FreeRice: Get Smarter and Feed the World
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I came across this fun website that tests your vocabulary and donates 20 grains of rice for every word you get right: www.freerice.com.
Oh sure, they do picture white rice on the site, but I like to imagine it’s brown or red or purple… so many kinds of whole grain rice out there! Try a new one the next time you visit a health food store with a good bulk section. And keep it in the fridge or at least a cool place so the oils in your whole grain rice won’t go rancid.
Rebecca
How to Get More from Green Tea
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A recent study by Purdue University researchers, published in the November 2007 issue of Molecular Nutrition and Food Research, has proven that adding 20–50% citrus juice to green tea beverages makes the antioxidant catechins in green tea more bioavailable. What a yummy way to help your body benefit from green tea! The study seemed to focus on using citrus juice or ascorbic acid in commercial green tea preparations, but why not make it fresh and still get the most out of it?
Make your favorite green tea by steeping a few bags in boiling water. Steep it strong (a few more minutes than usual), squeeze and remove the tea bags (or, if you prefer bulk tea leaves, strain the leaves off), and let it cool to room temperature.
In a nice glass pitcher, mix in up to twice as much fresh-squeezed citrus juice (orange, grapefruit, lemon, or lime), and sweeten if desired.
Agave nectar makes a great sweetener. It is all-natural and has a low glycemic index.
Keep the pitcher in the fridge and enjoy some refreshing anti-cancer catechins whenever you like!
Rebecca
Receiving Food in the Spirit in Which it is Given
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I do my best to prepare food as naturally as possible. I prefer organic food; stainless steel or cast iron cookware (no non-stick for me!); wooden or bamboo cooking utensils; a gas stove (a close replication of the fire from the sun, but electric stoves can still do the job!); glass and stainless containers for leftovers; natural fiber dishtowels… these are the things I consider when stocking my kitchen and cooking for myself and those I love.
Sometimes, though, those we love want to gift us with food. In my early “natural cook” days, I turned down a lot of food that didn’t meet my standards. Over the years, I have chosen to exercise discretion and enjoy less-than-natural food once in awhile because the heart energy that went into it counts, too!
For example, I enjoyed a lovely Christmas Eve dinner at my partner’s relatives’ place this year. One of the tastiest sweet treats was a white-flour bread with candied fruit in it. Soft and squooshy. A delight that I had been looking forward to since I was introduced to that loaf last Christmas.
I may have cringed on the inside when the elderly gentleman who made this bread listed off the ingredients as we were all enjoying it at the table after dinner. Margarine is certainly not part of my repertoire, but he had kneaded and baked this bread with so much love that I believe it served me more to trust that taking in that love superceded taking in the margarine in the bread. There was no place for arrogance at that table.
It feels so good to not worry about it! Maybe it’s just due to the passing of time (”aging”) or maybe I’ve learned some lessons over the years, but I like that I have softened in a social way. And like most of us, I’ll make an extra effort to choose vibrant, healthy, natural foods to “detox” after the holidays.
Happy New Year!
Rebecca
Upgrade Your Holiday Baking
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Last night I made my annual batch of holiday gingerbread cookies. Mmmmmm… and my home still smells warm and spicy! I use an old recipe that my mom always made for me – not a “natural” recipe by any means, but with a few changes, it meets my standards well enough that I feel good about eating and sharing them.
There are always ways to make your favorite recipes more natural. Of course, more natural doesn’t necessarily mean fewer calories, less fat or nutritionally healthier, but choosing ingredients that are less refined and closer to Nature contributes to a more energetic wholeness. It’s all relative! But even organic sweets are still meant to be treats.
Here are some ideas of ingredient substitutions when making your favorite seasonal sweets:
• molasses —> blackstrap molasses (stronger taste but lots more minerals!)
• butter —> organic butter (not margarine! there’s nothing natural about margarine)
• brown sugar —> organic dried sugarcane crystals
• all-purpose flour —> kamut or spelt flour (whole wheat has been hybridized over several decades, and now has more gluten than it originally did – harder to digest!)
• white sugar —> organic sugar crystals… or honey or agave syrup (will make the recipe wetter, so you’ll need more dry flour to bind and might have to adjust baking powder etc. Experiment!)
• maple syrup —> organic dark maple syrup (the darker, the more minerals and flavor)
• cornstarch —> kuzu/kudzu
• artificial vanilla extract —> organic vanilla extract (contains alcohol) or flavor (no alcohol) [also applies to other flavors]
• cocoa —> organic cocoa or carob
• table salt —> sea salt
• refined cooking/baking oils (canola etc.) —> unrefined and refined oils that require refrigeration (some brands to look for at a health food store: Rapunzel, Spectrum, Flora, Omega Nutrition etc.)
Many other ingredients are available in organic versions – like spices, eggs, raisins, oats… and even the vanilla cookie crumbs, coconut and icing sugar I need to make the rum balls that Santa always used to request when he’d deliver on Christmas Eve.
Even after “going natural”, I knew that recipe was a keeper!
If you need an ingredient but can’t for the life of you think of what might be a better choice, you can always ask at your local health food store or poke around online for some ideas. I’m not sure I’ll be able to easily find organic rum for those rum balls…
This is just a starting point to get you thinking about those annual recipes that you know you’ll splurge on. Try upgrading them, even just a little bit…
Happy Holidays!
Rebecca
Keeping Track of Successful Dishes
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Have you ever surprised yourself in the kitchen? Maybe you started playing with a recipe and substituted some ingredients because your gut told you to? Or perhaps you were just using what you had on hand, and it ended up better than you expected? I taught a class the other day and created a yummy bean salad that my students gobbled up with wild abandon. Now that’s a recipe I don’t want to forget!
Here’s my advice: WRITE IT DOWN! Keep a cooking journal close by in the kitchen so you can jot down successes that surprise you – and substitutions that maybe you didn’t like quite as much. This way, you can get to know your ingredients, your recipes, your food. What tasted good? Did something have a texture you really liked? If you start to see patterns in how ingredients behave and interact, try starting from scratch without a written recipe in front of you. If it ends up great, write it down… and maybe you’ll even want to share the joy! There’s enough room in the world for us all to be successful. Feel free to post the recipes you’re proud of on the Naturally Savvy™ website (you’ll find a “Submit Your Recipes” link on the Recipes page).
Rebecca
Shopping Smart
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A friend of mine mentioned that she recently lucked into some organic strawberries at the grocery store – for the same price as the conventional ones! I usually buy organic produce whenever it’s available, without even looking at the conventional side of the produce section. Some people may be “in transition”, moving toward more organic purchases. My friend’s story is a great reminder that it pays to comparison-shop! Depending on seasonality and growing location, you might be fortunate enough to find some fabulous organic deals. Chances are, once you’ve tasted organic produce (some in particular often taste worlds better than their conventional counterparts – like carrots!), you may not want to go back.
Rebecca
Infuse Your Food with Love
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A Course in Miracles from the Foundation for Inner Peace says that love is all-encompassing, so love must be all there is. Wow, that sounds so good I could eat it! Well, guess what? You can!
Love is just a word for energy, and food is a source of energy for our human bodies. According to ACIM, it sometimes seems like there is fear, anger, sadness, or some other “negative” emotion, but really we’ve just forgotten the truth of love. Hey, we’re human, right? And we find ourselves living in the world and dealing with emotions and situations (in us and all around us) that do not feel like love. If we do not feed something, it will die off – so I try to remember to feed only the love-ly thoughts and let the rest fall away.
It starts in my mind. Of course, I choose whole foods that are as close as possible to the natural way Mother Earth presented them. I also try to heighten the energy – the love – that’s in the food I choose to eat. I do this by:
· Leaving the stresses of the day behind when I walk into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Maybe I take a deep breath and consciously put my worries aside, or say a prayer and ask for some help in letting go. Or I might make a quick list of the things that are on my mind – things I must remember to do but I’m afraid I’ll forget – so that I don’t have to think about them while I’m thinking about dinner. I might even have a shower to wash the day away after a long day at work. Washing my hands is an abbreviated version of this.
· Choosing my background noise carefully. I turn off the TV, radio, or any other distracting noise. Sometimes I choose to play baroque classical music that stimulates my alpha brain waves so I can cook in an effortless, relaxed state of mind. Or I might prefer a meditative CD or a continuous “Om” track. Sometimes I want to enjoy some happy tunes that make me laugh and sing out loud (sounds and feels like love to me! I might even splurge on some Christmas music any time of year; since I view Christmas as the birth of a new consciousness, I like to carry that spirit with me wherever I go). Often I cook in silence, letting my cooking be a moving meditation.
· Clearing away the clutter on the counter so I don’t get annoyed by things being in my way. Keeping the space clean has a similar result. A clean kitchen makes me want to cook!
· Making sure the lighting is good. It adds to my sense of security, especially when I have a knife in my hand or the stove is on. Being afraid of getting hurt (even on an unconscious level) doesn’t help the case for love!
· Washing, cutting, handling, preparing foods with the intention of allowing in only healing energy. This requires attention to what I’m doing, constant awareness of the present moment… again… and again… and again.
· Stirring my food no more than necessary. As clear as I would like my head space to be, it isn’t always pure and full of love, so why stir confused energy into the food?
Those are some of the ways I do my best to heal myself and those I cook for – by infusing my food with the power of thought/heart/love. But what about when I’m not doing the cooking? I really enjoy dining out, and when my meal is placed in front of me, I try to remember to just shoot some good thoughts into it before digging in. Some people do the infusion by saying grace (quietly or aloud). Even a simple “thank you” carries powerful energy. It’s also possible to physically channel healing energy in by doing Reiki or some other form of energy work over the food; this can also be done at the grocery store or farmers’ market, or out in the field while you’re helping your vegetables grow. I am a Reiki practitioner and have done that at the table on occasion, but I’ll be honest – sometimes I’m really hungry and a quick word inside my head is all I can muster. And that’s okay.
It’s all okay.
Rebecca
P.S. I’d love to know how you energize your food! Feel free to share your secrets by leaving a comment.
Local Foods Simply Feel Better
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Does it make a difference if I know who grew the food that I eat, or at least where it comes from? I would answer that with an emphatic “yes!” for much the same reason that I prefer to eat in restaurants with a peaceful ambiance, allowing me to at least believe that the cook in the kitchen is in a good emotional space, allowing only healing energy to go into the food.
The farmers’ market is a great way to get to know where your food comes from. Imagine how it might be different if you talked with the farmer the day you bought some sweet, crunchy carrots at the market, and she told you that she and her husband had plucked them from the earth just the day before. Or maybe you’d enjoy that first bite into a crisp apple just a little more if you knew it had come from a farm not too far away from the urban center where you live. Even better if it’s certified organic! If you’re not able to traipse off to a farmers’ market, you can look for details about where your fruits and veggies come from on the signs in the produce section at the grocery store where you shop.
In addition to being great for the economy and supporting workers close to home, choosing local food products can usually keep you confident that what you’re buying is safe – and is what it claims to be. A popular investigative news show, W-FIVE (on CTV), has an exposé scheduled to air on October 27, 2007. According to their website, this episode will discuss concerns that some foods being sold and marketed as products of Canada may actually have been grown or processed in China, a country that is poorly regulated and spews out foods that may not be as safe as they appear. This looks like TV that’s worth my time, so I’m marking my calendar!
Rebecca
Job’s Tears: The Fabulous Grain That’s Hard to Find
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Words cannot express how much I love Job’s tears. I first encountered them when I was studying at the School of Natural Cookery®. This hearty, hardy, robust grain looks like it must be some ancient cousin of barley, but happily for Celiacs (like my dad and my favorite cousin), this gluten-free heavenly creation isn’t related to barley – it’s actually the seed from a kind of grass. Job’s tears (Coix lacryma-jobi) are also known by their Japanese name, hato mugi. They look like plump, round barley pearls, and they cook up nice and chewy for sustainable energy that gives you complex carbohydrates, fiber and minerals. Job’s tears are especially easy to cook if you have a pressure cooker, but even a sturdy pot with a heavy cover will do.
Job’s tears have been revered for centuries (perhaps millennia!) for their strengthening energy. I’ve also read that they can help dissolve and expel excess mucus from the body. You can find out more by checking some popular natural health/food reference books, or even by searching online. Check them out and then see if you can track some down!
There are at least a couple of different brands of Job’s tears sold in natural food stores; they may also be sold in bulk, but be aware that Job’s tears are delicate and need to be kept cool (I keep mine in the refrigerator), so shop smart and choose wisely. If you can’t find them, ask the manager of your local health food store to stock them. Once the public gets to know Job’s tears (hato mugi), they’re sure to be worth their space in the cooler.
Rebecca
Kitchen Staples for Natural Cooking
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What to eat? That is the question. First I begin with what I have in the house. No, first I shop to make sure I have something in the house. I stock my pantry with buckwheat groats, a variety of rices (like black forbidden rice and kokoho rose medium grain brown rice), Job’s tears, millet, and a variety of oats (steel-cut, rolled and whole). Amaranth has been a staple lately, too. Other must-haves are olive oil, light and dark (toasted) sesame oil, plus safflower and coconut oil for deep-frying and popcorn. I frequently turn to tamari, miso, umeboshi, a variety of vinegars… and my best friend, sea salt.
Shopping is easy because I select a variety of colors from the vegetable offerings and decide on which proteins my body wants to eat this week. Vegetables that I keep around are onions, winter squash in the winter, cabbage, carrots, usually some celery and maybe green onions, although they really don’t “keep”.
Now I can open the cupboard and just cook.
Joanne
