Thursday, May 30, 2013

Non-GMO and organic food resources

I thought that I was doing pretty well with my Wellness Avenues Page until I saw THIS!  Wow!  This page gave a non-GMO report that has many others that I've seen beaten.

The Organic and Non-GMO report listed all kinds of resources for people who are trying to avoid GMOs.  They listed organic and non-GMO companies, companies registered with the non-GMO project, companies that advocate non-GMO farming and so on and so forth.  If you are one who is REALLY trying to keep your diet clean, you need to skim through the report below (click link).

Non-GMO and organic food resources

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Comic Relief

You've gotta love John Stewart.  He is possibly the only person on the planet who can make me laugh about Monsanto's nonsense.  I loved how he included Bill from School House Rock in his presentation.

I would like to warn readers about some vulgarity in the video though.  I usually don't post even if there is a hint of vulgarity.  But because some of the vulgarity was censored, and because video is both hilarious AND informative, I felt that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages of the presentation enough to post it.

Though somewhat informative, I ultimately posted this video is for laughs.  Enjoy!


Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Green Banana Porridge Correction

I just received a phone call from my father who corrected me on what I said in my last post.  I said that the banana to use is a large cooking banana.  I also said that I've never cooked the bananas that we're all familiar with, but it may very well work... well, dad just confirmed today that they will.

I didn't think that the bananas that we commonly eat will work in this recipe merely because of my personal experience.  The only bananas that I've ever actually seen anyone cook are those large cooking bananas.  It was those same bananas that was used in the video as well.  I actually cooked a regular ripe banana once, and it came out kind of soggy and mushy... not like how it comes out when I cook those ripe cooking bananas.

So I stand corrected, and apologize.  The good news is, it will be MUCH easier to find the main ingredient for this recipe.  So find yourself a green banana, make your family a nice warm bowl of porridge!

Green Banana Porridge Part II

I forgot to mention that the bananas used in the green banana porridge recipe are different than the bananas that we Americans commonly put in our fruit bowls along with apples and pears.  The bananas used for this recipe are bigger and they are commonly used for cooking in several cultures.  Unfortunately, I know these bananas when I see them, but I'm not sure what they are called in this country.  They call it plantain in Jamaica and I've heard Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and other Latinos refer to them as platanos.  If you ask your grocer for plantain or platanos, they may be able to help you if they carry these cooking bananas.  The bad news is, I don't see many grocery stores that have them; the good news is, I don't shop at conventional grocery stores (so the may have them though I'm not aware of it).

I realize that many people find this post most unnecessary, but I've had friends who saw these bananas in my home and were fascinated by them; this tells me that there are some people who may need this information in order to make this recipe work well.  If you use the common bananas, it may very well work, but I couldn't promise because I've never used those bananas for cooking before.

Well, I hope this post helped some of you!  Either way, enjoy!

Monday, May 27, 2013

Happy Memorial Day

To all our troops, to all of the families who lost loved ones who fought for us and to everyone who fought for and protected our country; I just want to say thank you!

Happy Memorial Day 2013!

Sunday, May 26, 2013

The May 25th March

More and more people are becoming informed, educated and aware of how politics has slithered its way into agriculture and took a venomous bite out of the rights of the people.  More and more people are also learning that the culprit behind this fiasco is mostly Monsanto.

Here is another individual who spoke on behalf of a farmer named Ethan (of One Badger Farms) and other farmers who have had many problems with the FDA (Monsanto).  I couldn't resist his sweet, beautiful alpaca and apparently neither could anyone else who approached.

The audio is slightly messed up and I didn't get a chance to edit this, but I thought it was still okay for viewing though it was not polished.

Enjoy!



Saturday, May 25, 2013

The March Against Monsanto




The March Against Monsanto in Colorado was today at noon.  The picture above was taken before the actual march.  Sadly, I didn't get to stay, but I got a chance to talk to some people and I filmed a little of key note speaker Jeffery Smith.  It was amazing and terrible to hear some of the horror stories that are happening right here in the land of the free.

I will be posting some of these  videos to let every health freedom activist know that they absolutely are not alone.  There are many who are with you and who fight on your behalf.  

Friday, May 24, 2013

Green Banana Porridge

When I saw this video it made me ESPECIALLY eager to successfully get through my GAPS diet and become a vibrantly healthy woman!  I never knew about green banana porridge, but it sounds really, really good!  It's off the menu for me right now, but it doesn't hurt to have incentives to get healthy as quickly as possible.

Once again, remember this is the regular recipe.  Since we are all health focused individuals, we need to be sensible about substituting some of these ingredients with healthy ones.  For example, I hope you use organic grass fed raw cow's milk instead of the mainstream type milk.  If you aren't a milk drinker at all, (or if you are vegan), you could make your own almond or walnut milk and use that instead.  Milk drinker or not, I would advise EVERYONE against condense milk to sweeten because of the questionable quality of condensed milk (it's canned milk and they use CAFO raised, GMO grain fed cow's milk; not to mention the GMO sugar in the condensed milk).  To sweeten this porridge, I believe that maple syrup is the best candidate.  If you are not one to consume maple syrup, honey, coconut crystals, pineapple juice or ripe bananas would work equally well.

Substitute the nasty stuff with real food and this could be a delicious, filling and healthy Sunday morning breakfast!


Thursday, May 23, 2013

H7N9: Is It the New "Most Lethal" Bird Flu Strain?

Yes, another "lethal" flu strain.  The worst yet ever... blah, blah, blah.  All of this hype and Dr. Mercola is one of the few who write articles on preventive measures to take against the flu... REAL preventive measures I mean.  In other words not more garbage talk on vaccinations.

I'm not tying to downplay the effects of the flu; I'm very sensible of it's dangers.  My next door neighbors had the H1N1 virus a few years ago.  One had it for a few days and recovered; the other was in a coma and hospitalized for four months because of it.  With my issues with Candida, it's very easy for me to catch these things so obviously there is personal concern.  What is disturbing about these "new and lethal" flu bugs is that it is feeding a Big Business that I can not hope to support without giving up on my health completely.  I fear there are many others out there like me and they ALL need to read Dr. Mercola's article (the hyperlink below).

The bottom line is, get ALL of the information that you can on this matter and take very careful measures when choosing preventive methods rather than allowing certain "professionals" to scare you into making matters worse for everyone.

H7N9: Is It the New "Most Lethal" Bird Flu Strain?

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Callaloo

If you're are a non-Jamaican reading this post, I'm sure "calla-who?" or something of that nature has crossed your mind as you read the title.  Allow me to introduce you to callaloo baby!  It is an amazingly healthful, not to mention delicious, leafy green vegetable.  It's very popular in Jamaica (and around the rest of the Caribbean from what I've read).



My father recently sent callaloo seeds for me to plant this year.  Callaloo is apparently not difficult to grow; which is perfect since I'm a beginner.  So I'm looking forward to how this goes.

I'm so excited, but there is one problem.  The callaloo recipe that I absolutely LOVE is callaloo with salt fish.  To me, (and I mean JUST to me) callaloo is good in many other dishes, but it is BOSS with salt fish.  I did recently try a callaloo dish which turned out to be a quiche to my surprise (it certainly didn't look like quiche).  Of course, I ended up sick from it because of the white flour pastry and possibly from the conventional cheese.  If I could make that dish with a whole grain or sprouted grain crust and with a more healthful ingredients, I think that a callaloo quiche could be enjoyable AND healthful.  Since I'm on the GAPS diet, however, quiche is sort of off the menu for me... for right now anyway.  That leaves the callaloo and salt fish dish and, again, salt fish isn't always easy to find.  One way or the other, I'm going to need to be far more creative with the callaloo recipes to keep them flavorful as well as GAPS diet friendly.

Once again, most of the Jamaican dishes that I grew up with could be nutrient dense; but one needs to switch out the modernized ingredients (the canola oil, sugar and white flour garbage).  Callaloo dishes are a great example of that, if one could keep the ingredients in callaloo recipes healthy, then it could make a variety of mouth-watering, nutrient-packed dishes!

So if you are so fortunate to discover the delights of this leafy green jewel, please feel free to share your experience or your recipes if you want.  Questions, comments and furthermores are ALWAYS welcome.  In any case have fun and stay healthy!

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Ackee and Cod Fish



Yeah baby (rather, yeah man)!  THIS is the stuff!  My all time favorite Jamaican dish. When my mom tells me that she is makin' this stuff I could almost smell it over the phone.  Either way, I often start drooling.

You see the picture above?  Just looking at it makes me salivate.  That yellow stuff that looks like scrambled eggs is actually ackee.  It is a beautiful, wonderfully delicious fruit when you add peppers, onions, garlic, salt and pepper and cod fish all cooked in coconut oil.  Oooh!  MAN I've gotta make another trip to Jamaica!

Ackee is downright difficult to find in the US unless it is from a can.  I would never advise eating the canned ackee; for it's not the same.  Besides the obvious reasons not to eat canned food (like bpa poisoning and such), ackee sometimes goes through unnatural processing before canning; for example, sometimes the ripening process is forced which actually makes the ackee VERY unhealthy.  When ackee ripens naturally, the fruit bursts open and the big black seeds inside are fully exposed; then and only then is it ripe and ready to be picked and cooked (see image below).




Again fining ackee in the US unless it is canned is near impossible, but there is always hope.  Every once in a while there are small grocery stores that sell unusual fruits and vegetables in a town that is rich in the culture that will buy them.  If you live in a more tropical area, you could probably grow it yourself even!  Where there is a will there is a way.  If you're making a trip to Jamaica, however, it is highly advisable that you try this dish!  It is way too yum!



Monday, May 20, 2013

Natural Home

I've been away much longer than anticipated and I apologize.  Although, while I was away I've had some time to make some discoveries about some further changes that I need to make.  I can even offer advice that I hope to follow myself in the very near future.

If you constantly find yourself experiencing illnesses and you have carpet in your home, do yourself a favor and get rid of it.  Get rid of carpets and rugs.  The exception to this is washable rugs; in that case simply wash and THOROUGHLY dry them periodically.  Every single story I've heard of people getting rid of carpet, there was some claim that mold was lurking somewhere in that carpet.  I have a friend who doesn't keep her house "clean" as much as "immaculate" and even she saw mold on the bottom of her carpet as it left her house.  Even on the GAPS diet I found myself with candida overgrowth problems; albeit far fewer and milder problems than before the GAPS diet.  Still, when candida overgrowth comes, other illnesses tend to follow.  My doctor warned me that it could be something that is in the air and I suspect that it came from my carpet.

I know that getting rid of carpet isn't cheap and that may be the only thing that is stopping me right now.  There are other issues in my home that I needed to address and I'm addressing them at the cost of having this darned carpet on my floor for at least another year.  One way or another, my natural home is on its way.  We've installed the solar and I've gotten rid of so much eco unfriendly stuff, but I still have a way to go.  I hope that I can put this carpet on my cut list no later than next year.

Monday, May 6, 2013

May's Books: Jamaican Recipes



Last month there was a post where I was happily reminiscing about Jamaican meals that I would enjoy with my family as a kid made me want to feature a book about Jamaican feasts.  I found these two books.  The first one is $0.99 for your kindle, and the other is a $2.00 book that has 50 Jamaican recipes or more.

One thing that I find is a must, is to be wary of the modernization of some of the cooking.  Jamaican meals can be extremely healthful, but the modernization of the recipe kind of kills the nutritional value of it.  For example, the recipe for the dumpling uses regular white flour.  I would use a whole grain flour instead.  It also wouldn't surprise me if many of these recipes call for sugar; you could replace that with coconut crystals or honey.  Another way to make these meals more healthful is to always, always use coconut oil instead of the GMO canola garbage when the recipe calls for cooking oil.  With just these few tips, your Jamaican meals could be VERY healthful.  As far as the flavor, the word that comes to mind is BOONOONOONOOS!!



Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Sorry!

Due to a health issue, I'll be taking a few days to rest.  Please come back to read next Monday.  I look forward to posting then.

Be well my friends!