Bone Broth for Healing

Topic of the Day: Bone Broth

Last night I made bone broth. Sure, I've made broth before, but never a healing bone broth. The difference with the two is that one is simmered for several hours and the other isn't.

I had a chicken and was about to throw it out, but remembered reading about the many benefits of using bone broth. Here they are:

Boosts immune system 

Improves digestion and tooth health

Improves allergies and brain health

Healthy development of joints, bones, ligaments, and tendons

Healthy hair, nails and skin

Decreases inflammation

Calms the mind

Aids in sleep

The elements in the bone are what helps you heal. These are bone marrow, calcium, collagen, chondroitin, gelatin, glycosamino glycans, glycine, hyaluronic acid, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and proline. 

Bone broth is assistive in repairing your body from bacterial and viral infections. These are just a few of the many wonderful benefits of bone broth. 

For more detailed information and recipes, please check out these resources:

http://www.naturalnews.com/040493_bone_broth_immune_health_nutrients.html

http://wellnessmama.com/5888/how-to-make-bone-broth-tutorial/

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-9890/10-benefits-of-bone-broth-gut-healing-recipe.html

My New Favorite Snack

Meet my new favorite snack: Red Bell Peppers!

My two favorite things about red peppers are the crunch and sweetness. Its scientific name is Capsicum Annuum and is a nightshade veggie.  Capsicum is the "hot" part of a pepper, but bell peppers have very little of this, therefore they are on the sweet and tangy side. 

One cup of these crunchy yummy goodnesses only have 1 gram of fat. That is impressive and is chock full of nutrients, phytonutrients, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatory properties.

Are you ready to see all the many vitamins and minerals bell peppers have? Here goes in descending order:

vitamin C

vitamin A

vitamin B6

folate

fiber

vitamin E

molybdenum

vitamin K

potassium

manganese

vitamin B2, B3, B1

tryptophan

vitamin B5

magnesium

Did you know paprika comes from powered bell peppers? Yep, that's right. 

Do you know how to choose a good one? Choose those that are deep in color, no spots or dark areas. Heavy and firm are good traits for them to have.

They are sensitive to moisture. If you refrigerate them, cover with a damp cloth.  If you want to speed up their ripening, sit them on your counter.  

I prefer my bell peppers raw, but there are many great ways to prepare them. When we get closer to autumn, I'll post my stuffed bell pepper recipe. Other ways of eating them are sautéed, stuffed, finely chopped in recipes, roasted, and part of the Louisiana Trinity of onions, celery, and bell pepper,  

Just remember that bell peppers are one of the dirty dozen meaning they have more pesticide than other veggies. If you have the option, choose organic for this tasty snack.

Shoulder Recap and New Adventures

Today I had a follow up appointment with the orthopedist for my snowboarding shoulder injury. She was doing her assessment and checking my range of motion and was impressed. She ultimately said, "You healed yourself!" and wanted to know what I did to get to this point. 

Now you have to realize she is the one that said 8 weeks ago that I needed emergent surgery to repair  (or screw the labrum back to my shoulder) the tear. I didn't feel surgery was in my best interest. I was on a mission to heal myself and I did just that. I went to physical therapy twice which I don't think was critical in my recovery.

I took to acupuncture, Body Talk, chiropractic care, Chinese medicine, yoga, positive affirmations, juicing, and eating whole foods. These were my ammunition against surgery. She was impressed by my regimen.  We talked more about it and got on the subject of me going back to school to be a health coach.

This is my exciting news to share. I am on a new adventure with my life and career. I enrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition to become a Health Coach. I start next week and can't contain myself from excitement. I'll be learning more than 100 dietary theories. 

I'll be studying with the world’s top health and wellness experts. My teachers will "included Dr. Andrew Weil, Director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine; Dr. Deepak Chopra, leader in the field of mind-body medicine; Dr. David Katz, Director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center; Dr. Walter Willett, Chair of Nutrition at Harvard University; Geneen Roth, bestselling author and expert on emotional eating; and many other leading researchers and nutrition authorities." How cool is that! 

Now what makes this more exciting is that my doctor asked if she could refer some of her bariatric patients to me. Once I am able to see patients I just have to give her a call to set up my referrals. I am psyched! 

Overwhelmed

Can you say overwhelmed! That is how I am feeling right now. I have six days to plan and prepare a meal for about 50 people on Christmas Eve, prepare one dish for Christmas Day, get everything ready for Christmas, decorate and sanitize our house, and pack for a ski trip. Oh and work throughout the week, too.

I planned on going grocery shopping on Sunday, but it never happened. I mostly know what I'm cooking, but I don't have my list together. I just have to do it and get it done. I thought to let everyone bring something, but I want to be able to eat, too. I have been getting stomach aches and nausea when eating out regardless where it is. So, I thought I would save myself a few tummy aches and add a bit more stress to my life.

I just need to remember to think good happy thoughts when I am getting stressed out preparing everything from scratch and unprocessed.

I may not be around much in the next few weeks because of all the holiday excitement. Have yourself a great holiday and stay safe!

The Power of Food

Food is a powerful source of fuel. This fuel can be good or bad. I have been, for the most part, processed-free since October 1, 2012. I have been able to see a clear difference in my overall wellbeing, mood, less fatigued, and just out right feel better.

Now this is the part where I show you how profound the effect food has on our bodies.  The past two weeks I've been in situations of fasting or eating what everyone else is eating. My mother cooked a "special" dinner for us to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. Then a few days later we went out to dinner at a restaurant. Therefore, I ate what was available. Actually we dined out 3 times in 2 weeks + my mom's dinner.

The outcome is very moody and irritable. Since I went processed-free, my mood has been even keel without any outbursts. That's not the case right now. Since last Saturday I have been so irritable and moody. At first I thought maybe it was hormonal, but this has not been an issue over the last 3 months. I am really convinced it is the food. My kids are bearing the brunt of the situation because they are setting me off for the most random and tedious things. I truly need to apologize to them for my voice raising. They noticed something is just not right with me, too.

Some of the foods I ate which I normally wouldn't are white processed flour, white processed sugar, processed cornmeal, bread, and several other items which I know are GMO. Don't think I am nuts. I know these foods are affecting me in such a way.

My big challenge is the role of hostess for my in-laws on Christmas Eve. They want to bring junk food and I would prefer to cook everything for 50 people. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Passionate about Heart Health

Have I ever told you how much I love my job and love what I do? Yes, I really do. When I was a little girl I wanted to be a teacher. When I finally got to college I realized how much teachers made and looked into other career options. That's when I decided to look into nursing.

For the first eleven or so years, I mainly worked in cardiac type units such as telemetry, CCU, ICU, and heart transplant. Within the last 8 years or so I decided I needed to scale back my working hours and not be in such high stress areas. Therefore I moved into the echo/stress lab running cardiac stress tests, helping out in the cardiology offices and my newest job as cardiac rehab nurse clinician.This is where my job comes full circle because I am clearly doing what I initially set out to do and love....educate.

Even though I am a nurse, I am the educator I always wanted to be. I spend my working days educating people about taking care of their health and hearts. We discuss diet, exercise, risk factors for heart disease, and what they can do in order to have a healthy lifestyle change.

Monday when I went to work, I had 15 patients that had heart attacks. This number is too high. I might see that many of heart attacks in a week, but in one day....I am slightly in shock by our culture. I try really hard to educate this population as to what one can do to try and reverse or change risk factors for heart disease.  The patients keep getting younger and younger.

Personally, I feel the food we eat is killing us. It is not uncommon to see a patient with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, overweight, diabetic, and a smoker. To have one or even two of these I can accept, but to have all of these is unacceptable.

People, we need to wake up and listen to our bodies! Take a better look at your food. Read the labels. What are you actually eating? How much are you eating? Are you eating to live or living to eat?

I think one of the reasons I am so passionate about writing this topic today is because I lost one of my work colleagues last night. She was in her forties and had a massive heart attack. I am just crushed that I saw her one day walking and talking and the next day she is dead. She has children and grandchildren.

My job proves to me over and over again that if you eat well, exercise, take time for yourself and minimize stress you can avoid the risk factors for heart disease and end up a statistic.

I would like to challenge everyone I know and who reads this to eat well and healthily, exercise daily if possible, do not smoke or chew tobacco, take time for yourself everyday to meditate or just have quiet time, go to the doctor to have your blood work checked, and get a baseline EKG and possibly an echocardiogram.

My personal journey with food has been a great adventure and has taught me many great lessons. I have eliminated about 98% of all processed foods. I no longer use cows milk. I have increased the amount of fruits and vegetables daily. My total cholesterol in September was 179 and the result from last week was 136. I think eliminating the processed junk is a major contributor. In addition, I have minimized the acidic producing foods and try to go with the more alkaline producing foods to eliminate inflammation.

I don't like to preach, but I tend to see a lot of repeat offenders. Stop eating the crap, eat smaller portions, quit smoking, drink water with lemon, exercise, and take your probiotics daily. Remember we have to eat to live, not live to eat.

Pompous Grocery Shoppers

I've been following a few blogs and Facebook pages lately and got rather irritated. The basis of all these sites is to eat well. Don't get me wrong, it's not the owners of the sites I'm bothered with, it's the people commenting.

What I feel is that the ones making these horrible comments must be ones who don't have to work, are very rich and don't care how much their grocery bill costs, money is no object, make 6 digit incomes, and don't really know what happens in the world outside of theirs. The truth is that the majority of people are not in that category. People of all incomes want to eat well and do what they can to provide as healthy a meal as possible to their families.

A lot of us do this to stay healthy, it's the right thing to do, have food allergies or intolerances, doctor prescribed, and choice we make. I know there are many other reasons we do this, but I am sick and tired of people belittling others because they can't purchase organic foods 100% of the time, they shop at Walmart, or they buy organic foods from the Big companies that voted against Prop 37.

I don't agree with Walmart's practices, but I do shop there because it is more cost effective for my family. I try to avoid the Big company products when possible. I try to shop at Whole Foods when I can afford shelling out $150 on a bag and a half of groceries.

When I grocery shop it takes me forever. My family quit shopping with me because I have to read every single label. I can get good stuff at Walmart with a bit of reading and perseverance. Our Walmart even has a gluten-free section. Contrary to what people believe, Whole Foods and other health food store chains sell GMO laden foods. I put down many items at Whole Foods because of the ingredients, so don't go all pompous on us Walmart shoppers when you can get the same thing at Whole Foods.

True, I cannot get everything I need at Walmart, but don't discount the fact that they do offer healthier options that can also be found at Whole Foods. In addition, not every city has a Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, or other "health food" grocer.

The Proof is in the Pudding

When my oldest daughter was young she was so busy. Some would say she was hyperactive others would say spirited. I didn't agree with either of these assessments made. Something just didn't seem right. Then I have baby number two and the same people told me the same things about my second daughter.

Many thoughts went through my head like:
1. Am I a bad mom?
2. How did I get such a busy and bad kid when I was so quiet and good as a child?
3. How can this child get into so much mischief?
4. And many other thoughts and questions.

So, I read many books on "spirited" children and they didn't really say much. I took matters into my own hands and I started experimenting with foods. What I learned was that there certainly was a link between the foods my daughter ate and her behavior.

From the time she was 2 until now, she is 8, I have watched closely at what she eats. I never went crazy and eliminated extreme amounts of food, but minimizing candy, sugar and milk seemed to make a big difference. I remember being at my sister's house in Pennsylvania for a hurricane evacuation. SG acquired some red licorice and went nuts. She was about 16 months when I saw this crazy side of her. She started hitting her head on the sofa, running back and forth in the room, laying down hitting her legs on the ground, and other very peculiar behaviors. At this point I just thought it was the sugar. I never really associated it with artificial food dyes.

Over the last 2 years she's had these crazy episodes where she gets crazy fits, sits on the ground and hits her head with her fists all while rocking back and forth. Her mood just goes blank and her eyes seem hollow. It is as though my child was snatched by some crazy creature. This happened again this week. Since we went processed and dye free last month it just hit me. It is red dye. We kept a few candies from Halloween. Sunday she started acting like the body snatchers got her. I happened to see a wrapper for Swedish Fish in the trash can. I asked her if she ate them and she did. I am convinced it is the red dye that her body is reacting to.

It has taken 2 days for it to clear her system. She knows I don't like her and her sisters eating food with dyes and I think this week she realized why. She seemed so scared like her body was making her act crazy and couldn't control it...Powerless.

This is proof to me that artificial food dyes are dangerous. They are out for our family. It is obvious what harm it does to my child.

31 Days of Unprocessed Food

It has been 31 days that I have been eating, for the most part, unprocessed food. It was very somewhat challenging at the beginning, but got easier as time passed. I got through it and plan to keep it up.

What I thought would be the most challenging day for my children and me wasn't so much after all. We got right through Halloween without too many obstacles. For me, I thought I would go crazy with the candy loot. But to my surprise, I wasn't really interested. I even went out to buy some UNREAL candies. I don't even want the better option candy. I was sitting next to the buckets full of candy and the smell of the sugar was grossing me out.

My eldest daughter ate a few pieces and said "let's get rid of this junk." What? Am I hearing that correctly? My two younger girls normally would eat and eat candy on Halloween literally until they fell asleep. This year, not a chance. They ate some, but didn't have the usual interest. This is a high five moment for me. This makes me feel good. Although they are not eating 100% unprocessed, they have not been eating food dyes and junk food. Some words and phrases I heard were, "too sugary," "too sweet," "yuck oh," "that has dye in it," "did you read what's in it?," "can you believe people eat this stuff?" They can taste the difference. They now know and can taste the difference in food that is good or bad for you!

Instead of keeping the candy (we won't eat) in the house, we learned that one of the local toy stores, Learning Express is having a buy back candy program. For each pound of candy you turn in, you get one Boo Buck up to 5 pounds. They each are hoping they will have 5 pounds of candy. It was quite ironic because we received a catalog in the mail this week from Learning Express Toys.

Well, back to my 31 days. I did loose some weight which I had not intended and my calcium level dropped but was corrected. Now looking at the up side, I feel much better. I don't feel sluggish. I have more mental clarity. I have more energy. I don't get cravings for junk any longer. My pH level has become more neutral therefore less aches and pains. I am enjoying the art of cooking once again and actually cooking. I am eating more fruits and veggies. I have learned to tolerate green drinks; still not a huge fan of them (I just can't get over drinking that color green). The skin on my face doesn't seem so splotchy. I have been an advocate for eating real food and educated many. But, I think the best part of this month is the progress with my kids. They can actually taste the difference between foods that are good for you and those that are not.

Thank you to Andrew Wilder from Eating Rules and allowing the public to participate in his October Unprocessed 2012 Challenge. You have taught me a lot!

Take Your Calcium

Lately I have been feeling so tired. Not just any tired, but falling asleep at 8:00 in the evening and waking up 9 hours later feeling exhausted. It doesn't matter what amount of sleep I get I still feel like a Mac truck hit me. I have been doing the normal things like checking my blood pressure which is in normal limits, drinking enough fluid, and eating well. So, I find myself baffled as to why I still have no energy.

Then it hits me this morning. I have ALL the red flags of Hypocalcemia (low blood calcium).
1. extremely dry skin, flaky, almost psoriasis-like
2. extremely tired, fatigued
3. brittle nails with ridges
4. palpitations
5. sharp chest pain
6. numb finger tips
7. muscle spasms in my face (tetany) by left side of my mouth
8. shortness of breath (talking and walking)
9. dizziness, especially when getting up from seating or lying position
10. muscle spasms and cramps to feet and lower legs
11. dementia or what we like to call CRS (can't remember sh*t)

Now I am determining what course of action I need to take. Do I just taking adequate amounts of calcium through supplements and food rich in calcium or do I call the doctor and get my blood level checked?

I think I am going to start off by taking supplements I have now and then call the doctor to check my level. It didn't get like this overnight so I know it won't be corrected overnight either. My extreme dry skin should have been a warning sign.

I am off to eat some calcium and get my blood drawn.

Day 23 of the October Unprocessed Food 2012 Challenge

Today is day 23 of the October Unprocessed Food Challenge 2012. It has been going well except for the weight loss I had. I had no intention of loosing weight, but I did. I started off at about 128 pounds (5' 8") and went as low as 119 pounds. Somehow I was able to regain it back and am at a more stable 124 pounds.

It seems your body uses what it needs. Not eating all that other stuff has made me feel much better. I just have to remember to stay hydrated. We had a catered party at our house on Saturday, October 13 and I think I gained back everything I lost by default from eating what was available at the party. That was my cheat day.

I have learned to eat my veggies and even to tolerate green drinks. Still not a fan of the green drink, more so because the color than the taste, but I am drinking them occasionally. My cravings for sweets has gone away completely. I usually suffer with chronic back pain which has been minimal to nonexistent. What I figure is that the foods I am eating now are more alkaline which shifts my pH level to a more normal level. It is great being in that normal pH range. Obviously there is less internal inflammation.

This past weekend we went out of town which was rather challenging. I did bring some unprocessed food, but it wasn't enough. I succumbed to a Mexican restaurant and sandwiches. I am now paying for it. I am not sure what I am reacting to, but it is either the PB&J sandwich or turkey cold cut sandwich on honey wheat or anything from the Mexican restaurant. My legs from hips to my ankles have broken out in a rash and chicken-like raised bumpy skin. This used to happen to me often, but since becoming more conscious of what I eat, I am more mindful and thought I had an idea of what causes it.

I have had allergy testing and no foods come up. All of the standards like nuts, wheat and dairy are negative. Therefore they tell me I am imagining this and I have folliculitis. This food challenge has proven to me that I have not had folliculitis since I was a kid. My thought is that it is either the bread or cheese (dairy) that I react to.

Eight more days to go! This should be rather easy to maintain beyond the challenge permitting I cook most everything. The girls have been enjoying this month since I have been cooking and baking more often.

The kids have adapted fairly well, although they are not 100% unprocessed, yet. My oldest gets why I am doing this and the two younger ones just tolerate it. We live in a society that eats horribly. They are always tempted by their school peers. Their school lunches are much different from their peers. I could go on for hours about the lunches that the school provides, but I won't. I am just happy to say my kids think it tastes bad and want me to send lunch each day.

Pop-tarts, Whole Food Style

My kids LOVE Poptarts. The only problem is that they are not the healthiest snack item. In addition, there are so many ingredients and things inside my kids can't even pronounce. This is when I went on a hunt for toaster pastry recipes.

Granted they are not very pretty, but they sure were good. There is certainly lots of room for improvement, but it is certainly a good starting point. 

Here's what is inside the Kellogg's Pop-Tarts:

Now, here's what's in mine:

• 2 ¼ cup whole-wheat flour, plus extra for rolling out the dough
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 cup cold, unsalted butter (2 sticks)
• ½ cup water plus ice
• 1 egg beaten with a splash of water
• 7 – 8 tablespoons jam or jelly (I used all fruit spread)

That's it and nothing more!

I adapted the recipe from 100 Days of Real Food. Give it a try. I think you will like it.

And Then There Were More

MM went back to the doctor and we find out she can't have any dairy including cheese nor can she have sugar. This is near impossible. What am I going to allow my poor child to eat? No wheat, flour, gluten, dairy, juice, or sugar.

I think I may need to consult a nutritionist because I am overwhelmed with this task of eliminating so many foods.