on my mind monday 08.27.12

news | photo: mconnors

It's never the same two weeks in a row.  This is a collection of what I find interesting in food, nutrition, and holistic health.  It's what's on my mind.

Re-homing chickens - Most people are not aware of the fact that chickens do not lay eggs their entire life.  Just for a few years; and  yet they can live to be as much as 15 years old.  So what happens to them when they are no longer "productive?"  In the case of a commercial egg operation they're usually slaughtered.  But now an organization is finding new homes for chickens who are no longer laying eggs.  A very cool concept and definitely part of the ethical cycle of respect for the animal.

The undervalued superfood - I love the concept of superfoods, and there are many, which do not need to come from other continents.  There are so many wonderful, health-supporting foods all around us.  In this case the newest "super" food to get attention?  Beans.  High in fiber and protein, stabilizing for blood sugar, fabulous for intestinal health, these are just a few of the wonderful reasons to eat beans.

Consumers are bad at math - This is a link to a video that explains the reasons why we are bad a shopping math and how marketers use this to their advantage.  While it's harder to do this kind of math 'on the fly' when you're shopping and in a hurry to get home with your purchases, I've realized it's something I need to focus on more in order to make sure I am getting the best deals I can for my family.  My important addendum?  Make sure you are not hungry when you are shopping, that's just going to make things worse.

Ten Year Old Convinces Corporation To Give Up Styrofoam - This is one of those stories that I love.  We are surrounded more and more by kid-advocates who are taking the lead in changing the world around them and changing it for the better.  Birke Baehr, a future farmer, spreading the word about sustainable agriculture, and Julia Bluhm, who convinced a major magazine to start using un-photoshopped pictures in their pages are among just a few of the young heros making a difference.  I think they are wonderful and amazing.

For today's video we have a great one from my friend Julie Matthews - Making Veggie Latkes, a wonderful way to get more veggies into a picky eater.  This recipe also deals with issues for those whose bodies don't handle starches well.


Julie also has a great cooking program available on her website.  If you're looking to make changes to your diet, either because of Autism or because of a need to follows GAPS, SCD, Feingold, Body Ecology or other dietary protocols, this is the program for you.

What I'm Reading:

Drop Dead Healthy: One Mans Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection by A.J. Jacobs.  One man's mission to learn how his body works, to lose weight, lower his cholesterol, and attempt to turn himself into the ultimately healthy person.  Mr. Jacobs took two years to learn everything he could about his body.  The book is a rather self-depreciating, humorous, fact-filled look at all the things we don't know which impact our health.   Breaking the quest into 27 smaller tasks he focuses one-at-a-time on various parts of his body such as The Stomach, The Heart, The Ears, The Butt, etc.

Given his day job as the editor at large for Esquire magazine he had access to an astounding array of experts for support and information.  Each chapter has one or more experts that he consulted to learn the latest information about the science and theories behind what it takes to find health for that body part.

He didn't limit himself to mainstream medicine and modern theory.  He was on a mission to try it all and to learn everything he could.  Along the way he submitted himself to various activities such as a Caveman Workout (running barefoot and bare chested through Central Park), a pole dancing class, neurofeedback, and joining a laughter club.  He also shared his thoughts and reflections on how he feels physically and/or emotionally after trying many of these, being mindfully aware of how his focus is affecting him.

Scattered throughout the book are checkups where he lists his weight, and a few other variable facts (such as how many pushups he can do).  The appendices at the end of the book is filled with tips, the highlights of what he learned during the year-long experiment.  It's a quick and easy read, yet filled with fascinating facts and some good ideas about how to become healthier.

on my mind monday 08.20.12

news | photo: mconnors

It's never the same two weeks in a row.  This is a collection of what I find interesting in food, nutrition, and holistic.  Here's what's on my mind.

Hot cocoa may boost seniors' brain power - cocoa flavonols are gaining increased recognition for their healthy properties.  There were also positive changes for cardiovascular health and blood pressure modulation.  One of the drawbacks is that this study was sponsored by Mars, one of the co-authors is a Mars employee, and Mars provided all of the cocoa samples.  So while this is interesting as a start, there need to be more studies, that are done in a more controlled, less corporate connected studies.

Dry farming - Given the drought many areas of the country have been experiencing it may be time to resurrect this "old-fashioned" way of doing things.  A side benefit is increased nutrient density and flavor in the crops.  This appears, to me, to be a much better alternative to water waste and over-use of fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals.

5 years to "fix" antibiotic overuse in farm animals - This issue has been going on far too long.  The vast majority of antibiotics in this country are used in animal farming.  The consequences are dire as more and more superbugs are created due to the amount of antibiotics people eat from meat and dairy products.  You are what the animal you eat ate.  [it's okay, go back and re-read that once or twice if you need to, it's confusing to read/write but makes total sense once you understand it]  I'm outraged that it's been decades already and this issue has not been addressed.  Now we've given the system another five years to begin to make changes,  It's overwhelming and it's wrong.  Animals that are bred for food need to be raised humanely and treated well, not crammed together and given antibiotics as a routine matter-of-course.

The internet printer - apparently coming soon to a printer near you...the ability to print a roll of tweets, fb postings, recipes and more.  One of the challenges that I see for this product is that they are claiming that it is using thermal paper just like in cash register receipts.  These receipts are coated in BPA which makes the printing process easy.  Unfortunately it flakes off very easily, adhering to your fingers and then contaminating whatever you touch.  If you have to handle receipts wash your hands thoroughly before touching food.

And not one, but two videos this week to make up for no videos last week.

Rescuing bees




Raising Chickens

This is a complete turn-around in how to raise chickens. I love the fact that these chickens do really go outside. There are some companies that claim their chickens have access to the outdoors but they raise them in such a way that the chickens won't go outside when the option is offered to them. These are very healthy, happy looking birds.

on my mind 07.16.12 - meg's edition

news | photo: mconnors

Normally this is where I write about what's on my mind and share information and links on a variety of food, nutrition and holistic health topics.  Today we have a guest post from Meg in Connecticut who has been reading along for a while and was inspired to put together this list of links.

Triage Your Food - this excellent tip from Lifehacker claims that by creating a triage box in your fridge you can keep track of what needs to be eaten first and possibly save $100 per month or more.  I'm currently scrounging around my bin collection to see what I have that can be repurposed so I can implement this very idea.

USDA 'playing chicken with safety' - Essentially the government wants to turn the inspections over to the companies themselves.  This is not the first time this sort of issue has come up and I am assuming it won't be the last.  Unfortunately this is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse and I do not believe that safety will continue along its current levels which are already not good enough.

Maryland politicians chicken out on arsenic ban - Yes, there is arsenic in chicken feed.  No it is not necessary.  Yes chickens, and people, would be healthier if it was removed from the feed.  The producers put it in there to reduce or eliminate coccidiosis, a common problem with overcrowded poultry conditions.  The dangers of arsenic go beyond the exposure in the meat, the run-off present in chicken excrement also poisons water supplies and the environment.  Buying organic chicken or from a a farmer you know and trust is the only way to avoid exposure to this toxic metal.

Ag-gag laws in five states - I find this very disturbing.  Producers are so concerned about public opinion if consumers know what they are really doing that they have managed, in five states, to successfully gag anyone who tries to report on them.  So what are they hiding?  Poor conditions, inhumane treatment of animals, unhealthy and unsanitary conditions, and possible/probable contamination which can affect the consumer.

USDA needs to label mechanically tenderized beef - meat that is tenderized by machine is considered "non-intact" and therefore has more surface area.  This higher level of surface area provides more growth medium for bacteria, therefore requiring a higher cooking temperature to avoid illness.  This issue has apparently been under review since 2009.  Quite frankly I'm not sure what the holdup is, this could prevent illness and bacterial outbreak and makes perfect sense to me.

What's inside the 26-ingredient school lunch burger - The first ingredient is meat and the second is water.  But the third ingredient is soy flour (hmmmmm.....is there no allergen label in those school cafeterias?).  Most of the ingredients are not food and should not be in there, including "natural" flavor and disodium inosinate both of which are key words for MSG, and caramel color, which the Center for Science in the Public Interest says is a carcinogenic ingredient.  Last time I made burgers I had just six whole food ingredients, meat, egg, onion, parsley, oregano, and salt.  No chemicals, no harmful ingredients.  What's in your burger?

Paper Mache Carrot Pencils - a really cute craft idea to encourage veggie interaction.

Regulating sugar like alcohol - This is an opinion piece from CNN which points out all the reasons that sugar is so bad for our health and how difficult it is to control in our diet.  If nothing else it should at least help you to be more cognizant of how much sugar you may actually be consuming in your diet without being fully aware of it.

Growing Your Own Veggies - more and more people are turning to the idea of home gardening.  Not only to combat the rising cost of food or the increasing food contamination issues, but because growing food is fun.  And other people are learning how to identify, forage for, and eat weeds.

pavlov's chickens

I'm always amused when I see the cartons of eggs in the grocery store proclaiming in bold print "vegetarian fed."  Chickens are not vegetarians.  As a matter of fact they do better if they get to scratch, run around in the sunshine, and eat bugs and worms.  It's part of their natural diet.  And the healthier the chicken, the healthier the egg that it produces.

You can always tell a healthy egg because it's a much better color, it's firmer and holds together better, and, most importantly, it tastes better.  If you don't believe me I encourage you to find a friend who has chickens or pay a visit to your local farmer's market and buy some.

The chickens that you see on the left there are Josephine and Daphne, they belong to my friend Peggy who has joined the growing trend of backyard chicken keepers.  More and more folks are deciding, especially in light of the very scary egg recall that they would like to raise their own chickens.  This way they know what the chickens are eating, how healthy they are, and they'll feel better about eating eggs.  As people join the trend more communities are passing legislation to allow keeping chickens as pets (usually limiting the number, sex - no roosters, and henhouse location).  There's even a website devoted to urban chicken farming.

Peggy shared the following humorous story with me about her chickens, proving that in addition to making you breakfast they can also help reduce waste.

"Embracing a more alternative lifestyle we recycle, garden, compost, and now raise chickens. After being city dwellers most of our lives, raising chickens is new to us, but so far so good. 


For health reasons, we spent many months on a strict diet that did not include grains and our oatmeal had gotten buggy. We thought, 'Chickens love bugs and grain. Why not give it to the chickens?' We tried it out by giving them just a small amount. They gobbled it down as fast as they could. This was also about the time our first hen started laying. As a matter of fact, I had started giving them some of the oatmeal when I collected that one precious egg. 


Now when they see me come out to the hen house, they come running from all points of the yard and patiently follow close by. They chatter at me, as if to say, “You can pour us some Oatmeal now. Right here would be good. We sure like Oatmeal.” One hen even tolerates me petting her, if there is a remote chance she will get some of that tasty treat. 


It's interesting that all the books we have read say that we can expect about 4 eggs per week per hen.   Since they have figured out that they get oatmeal when I collect the eggs, we now get one egg per hen every single day. So we're calling them, Pavlov’s Chickens. As with most pets, we think we are successful in training them, but who is actually being trained, since laying eggs comes naturally for a chicken?  And what are we going to do when we run out of buggy oatmeal?"

If you think you'd like to raise chickens there are a couple of good books to get you started.       















And then, of course, you'll need a couple of good cookbooks to go along with the all the eggs.