something or this next two years were not only going to be miserable, but long. I decided right there on the spot that one year from that moment that I would be able to say that the past year would be glorious! I used the word glorious in my mind. I made up my mind that while I missed my son, I needed to create a happy life, a life that was filled with new and interesting things in it. An interesting thing has happened since I made that decision....I am seeing goodness and glorious things all around me. I am seeing joy in the small and simple things that before when I was grieving over my son's departure I was missing. Each day I go on a bike ride with my family. Just this morning I felt this goodness in my life. I felt thankful to have my two middle sons with me biking along side of me. The sun was lovely and the morning was bright. My nine year old son and I discussed goals he is working on and some fears he is experiencing. It was incredible to be listening to this young boy with so much depth for his age.

Like you, I have many goals. Some are quite lofty, some are simple. One dream I have is to own a cabin again. While I want this cabin one day, I choose to be happy as can be here in my home with my family now. I am finding joy in small things such as a dinner with another couple in my church with just Karl and I. I am loving attending the local free summer movies with my children, and eating watermelon this summer with my kids. Since I decided to make this year glorious, I am finding joy in just watching my kids play. This morning my heart swelled as I looked at my nine year old daughter sleeping in her bed with her new bright orange comforter all curled up around her and there on her pillow was our orange cat curled up right next to our daughter sound asleep too.

I miss my son who is far away from us right now. But I am so happy that he is happy and doing good things in his life. Our time away from one another in the long run will be brief. Life is made up of wonderful and glorious moments. While he is away, instead of pining away the days crying over his absence, I chose to live a full and happy life. I won't minimize that when a child leaves the "nest" it is not hard, because it is, but it can also be a wonderful time if we let it be. I want to want what I have now, and by wanting what I have, I end up feeling fulfilled. I would love to see my son's face today, but his time to be back with us is not yet. It would be easy to slip into the mindset of "I want my son home why I can't have him right now?" But that does not make anyone happy. So in the mean time while we are waiting for our son to return home to us, we are all living happy and fulfilled lives. It is a choice. We are choosing to want what we have.

My New Essential Oils Website Is Up and Running!

Well it is nearly 1:00 in the morning...Monday morning. Karl and I worked all weekend long to get my new essential oils website up and going. Please take a minute to see what we have done. If we can serve you in anyway in the area of essential oils, please contact us and we will do all we can to help you.

Enjoy...and (yaaawn) goodnight!

My new website address is: www.butterflyoils.com

Eggs verses Goop

I am a vegetarian through and through. I live a mainly vegan life, but honestly, to a vegan who is completely pure, they would scoff. What we do in our family is avoid all meat, and avoid 99% of any other animal products. We do eat cheese once in a while, meaning for a family or 10 perhaps we eat cheese in small servings three times a month. We also eat ice-cream a little here and there. We go through phases where we won't eat any eggs for a year maybe, and then we will get a dozen free range eggs and we will make a few omelets or eggs sandwiches. I rarely use them for anything else. I have found that I don't need them. I use other things that are much more healthy. I don't believe for a minute that eggs are a great source of protein. They are too loaded with other things that are not good for us to take eggs very seriously as a "healthy" protein option. I will leave that discussion for another blog about protein in general.

When we bake and the recipe calls for an egg, I often use flax seed instead. Flax seeds are very inexpensive to purchase and I purchase mine either at Winco Foods in their bulk section or through Azure Standard foods. I make up what I call "Flax Seed Goop" and store it in my refrigerator for baking. This Goop works especially well for quick breads that you want to be moist. So here are my instructions for making Flax Seed Goop:

Blend 1 cup of flax seed in your blender or food processor. I have a Vitamix (Which I LOVE) and blend until the seeds are powder. Add 4 cups of water and return to blending for about 1 minute. The seeds and the water will turn to a consistency much like an egg from a chicken, maybe a bit thicker. The Goop will be slightly tan in color. This mixture can be used in 1/4 cup measures to replace 1 egg in baking. So 1/4 cup equals one egg. I store the rest of the Goop in my fridge for up to one week. You can make smaller batches by just cutting down the recipe...if you want to use 1/2 cup of flax seeds, then just use 2 cups of water, or 1/4 cup of flax seeds with 1 cup of water. It all works out to be the same Goop that is great for baking and so much better for you body, plus it is better on the poor chickens that are forced to lay eggs on farms.

Please note that you really do need to process or blend the seeds first into powder, as once the water is in the blender, it is much harder to get the seeds to grind down fine enough to make up a nice smooth Goop you want.

Here is a Pumpkin Bread Recipe I designed using my egg re-placer Goop. We like it a lot. I affectionately named it after one of my sons because he loves it so much! Abe will eat a whole loaf himself if I add chocolate to it. I add chocolate chips to our bread sometimes when I am feeling like I want to be naughty!

Abe's Favorite Pumpkin Bread Recipe designed by Chris Peterson
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup organic sugar (we use Turbinado)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, and cinnamon, allspice each
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
(1/2 chocolate chips or carob chips can be added too)

1/2 olive oil
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup Goop
1 cup pumpkin puree' (fresh or canned)

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Blend wet ingredients together in a medium bowl and then add to large bowl of dry ingredients. Place in a lined or greased bread pan. Bake @350 degrees 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Please watch your pumpkin bread as every oven is different and baking times may vary.

I would love to hear what you do with your Goop!

Sugar Blues

I have had a wonderful week this week with my favorite cousins coming to visit me here from Arizona. They are all healthy eaters. They have been on the road for over a month and eating the way they generally eat was a bit of a challenge for them as they stayed with lots of friends and relatives who eat quite differently than they do. My cousins eat mainly raw, but they also are careful not to eat much meat or any refined products. While our family eats a lot of raw foods, we are not "raw foodist." We do try to avoid as much sugar as we can and most specifically white refined sugars. This is a hard trick with 7 of our eight children living at home, and they are all involved in scouts, soccer, church activities and more. We cannot even go to the bank without being offered a sugary sucker to eat. I wanted to address today the subject of eating refined sugar(s) and give you some helpful hints that our family has found to be quite effective.

First of all, as with anything we change, there is a process and there are not too many folks out there who can just walk away from refined sugars and never eat another grain of it the rest of our lives. If you feel that your culture here in the United States is not in support of eating healthy, then you would be correct, they are not. Sugar in in everything it seems, but you can make a huge difference in the amount of sugar you and your family ingest by educating yourself about what sugar does to your body, by limiting the times per week you or your family will serve it or eat it. In our family I have instituted what we call "Sugar Days." We started off with two days per week that our children could have sugar. The children took out their calendars and they literally marked on it what days they would eat something sweet. They know their schedules and for example one our our sons has scouts and he knows they will more than likely serve some sort of a treat on Wednesday afternoons, so he marks this day as his Sugar Day. We don't eat sugar all day long on our Sugar Day, we limit it to that treat we know we might be served or that we might make. I have been pleasantly surprised that my kids really do manage themselves with this "rule" very well and they don't eat much sugar at all compared to other children I see in our neighborhood. It is great. Another thing we don't do much is bake sweets. We are not cookie bakers around our house much. We find it just way too tempting. We bake cookies maybe three times per year and I am not kidding. I just don't think anyone can resist home-made cookies much.

We don't buy too many sweets and when we do, like I mentioned in my previous blog about ice-cream, we only purchase enough for what we might eat at one sitting. For a family of ten purchasing a package of cookies means everyone gets two or maybe three and then the package is gone. I don't recommend purchasing multiple packages of cookies even if they are on sale. Sugar is addictive and it is just too easy to keep getting into it.

So why is sugar so bad for us anyway? Refined sugar has been stripped of all its nutritional value during the processing, resulting with an end product that more resembles a pharmaceutical drug than a food source. When refined sugar is ingested it breaks down very quickly, entering the blood stream much too rapidly (sugar highs) which then signals the pancreas to overproduce insulin, which then results in a drop in blood sugar levels (the crash!).

The author of Lick the Sugar Habit, Nancy Appleton Ph.D writes "When a person eats sugar continually the body becomes inefficient at manufacturing glucose from complex carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. The mechanisms in the body which perform this task shut down from disuse, causing the blood glucose level to drop. The cravings, perspiration, shakes, and depression that follow send the sugarholic running for the nearest candy bar or cookie jar, and the vicious cycle continues. These sweets may bring the blood sugar back to normal for the moment, but the body chemistry is being upset. When the individual gets to a point where body chemistry cannot re-balance, health breaks down." Nancy Appleton uses the word "sugarholic" in her book frequently. Sugar is addictive and the more we eat it, the more we understand this.

Some of the dangers and side effects of ingesting refined sugar frequently are: Food allergies, joint pain, fatigue, tooth decay, hypoglycemia, cancer, impaired immune system, candida, headaches, gas pain, bloating, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, gall stones, and premenstrual syndrome. That is a general and short list.

Refined sugar is simple just empty calories. There are much better and way more healthy choices if we do have a sweet tooth. Some of these choices include: Sucanat, date sugar, raw unfiltered honey, 100% unsweetened fruit juices, unsweetened applesauce, blackstrap molasses, stevia extract, brown rice syrup, barley malt, and agave. You may know of other sources too. Fruit in general when you are not eating refined sugar is sweet and can be used in place of sugars and fats in baking. Realize that the list above is a better choice than white sugar because these items enter the bloodstream at a slower pace thereby lessening the detrimental physical effects. Of course the best way to eat is completely natural, that is a lofty and wonderful goal. It can be done, but we are all human and there are times when it is appropriate to celebrate with cake or other items. Choosing these sweeteners helps lessen negatives in our eating.

Our oldest son took avoiding refined sugars very seriously in his life. When he was getting ready to serve a mission for our church he had to have a dental check up. He did not have one cavity and it had been five years since he had had one. This is mainly about internal health, not brushing because in truth, all of us moms are busy and we may not do a perfect job at brushing our kids teeth all the time as we should. Internal health is much more effective with teeth than outward care, while outward care is very important I admit.

Besides the physical issues that refined sugar effects us with, there are those of us who find that when we avoid ingesting white refined sugar we do much better emotionally. I am one such soul. I did not know this about myself until I took a personal challenge and eliminated sugar from my diet. The first week I felt like I had the flu. About five days into my new way of eating I felt a lot better. This was several years ago and I had been experiencing some slight depression. One of the benefits I experience when I avoid white sugars is that emotionally I feel better. Inters tingly this week while my cousins were here we ate some junk that had sugar in it. Within one day my cousin's wife started getting headaches and my cousin was experiencing some slight depression. Hmmmm is there a connection. Probably so.

Limiting the days we eat or even serve sugar, limiting the portion sizes we eat when we do eat it, and using new healthier choices of sweetener all add health to our lives. There are times that it is appropriate to celebrate. Be happy and healthy by living with less sugar. Find other ways to add sweetness to your life other than sugar. Watch a fun movie, read a great book, eat an apple, or kiss your spouse! I know it is hard to avoid sugar, it is a battle I deal with all the time with my big family and I find the more I work at this the better I do at it. I wish you the best at fighting for your families health. Hang in there it is worth it!

Sweet luck to you all!

Self Education Through Reading

Besides life itself my mother gave me a gift I can never thank her enough for, and that is the love of reading. I come from a long line of veracious readers. I still remember sitting on a stool in my mother's kitchen on "J" Street in Oregon as my mother and grandmother cooked by a large chalk board where my mother would tell me to write a letter or two. I would try to write words or stories and she would guide me along until finally by age 4 I could read quite well. I have always loved to read. I am an informational book reader. I see great value however in reading good novels. The novels that I do read I seem to always learn some kind of history from them. Just recently in my midwifery studies I read a book called The Red Tent. It takes place in Biblical times and is a loosely written historical novel. I learned a great deal about their culture and about plural marriage, and about midwifery. I also learned a lot about women of that day. It was wonderful.

Reading makes us more understanding of others. I am reading tons of things in my midwifery studies and another book I just read was called The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth. This book helped me personally over a difficult "bump in the road" we are having in our lives right now. As I read about the situation the English people were going through during WWII it made me more grateful for what I have, more thankful, so much more satisfied and humble. I also now see myself as more connected with other humans and this whole experience we are going through called Life. Reading does this to us, or it can.

I know life is so busy, I get that...I have a huge house full of people who need lots of things in lots of areas, but the one indulgence I allow myself is to read. Where do I read? Everywhere! I read in the car when I am waiting for Jake to get out of tap, at the ballet studio with Addy, I read in bed when I am retiring for the night, I read on the toilet (I know too much information), I read on the couch on Sundays when it is quiet, I read in the car when we are traveling. I read read read.

What do I read? Everything, and I am not kidding. I love all subjects that are uplifting and inspiring. I am not into dribble and silly stuff, but I love to read the scriptures, I love to read a great cookbook (My favorite reading actually!). I have learned so much about history from reading cookbooks. I own a ton of vegan and vegetarian cookbooks and one day I hope to write one of my own. I love to read informational books about anything. I also like to read on-line updated articles about politics and the latest on health and nutrition. I enjoy reading a good novel if it is not just fluff...but fluff has its place too.

This life is about joy and happiness and becoming better people and sharing a life that is rich and warm with our families. When I fell in love with Karl I fell in love with his brain. He is one of the smartest people I know and it is due mainly by his self education through personal reading. My husband reads all the time. He and I walk or ride bikes together each day and we always talk about exciting and interesting things we are learning. Oh, how reading had enriched my life!

While Karl is getting his Masters right now and I am getting my degree in Midwifery, we talk about education and administration and health and women's issues, this is where we are right now, but I know that we will not stop even once we both graduate (again). Next Karl wants to get his Doctorate degree and I want to become a licensed aromatherapists. Life just gets better and better and bigger and bigger when we study and read.

I have had children who have read later than I did, some much later. I did my share of worrying about this, but I learned a fun trick that helped me...the library has hundreds of books on tape. One of my boys who struggles with reading has listened to almost 75 full length chapter books this past school year. He loves all sorts of people who are fairies, trolls, and fourth graders causing trouble in school. I am amazed at his depth and his attention span now. He is a late reader, but he is being enriched by books and by learning. He will be fine. He is better than fine he is great because he can think deeply and I attribute much of this to his exposure to great thinkers in the books he listens to.

I am happy in large part due to the incredible gift my mother gave to me, and that is the love of books and reading. I have written three novels, and one parenting book, and I am working on a book for my children plus a cook-book. Books inspire me and make me love this life and my fellow human friends so much more. I thank you Momma for your love to me and sharing your love of reading. My mother is almost 70 and I talk to her every day and she shares with me still what she is learning and it is almost always due to her reading something.

Summer is a busy time, but so is fall, so is every time of year. Try as hard as you can to add reading to your list of happy, healthy living that you do each day. You will be blessed deeply, but more importantly you will enrich the lives of others by your knowledge when you share what you are learning. You will inspire the rest of us to become deeper better people. Grab a book and turn a page today even if it is only a page or two!

Happy Reading....and I would love to have you tell us what you are reading so we can all go read it too!

Riding Bikes and moving as a family!

One activity that our family enjoys in the good weather (Which in Idaho is only about half the year) is to ride bikes. We are no Lance Armstrong group to be sure, but we love to be outdoors together and enjoy the breeze on our faces. This morning my husband Karl and I took our ten year old son Abe with us to run an errand over at Staples and we just hopped on our bikes and did our errand rather than jumping in the car. It is only a mile or so away from our home. There was a time (Well lots of times) where we did not get out and exercise much. It was just a lot easier to get into the car and drive. I also thought that driving in a car was faster. The funny thing is that when you have an errand to run that is around a mile or two away that the difference in driving and riding a bike is really not all that different...maybe a 10 minute difference is all. Now if you are in a huge hurry, you may not have 10-15 minutes, I understand that as I have had to run many times too, but on those times when you really can spare 15 minutes, grab your bike, blow off the cobwebs and ride. I purchased one of those fun new geared "beach bikes" last year. She is so pretty...baby blue with geeky fenders and a huge white wire basket. My children at first thought I looked pretty nerdy, and even referred to my basket as "the geeky basket" but they did not realize I was ahead of the fashion wave! Now there are even lovelier bikes than mine with bright funky colors and my girls all want one. Besides when we go on 10 or 15 mile rides and I am perched upon my big wide old fashioned seat all comfortable, they are wishing they had a bike like mine!

Part of living a happy healthy life-style is moving our bodies. I am not a spring chicken (I refuse to be "old" either though!). I am like many moms who have had a lot of children, my body does not look as athletic as I wished it did, but this does not matter. I know many moms who will not swim, bike, or walk in public because they feel "ugly and fat." If we wait to until we look the way we wished we did, we will not ever get to where we are hoping to be. I decided a long time ago, that I would love my life and live my life, no matter what size I happened to be. So my children enjoy a mother who may not be as svelte as she wishes she was out biking and walking with them nearly every single day. The three words in the title of my blog are so important, the last being LIVING. We need to be doing that to our fullest happiest level each day.

I hope today to encourage you to really live your life to the fullest. Move your body the best you can no matter where you are in your journey. If you are not able to get out and ride a bike, or don't even own one, take a short walk today. If it has been a long time since you have moved your body much, that is alright, the great thing about fitness is we all get to start right where we are at. Small children are not critical and they enjoy just moving, so grab a small child in your life and enjoy a short walk today if this is possible.

The best people in my life to walk or ride with are my family. I enjoy the time away from the pressures of life to just visit about anything we want. It is nice to have no phones interrupting you, so turn off your cell phone, and put on your shades and enjoy some happy times moving your body with someone you adore today!

Summer Fun and Ice Cream

If you have started following my blog then you read that our family lives a "mostly" healthy lifestyle. By mostly I mean that we are not perfect. We do try hard, but we have some areas that we struggle with...one such area is with ice-cream. We are not big dairy fans and I am one of those weird Americans who does not really enjoy eating cheese (I know kind of odd huh?). I have done a whole lot of research on dairy and I know that it just frankly is not good for us. Even so, with 10 people in our family and the fact that we all have a birthday once per year, we do enjoy a small bowl of ice cream to celebrate. Now with my confession out of the way and my own human-ness revealed...how can we limit our not so great unhealthy indulgences so that we can honestly eat mostly healthy? In the past prior to our family really working hard to eat healthy, we used to make our ice-cream eating, basically a meal! I recall huge bowls of ice-cream being consumed and it was nothing for our family of 10 to polish off a gallon (or more) of ice-cream in one birthday bash. Not so for us any more! My husband Karl bought me for Christmas one year some 1 cup glass sized ramekins. If you don't know what these are, they are wonderful bowls that are made of pottery and they can be taken from the oven right to the table. I love them! Our oldest daughter who is extremely healthy and tall and thin and wants to remain that way, started eating her soup, and chile, and whatever else we were eating in those bowls. She talked of how she loved the fact that they were just the "right size." At the time those of us who were on an eating marathon thought those one cup bowls looked like pretty dinky servings, but slowly we all started taking some advice from our sister Bailey. One way we control the amount of dairy we eat through ice-cream is with our one cup sized bowls. It is interesting that the difference of satisfaction between eating 4 cups of ice-cream and a little under 1 cup of ice-cream is really not that different. The calories saved, with the fat, salt, and sugar however is significant! There are 285 calories in one single cup of chocolate ice-cream. That is quite a lot admittedly. If you have three cups (easy to do when you are not paying attention!) this adds up to 855 calories. This is about half the calories that an adult female should eat for the day. Our one cup servings have saved us a lot of calories, and a lot of other things. Should we eat ice-cream at all? Probably not, but we do here and there and we now control our portions. There are other options such as rice-cream and soy ice-cream which we also enjoy. You still have the sugar and salt issues with these products to contend with as well. They are great alternatives but I still recommend smaller servings.

Summer is a time for fun, and it is nice to eat cooling foods that relieve us from the hot weather. A healthier choice than ice-cream (and very cooling) could be sliced watermelon, or any other fruit. The sugar in fruit is natural and the fiber in the fruit helps stabilize the sugar in our bodies so we don't get the high and then the drop in our blood sugar that ice-cream gives us. I never see my children running around in a crazy hyperactive frenzy when they eat a handful of cherries but Karl and I do see a change in their energy levels when they eat sugar laden ice-cream!

The more we refrain from eating high sugar intense foods such as ice-cream the more we enjoy the tastes of natural foods and the sweeter they taste to us.

Is there a time to celebrate and yes, even with ice-cream? Sure. Should we eat it all the time? No, but when we do eat it, let's try eating it in smaller portions and instead of adding a fudge topping, let's top our ice-cream with pure fun and no guilt!

Happy small portioned/guilt free/ice-cream eating!

Salt---Not the Movie

It seems that everyone is watching their salt intake. If you are alive and breathing you have heard that the American diet has way too much salt in it, and I agree, but I also wanted to remind everyone of an easy way to use salt to help aid getting rid of cold sores in your mouth. One of our sons this week in fact had a couple of cold sores in his mouth so I told him to get some warm water and about a tablespoon of just plain old table salt and to rinse his mouth out as many times as it took to empty out the cup into our bathroom sink. He literally stood there and swished and spit until it was all gone. By the next day his sores were so much better he did not even complain about them anymore. My grandmother used to have us do this and it works. Cheap and easy. So don't suffer with cold sores, grab a cup, warm water, and a Tablespoon of salt and have at it!

Happy swishing!

Hail Essential Oils at Great Prices!!!

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE essential oils. I have seen miracle after miracle in my own children's lives and in the life of my husband with the use of oils. Most essential oils however are not cheap, in fact they are generally very un-cheap (is that a word?) and their "un-cheapness" is unfortunately prohibitive to many people being able to even try them. I have used many brands but most all of the oils I have purchased have been through Multi-Level-Marketing groups (MLM). These groups (which will remain nameless) while they are fantastic as far as their products go, are WAY too expensive for the average essential oils purchaser. I just bought them anyway as I knew their healing properties and values, but it was a financial burden. I knew in my heart of hearts that there had to be a way for people to access essential oils for their families without all the high prices that MLM companies have to charge due to the up-line and down-lines and membership fees.

I did a lot of research because as I just said, I loved the products of these other companies. I called wholesalers, I called buyers and purchasers and I interviewed these folks as I was converted (well brain washed) that these other MLM companies were the only way I could obtain the oils I so needed for my family. I was also flat out told by the MLM companies that their oils were superior to all other oils. In my research I interviewed four Foot Zonists. Every single one of them told me that all essential oils in the United States are purchased from the same buyers! This astounded me. One zonist said to me "Just how many places to you think you can get Frankincense from anyway?" Good point. I realized at that moment that these MLM companies were not the only places to purchase great products for my family, they just raised their prices so they could pay everyone in the company. I searched and found other sources to get essential oils at prices I felt were very reasonable.

Price was important to me, but so was quality, so I searched for a wholesaler I could purchase oils from that had high quality oils and I found one! I purchased some of their oils and I invited a muscle tester to come to my home. She tested all the oils against the MLM oils. My new oils tested the same or higher than the MLM oils. Our family used these oils for about six months and found that they were just as effective as the oils I purchased from the MLM companies. I had found a wholesaler with great prices and fantastic quality oils. I started a company of my own. My company is called Butterfly Oils. You will be able to purchase my oils on my website very soon. That website will be www.butterflyoils.com. Essential oils have been around since the beginning of time. My slogan is "We Sell Oils that Heal You ---At Prices That Don't Kill You!" Until my website is up and running (within the month of August) you may email me at: owner@butterflyoils.com and I will gladly send you my price sheets of all the oils I carry. You will be amazed at our costs and completely satisfied with our products!

You may not have any experience with essential oils and not know the first thing about them or how to use them or where on the body to put them. You may not even know why they work or how to use them, so for those of you new to oils.... Here is a short Essential Oils 101 Lesson:

So with all this "essential oils" talk...what in the world is an essential oil anyway? Great question....

Well, basically, essential oils are “oils” or “essence” that have been extracted from various species of flowers, fruits, herbs, leaves, seeds, resin, stems, roots, and bark of botanicals. The oils from these natural sources are pure and natural. They are not made from synthetic materials in a laboratory, but extracted from botanical sources. One pound of essential oils can take hundreds of pounds of plant matter. For example, it takes roughly 200 lbs of lavender flowers to product 1 lb of lavender oil. So, there is the loss of using 200 lbs of lavender flowers for other purposes such as soap additives, teas and pillows. Just think about this when you are buying 1 lb of lavender essential oils, you are actually purchasing 200 lbs of “extracted” lavender flowers!

These amazing extracts can be used on the human body to help assist in healing many ailments. Some of the successes that I have experienced in my own family with oils include: bruises, stomach aches, lung issues, asthma, sore throats, head-aches, sunburns, ear infections, cold sores, moles going away, sleep issues, acne, sore muscles, menstrual cramps, and a whole ton more. Essential oils also have also helped with emotional issues such as depression and grieving.

Essential oils can be placed topically on the body just about anywhere except in the eye area. Believe it or not, but there are large pores on your feet so putting a drop or two (or four) on the bottom of the feet is amazingly effective.

Essential oils are very concentrated, and many oils are best used with what is called a "Carrier Oil." Simply put a carrier oil is a vegetable or nut oil that is used to dilute the essential oil or to get it to spread to a wider area upon the body. If you refer to the information above you will recall that one drop of essential oil is extremely concentrated and in some cases (certainly not all) that the oils must be diluted or they could burn the skin especially in young children or babies. Most oils can be used safely without any carrier oils at all. I also sell carrier oils if you need those, but a nice grade of olive oil from your kitchen cupboard is just fine to use.

I want to note also that if you are breast feeding or are pregnant, please check with a local aromatherapist, or our doctor before using essential oils. A holistic doctor will be much more educated on essential oils than a traditional MD.

A few of our all time favorite essential oils and how we use them are:

Peppermint: for stomach aches, sick stomachs, and and energy boost. I also like it for a perfume. I bake with essential oils and I make oatmeal chocolate/mint muffins that are pretty amazing. Peppermint is my secret ingredient. If you all beg me I will share my recipe!

Frankincense: Great for getting rid of unwanted moles (does anyone want a mole?), headaches, depression, and allergies.

Birch: Wonderful for aches and bruises.

Deliverance: This oil is a blend that I sell that is fantastic for getting rid of sore throats, and the hard flu.

Lavender: Where do I begin with Lavender? It is great for sunburns, cold sores, sleep issues, and to calm down your nerves if you are feeling all uptight.

Eucalyptus: If you have a child with asthma, there is no replacement for eucalyptus! It will open up the bronchial tubes and the lungs fast! We have saved many a child from a breathing treatment with this incredible oil.

There are so many more wonderful oils I will talk to you about, but for now this very looong post must end and we will discuss oils again soon. Please note, if you are interested in oils that are high quality with low prices, go ahead and email me and we will get a price list off to you so you can start assisting your family to health! My website is being built and will be up and running soon.

Happy Essential Oiling to you!

First Day of Blogging--And on my Birthday!

Today is my first day blogging. Thanks to a dear friend, a lesson given as a great birthday present I am up and running! This blog is a place where I will share my love of health and nutrition, midwifery, essential oils and whatever else comes to mind that adds joy and beauty naturally to life. Before I get started I would like to introduce myself so you can get to know me a bit better.

If I were to describe myself it would be: I am a LDS, married, mother of eight, vegetarian almost vegan, knitter who bikes in the good weather, reads in all weather and loves to learn about health, spiritual subjects, and food! I love my friends deeply, my husband with all my heart, and my children with the depth of an Italian momma of which I am! I work hard and I laugh often. My husband and I have home-schooled our children all their lives. This year however we are doing something different and sending some of our little ones to a wonderful Montessori school in our area. Our oldest son is on a mission for our LDS church. Life in a family of 10 is exciting, and busy and sometimes a bit crazy. We are all trying in one way or another to live happy healthy lives. We decided about a decade or more ago to really alter our diets that were then basically the SAD diet, meaning "Standard American Diet." We ate so much junk it is scary! Over the years I have read and read and read about health and we have made many wonderful changes in our lives that has helped with our teeth, weight, asthma and more. It is going to be so fun to share with you what we are learning, have learned and want to learn.

I welcome your comments and your own stories and ideas about health.