Green Smoothies and support my walk for MS!

Hey all...I have 3 friends with MS, and I want to do everything I can to support the MS Society to support them and others with MS. I am walking in the MS Walk in Ottawa next week., and to raise money, I have created a recipe book of Green Smoothies. If you support my walk for any amount, I will send you an e-copy of the book. It would mean a lot to me and you would get a great e-book that would help you meet Canada's Food Guide recommendations of 7 to 10 servings!

You can pledge me here: http://mssoc.convio.net/site/TR/Walk/OntarioDivision?px=1475391&pg=personal&fr_id=1909&s_locale=en_CA

More food...

Just a quick little post about healthy things this weekend. First - Mandolin + low heat convection oven for a few hours = apple chips. I'm addicted.

Another smoothy. Kale + mango + strawberries + milk + unflavoured North Coast Naturals Whey Protein. Creamy and not too sweet. A perfect way to start the day. (No, this is not paid advertising! I've tried a lot of whey, I really like this one.)

Dragon fruit. So pretty, but rather bland. More nourishment for the soul than the body.

Green smoothie shake up

I live with an autoimmune disease. It's been particularly bad lately, and I'm trying to help as much as I can through nutrition (in addition to a bunch of allopathic and complimentary medicine).

 This morning's green smoothie: Green mango lassie

1 cup frozen collard greens
1/2 ripe mango
1/2 cup whole milk yogurt
1 cup milk (or water, or juice)

Add all ingredients to your blender and mix on highest speed until smooth. Enjoy, knowing that you are filling your body with:
probiotics
fiber
vitamins A, C, K
calcium
protein
water
diindolylmethane
sulforaphane
(Note, vitamin K can modify the effectiveness of blood thinners.)

Sweet Potatoe Fries

It's been too long since I've last posted! I've got a back log of photos for tasty recipes to post about, and some thoughts about being well that I want to share. Things have been a little crazy up here in Ottawa due to a massive storm this past week (I got stranded at my parents' house!) and a variety of little things here and there.

But to keep you full of healthy food I bring you Sweet Potatoe Fries. These are delicious, and packed full of vitamins and fiber. Who needs fast food when you can bake these up in less time than it takes to drive to a fast food joint to get some less than healthy food that is no where near as tasty?

Source: http://www.couponclippingcook.com/french-fries-with-dipping-sauces/

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Get out a baking pan.

Take a big sweet potatoe and peel it. Slice it into 1/2 inch thick slices and then into fries. (i.e. first cut along the long end into flat pieces and then cut your pieces into strips).

Source: Me!

Put your sweet potatoe strips into a bowl and toss with 2 tbsp of olive oil, 1/2 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of paprika and 2 tsp of rosemary. Spread onto your baking sheet. Pop into the oven, and roast for 20 minutes or until done. It you want to be really fancy, you can flip half way through the roasting time at 10 minutes. I usually don't bother.

Source: Me!

That's it! Now you can enjoy tasty  healthy, inexpensive sweet potatoe fries.

Biochar - interesting!

I found this project on Indiegogo this morning (Indiegogo has so many amazing projects, I want to fund them all!)

BioPreta Sample Project

I looked up biochar in wikipedia, and learned some interesting things about how the ancient technique of smoldering agricultural waste on farming land contributed to keeping the soil and environment healthy.

Source: http://www.biochar-nsr.eu/cms/

Sometimes I have to wonder if in many ways (not all!), our ancestors were so much smarter than we are. Or perhaps not smarter, but wiser. Why go through the trouble of producing chemicals to put on our land if we can use what we don't need to augment the soil instead. Seems like far less work (but alas, would contribute less to the "economy", oh my! note sarcasm in this sentence, which is not always easy to convey in writing).

Trepanation is one way that our ancestors clearly were not smarter nor wiser!

Caraway Rye

I got a bread machine at the Sally Ann a year or two ago, and use it for kneading my bread. I still like to bake the bread in the oven if I can, as I prefer the crust and shape of an oven baked loaf, and I can better control how it comes out.

Last night I made caraway rye dough, and this morning baked it up on my pizza stone. It is delicious!

150 ml of water
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp honey (for a lighter bread) or molasses (for a darker bread)
1 cup rye flour
1 1/4 cup white bread flour
2 tbsp caraway seeds (or more, if you like)
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast

Put in the bread machine in the order listed. Use the dough cycle.

Let bread do final rise in a oblong shape. I rise it on a silicone matt so I can just pop it into the oven with no fuss. Preheat oven to 400 C. Heat pizza stone

When the bread is doubled in size, pop in the oven. Pour 1/4 cup of water into the bottom of your oven (please please please check your over instructions and follow them - this is fine in my oven, it may not work in yours). Bake until the bread sounds hollow when tapped, for me about 30 - 40 minutes in my convection oven.

Delicious plain, or with butter or honey.

uBiome project

In December I got my own genome partially sequenced to help me better understand the health issues I am dealing with. I also learned a lot about my genetic history, including my matrilineal line (that is, where my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's ... mother came from ).

I have a new arthritis diagnosis that is associated with inflammatory bowel disease. I don't have IBD, but I am curious about the bacteria in my gut. Gut bacteria are really important to health, and provide a variety of functions such as assistance with digestion, vitamin production, and synthesis of a variety of substances. Gut microbes have been associated with a number of disorders, including depression, autism, several types of arthritis, eczema and even sinusitis!

So, along came uBiome, which I found on Indiegogo, a crowdsourcing website. I'm going to get my gut biome sequenced and see what they find. Should be very interesting! In the meantime, I continue to try to eat food that are wholesome and healthy, close to their natural form, and have a wide variety of naturally occuring microbes such as kefir, yogurt and saurkraut.

Two books that will help you cook more healthily in a microbe friendly way are Wild Fermentation and Nourishing Traditions: