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!

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?

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!

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!

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.

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!!

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!