Makers Diet Menu

Ok, I really was kidding that I won't be posting just because Matt's a better writer! I have just been busy! :) Just to catch you up, Matt and I are doing a dietary cleanse. I say dietary because we aren't doing any pills or staying buy the toilet all day for a week! We're just cleaning up our food in a big way. We eat very well on a regular basis, but over Christmas break we ate too much sugar and just too much food in general. So, we're doing the Maker's Diet, a three phase, 40-day diet that basically detoxes your body from all carbs and sugar for a month! Yeah...not easy. But, I've done it before and I feel SO much better. We're not going to take out healthy grains for the boys but they won't be having much/if any sugar at all either! The first two weeks there are no beans except lentils, very few nuts...mainly almonds. No grains, potatoes, cow's dairy (we can have goat's), no pork or shellfish (hence, Maker's Diet). You may notice that I'm doing eggs and veggies every day! I have been eating that for months anyway and I don't get sick of it. I do change it up a bit by adding herbs, goat cheese, making omelets, fried eggs, scrambled, etc. Sorry if it's boring to you, but it's just so much less for me to think about and we love it. Also, again, to make it easier on myself, I always make lots at dinner so there's plenty for leftovers for lunch the next day. So, here's our menu for this first week of the plan:

Monday
Breakfast: eggs and sauteed veggies in coconut oil
fiber drink, cod liver oil, greens capsules, whole food multivitamin
Lunch: Green salad with onions, carrots, peppers, sprouts, goat cheese, avocado, sprouted sunflower seeds with homemade apple cider vinegar dressing.
Cocount/chicken broth with cilantro and scallions
Dinner: Frijole Soup, green salad
Snack: goat milk yogurt, blackberries, raw honey and sprouted sunflower seeds

Tuesday
Breakfast: eggs and veggies in homemade butter
fiber, greens, clo, multivitamin
Lunch: leftover soup
Dinner: Wild alaskan salmon with lentils and green salad
Snack: Crispy nuts and goat cheese

Wednesday
Breakfast: veggies and eggs
Lunch: leftover salmon and lentils sauteed with cabbage, onions, veggies
Dinner: Lamb chops, green beans, green salad
Snack: Tomatoes, onions, and avocado with apple cider vinegar, herbamare and olive oil

Thursday
Breakfast: veggies and eggs
Lunch: cold lamb meat over salad
Dinner: Indian beef and cabbage, steamed broccoli with butter
Snack: Hard boiled eggs, carrot sticks

Friday
Breakfast: eggs and veggies
Lunch: leftovers
Dinner: Homemade spaghetti sauce with beef over spaghetti squash, green salad
Snack: Goat's yogurt, berries, seeds, and raw honey

Saturday
Breakfast: eggs, turkey sausage, veggies
Lunch: Tuna salad with natural mayo over salad with avocado, peppers, onions, sprouts, etc.
Dinner: Healing Chicken soup with ginger, green salad
Snack: Crispy nuts, goat cheese

Sunday
Breakfast: eggs, veggies
Lunch: leftover soup
Dinner: Salmon burgers, salad, steamed broccoli
Snacks: tomato, avocado, onion salsa

Soy Candles

Hello everyone! I just wanted to put in a good word for my friend, Hollie, who is selling homemade soy candles for Christmas! While I don't recommend eating soy, it is very safe to burn! :) She only uses natural ingredients and they are dye-free! Her blog is here. If you're local, she can deliver for an additional charge. Or if you know me and you want to pick them up at my house you can! I have ordered a bunch of these every year! They are great for giving to teachers! I also love to stuff them in my family's stockings! They smell WONDERFUL!
Remember to buy local and natural whenever possible!
Blessings and Merry Christmas!

No need to blog

Since Matt (my husband) started his blog, I no longer feel the need to write here anymore! :) This is reminding me of how we both started to learn guitar at the same time in high school but he got so much better so much faster so I quit! I'm just going to have to be ok with the fact that he's smarter and more talented in all the ways I want to be. Maybe he's super jealous that I have a lot of hair! :) I will hold on to that for now.
Anyway, I've tried and tried on here to express myself on "green" living and organic foods and buying locally. But, of course, on his 4th blog post EVER, Matt nails it on the head. I'm like, "yeah, that's what I've been thinking but couldn't figure out how to say it! whatever, smarty pants!"
So, go read it. Sometime soon I'll think of something to write about that Matt doesn't know anything about...keep waiting, it may take awhile! :)

Menus Menus Menus

I've been working on a menu that covers the next 3 weeks or so. I am feeling quite overwhelmed by everything I need to do, but part of the stress is because I haven't been using a working menu for a couple weeks. With Thanksgiving, it was all I could do to just organize that and how we were going to get through it without cheating too much! :) We did pretty well. I made separate batches of mashed potatoes for Eliot as well as bread, and dessert. So, I was quite a busy bee last week. But, now with Christmas coming, we want to make sure we are eating as healthy and as healing as possible to prepare for when my family comes into town. I'm including lots of ways to get our homemade broths in (soaked rice, soups, etc.).
Our breakfasts are pretty much a rotation of the following (although I eat 2 eggs almost religiously every day)
Potato/veggie skillet
GF pancakes
Teff Skillet bread
Musli (Soaked oats with nuts and dried fruit)
GF muffins
I'd prefer to not have so much grain for every breakfast. But, I do use a variety of grains like buckwheat, teff, and sorghum. I always soak overnight and none of the recipes I have use sweeteners. With no dairy, egg, or gluten, our options for breakfast are very limiting...ideas are always welcome...only don't say meat...we can't afford it! :)

So, here's a peek at this weeks menu:
Monday (yesterday)
Breakfast: Oats
Dinner: Turkey and potato soup with carrots in homemade stock

Tuesday
Breakfast: Potato/veggie skillet with sausage, Smoothies (with probiotics, Vit. D drops, Vit. C, eccinacea, and Eliot's gut healing powders). They also all take a spoonful of fermented cod liver oil with raw honey each morning.
Dinner: Shepherd's pie with leftover mashed potatoes and veggies

Wednesday
Breakfast: GF Pancakes
Dinner: Beef Pot roast, mexican style with beans, veggies, and raw cheese

Thursday
Breakfast: Oats with berries and nuts, Smoothies
Dinner: Stuffed acorn squash with rice,onions, veggies, and turkey sausage

Friday
Breakfast: Teff Skillet Bread
Dinner: Homemade pizza night (GF crust, no cheese for Eliot)

Saturday
Breakfast: Apple Spice muffins and Potato skillet
Dinner: Chicken and broccoli over brown rice pasta

Sunday
Breakfast: Leftover muffins, fruit
Dinner: Mommy mcNuggets (Big pieces of chicken rolled in olive oil, grainy mustard, and crushed nuts), green salad, green beans

Oh, I don't put in the lunch menu because pretty much every day we eat leftovers from the night before. If not, I'll smear some organic peanut butter and agave nectar on a brown rice tortilla with carrot sticks and an apple and we call it good! :)

Wanna be a guinea pig?

I'm so excited to begin a nutritional coaching business! I'm looking for clients right now who don't mind being guinea pigs! :) I'm working out the kinks and would love to have practice! I'll be taking my first 5+ clients at a very reduced fee basis and would even consider bartering good/services if that's better for you. I can work with people near or far. If you are interested, please e-mail me at e.alberhasky@hotmail.com.

Disclaimer: I am NOT a health professional. I am just a passionate woman who has seen amazing results in my own family's health by changing the foods we eat. I cannot and will not diagnose or treat medical conditions. I will, however, share helpful information and resources that can help change your relationship with food.

Natural Cold Remedies

My entire family has been sick this week. Well, Eliot got a cold last week, and the rest of us have been sick this week. Shockingly Eliot was the least sick of all of us! He's the one who in the past would typically get sick and stay sick for a long time and it would usually be way more severe than anyone else. I think all the things we are doing to boost his immune system are helping! Yea!

So, since cold season is upon us, I thought I'd share what we do to treat it at our house. It's fresh on my mind so it's easier to remember it all. I think this is the first time we've had colds where I didn't give the kids ANY conventional medical intervention...not even tylonol! And, they are recovering marvelously! We haven't even been up all night with them (except one night with Abraham). My friend Joy has a great list of what they do at their house as well.

1. At the first sign of Eliot's cold I began giving all the kids eccinacea. We use Herbs For Kids. They got this 3 times a day for about 10 days. After that you could become immune to it's immune boosting power!

2. We doubled their daily dose of cod liver oil. CLO (when from a great source) is a wonderful source of vitamin A and D...great for the immune system! We use Green Pastures Fermented Cod Liver Oil. It's about the best you can find.

3. Essential oils. Eucalyptus oil is great for colds and respiratory issues. We put a couple drops on the bottom of the kids feet before bed.

4. Badger balm. You can find this at any health food store. It's an herbal chest rub with eucalyptus in it. We use that on the feet too!

5. Vaporizors with a few drops of eucalyptus oil for diffusion.

6.Hylands homeopathic remedies. I bought this great kit from Be The Butterfly. It has remedies for colds, fevers, runny noses, injuries, etc. WONDERFUL, although I do wonder if there's a better quality brand of homeopathic products.

7. Willow/garlic ear oil by Herbs for Kids. You can make your own and I've done that in the past, but sometimes when the whole family is sick no one has the energy to make something else! :)

8. Elevate beds. I've found that it's much easier (especially with kids) to elevate the mattress by putting a pillow under it or by putting books under the front bed legs rather than to add an extra pillow under their heads. This one thing almost entirely eliminates coughing and drainage!

9. Probiotics. We do these daily anyway, but we make sure not to miss a day when we're sick.

10. Vitamin C. Seems basic, and it is. Vit. C is wonderful for immune system support. Make sure to look for a brand that is from a whole food source, like acerola cherries. Radiant Life has a vitamin c called Pure Radiance C that we love.

11. Healing foods. When sick, our bodies need all the energy it can muster to heal. If you eat a steak, your body is going to have to work so hard just to digest it that it won't have any energy for healing. So, we eat foods that are really easy to digest like steamed veggies, soaked grains (this week we've had a lot of quinoa) and above all, soups made with homemade broth!!! Bone broths that are homemade and cooked for days have more nutrition and healing properties than about anything else we can eat. I have a recipe for both chicken and beef bone broth that are wonderful. We also do a lot of fermented veggies. These cleanse the body and detox as well as add in good bacteria.

12. Drink plenty of liquids. We bought herbal immune system supporting teas. Traditional Medicinal makes specific teas for colds!

13. NO SUGAR. PERIOD. One serving of sugar weakens your immune system for 24 hours.

14. Raw honey. Natures only predigested food. Wonderful healing properties and enzymes. Actually, this is how we get our kids to take cod liver oil! We dip the spoon in honey and then put the CLO on the spoon. The kids actually get excited to take "honey oil"! Thanks to Deborah for that great idea!

We actually did all of these things (except the ear oil...no one complained of ear aches) but we were pretty sick. With a mild cold you maybe able to get by with just a few. But if I had to prioritize it'd definitely be taking away sugar and putting in healing foods! It really only took about 5-6 days of doing all those things. It was worth it! I know if we had interfered with medicine we'd probably just have further damaged our immune systems ability to fight infection on its own. However, for the sake of total honesty, Matt and I took ibuprophen on a couple of occasions. I had a fever one night of 102, which I let burn. But then the whole next day my body hurt so bad and I had 3 small kids to care for by myself. 'Nuff said.

Too much of a good thing?

I was at a meeting the other night where a woman made a comment I haven't been able to get out of my mind. She said something to the tune of, "I don't believe in buying organic products when half the world is starving to death." At first I thought she had a good point. But, the more I've thought about it the more I see the faulty thinking. Here are some random but related thoughts I have:
1. While it looks different here than it does in third-world countries, Americans are starving as well. Certainly we don't appear to be starving, with the obesity rates. But, what about nutritionally? Aren't we starving ourselves TRUE nourishment? Are we not sicker and more infertile than we have ever been? I heard some shocking statistics recently...forgive my lack of footnotes...I can't remember where I read them. 25% of male college-age students are infertile. 40+% of women in child-bearing years are infertile. This says nothing of the vitality and health of the rest of us. We're diabetic, allergy-laden, brain-starved, and depressed...and dying off due to infertility.

2. I believe that we cannot fully minister to others in our current condition. Perhaps if I give my family not just organic, but truly nutritional foods, they will be better equipped to meet the needs of those around them and those around the world.

3. The industry that promotes cheap, processed, nasty food is corrupt and self-serving. Most of them know full well the hazards of eating their own food, and yet they promote it as being "healthy." As a believer I feel personally moved to support local, organic farmers sustain their lively-hood in producing safe, nutritional whole foods.

4. I am absolutely passionate about finding ways to get third-world countries food that will also nourish and promote life-long health! I have been learning more about ministries that do just that and will hopefully post on that soon!

I'd love to hear your thoughts. I don't think I'm right about everything, these are just my initial thoughts and ideas on the matter. Comment and let me know how you feel!