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Better Than Butter?

When I first discovered my dairy allergy, I had to make some big changes.  I was addicted to cheese, living with a butter maniac, but had luckily not had any cow's milk to drink in years due to intolerance. I just HAD to change though, because I was in indescribable pain and throwing up every day.  For those vegetarians who just make an ethical choice to eliminate dairy from their diet out of the goodness of their hearts, I APPLAUD you!  That is amazing.  It's a real addiction, one I see flourishing all around me.
My mom once asked, "But, like, how do you not eat butter?"  I had been dairy free for a while at that point, so completely irrational questions like this no longer made sense to me.
"What do you mean?  I just don't eat butter."  I'm always being asked for ways to prepare new and exotic ingredients, but the question of how to NOT eat something confused me.
"What do you put on your bread?"
"I don't know...  Do you mean for a sandwich?  I don't put butter on sandwiches."
"No, I mean, if I'm having a slice of bread, I have to have butter on it."
"Oh, I guess I don't just sit around eating bread.  That solves that problem."
As much as I was picking on her, and it sounds silly and simple, the idea of not eating bread smeared with butter was beyond her comprehension.  Years later, when she was visiting for a week, she bought a pound of butter to keep in the fridge to add to her own food.  She added it to everything.  EVERYTHING.  It was the classic, "you can't have butter with this food because it's vegan," psychological torture, so she had to just coat everything I made in butter.  She kept apologizing and putting more butter on her plate like a completely out of control drug addict.  Before the week was up, she had finished her pound of butter.  She wanted to know who else had been eating it, since surely she could not have eaten an entire pound of butter in less than a week.  That would be outrageous.  She went home with a new realization that she had a problem.  A butter problem.  What a strange addiction, and yet, she's not alone.

It seems that every non-vegan I know has recently discovered that margarine is essentially plastic and that we should all be eating "real" butter.  Butter even has "lots of nutrients," and as one post I saw said, "Even if it's not from grass-fed beef, the cheap stuff is still really good for you."

Okay.  Can we all just take a collective deep breath.

First of all, butter is not health food and it's not good for you.  If you think otherwise, I really have no interest or ability to reason with you.  You know it, your grandma knows it, PAULA FUCKING DEAN even says you can't eat like she cooks on her show every day because that shit is for special occasions.  Last time I checked, you aren't saving your essential nutrients for special occasions.  I can quote vegan doctors and you can quote Weston Price (pardon me while I gag), but then we're just each presenting our own information that maybe an objective person would say is equal but completely contradictory.  If you look at a Tbsp of unsalted butter (I'll give you the low-sodium benefit of the doubt), you get almost no nutrients from it.  Less than 10% daily value across the board.  Oh, wait, what that's 36% recommended daily allowance of saturated fat.  Do you worry you might be saturated fat deficient?  Butter may be your answer!  Even protein, which so many say, "Well it's a dairy product, so it's a good source of protein and calcium!"  Nope.  In a serving (that's 1Tbsp) there is .1g of protein (0% of your RDA) and 3.4 mg of calcium (again, 0% of your RDA).  So I'm not sure where this "nutrient" idea came from, but it's 100% bunk.  This totally nutrient-free item is basically a stick of saturated fat, which I promise you aren't lacking in.

So, if we can all just realize that butter isn't health food, then maybe we can continue on some kind of path that resembles reason.  The next leap that the posts FOR butter keep making, at least the ones I'm seeing, is that margarine is bad.  It's plastic.  It's UNHEALTHY (As unhealthy as a stick of saturated fat?!).

Let's compare.  Earth Balance Buttery Spread (the most common vegan alternative to butter) is basically in the same boat as butter.  It's all fat with no nutrient value.  The arguments against margarine that I have seen have to do with the "scary ingredients" in margarine though.  I don't buy most margarine, because it has animal products in it, so that's an omni's problem, not mine.  Earth Balance has the following ingredients:

From the Earth Balance website

I'm not trying to argue that this is health food.  IT IS NOT.  It's a butter substitute, and since we already know that butter isn't health food, there's no reason to believe it's substitute would be either.  There's no artificial colors, nothing an adult can't pronounce, and no GMO's.  The palm is controversial among vegans, because palm production has been destroying orangutan habitats, but Earth Balance has been working hard to find sustainable harvesting methods.  I personally have reduced my palm to almost zero after hearing too many sad orangutan stories, but if you are going to consume palm, Earth Balance is probably the best company to do so from.  Again, you don't NEED a stick of fat to eat, but if you are going to eat a stick of fat, I recommend one that isn't butter.

GMO's, you say, why butter comes from a cow, how could it be genetically modified?
So, I can understand the concern with some margarines, they are trash made with GMO oils and such I'm sure.  BUT, it's important to note that the majority of GMO soy and corn is fed to animals for meat and dairy.  Also, dairy cows are often given a GM hormone, rGBH.  My point is that unless you are buying organic butter, you are getting all that GMO crap, plus supporting the GMO industry.  Also, toxins store up in fat, so since butter is pure fat from an animal that was likely exposed to insane amounts of toxins, it's basically just pure toxins you are eating.  Just like not buying the best quality vegan margarine, buying sub-par butter is going to expose you to the same dangers.
For more about GMO foods, you can visit www.nongmoshoppinguide.com

Now you wonder why not just eat the organic butter instead of Earth Balance?  Again, it's hard to reason with someone who wants an argument against taking from an animal what is rightfully her calves, or needs an argument why a human shouldn't consume the fat of a cow's breast milk.  If those things seem normal to you, it's hard to know what I would need to say to convince you otherwise.
In searching for information about what happens to cows in dairy farms, the information is largely from animal rights groups, because who else gives a shit?  I am linking to the wiki page knowing that wikipedia is not a reliable source for anything, but it's not overly biased and gives a general idea.  If that's not a good enough reason, I don't really know where to go from there.  If I hadn't had a dairy allergy, I don't know what would have convinced me.

For those who are sitting there thinking they would prefer a whole food, not something processed, what I have switched to, and it doesn't taste just like butter, because that's not my goal, is extra virgin coconut oil with Himalayin sea salt.  Doesn't get more natural and whole than that.  It's not filtered through an animal, it's straight from the tree and salt flat (I don't know how salt is derived, I'm not going to lie).  I like avocado on my toast, with a sprinkle of salt and a squeeze of lemon or lime juice.  I use coconut or canola oil in most cooking, sesame oil (not toasted) for roasting veggies.  My daughter like nut butter on her toast, and my son prefers his plain.  On a potato, some salsa and avocado are delicious.  My husband likes his with BBQ sauce.  Popcorn has never been so delicious as it is popped in coconut oil then sprinkled with nutritional yeast (and I like black pepper with this too).  It's not that hard.  It can be done in small steps, or in big ones.  Maybe an allergy leads you there, or maybe your heart, maybe your fear of heart disease and cancer.

If you are vegan, and you have awesome buttery replacements, share them in the comments!  I'd love to hear what you are doing!

Detoxing: Flushing or Just Flushing Your Money?

After I was born, my mom found several lumps in her breast.  She went in, got a mamogram, and they wanted to take action.  She was scared, had no insurance, and decided to see what she could do on her own.

She did the classic "Master Cleanse" with lemon juice, cayenne, and maple syrup.  After the 21-28 days (she doesn't remember exactly), the lumps disolved and went away.  She's never found another lump.  I grew up drinking this concoction (often with apple cider vinegar- always with the mother- added) any time I was sick (which was fairly rare compared to my classmates).  In my family, that's just what you did when you were sick.  You also thought positively, although that's not the way it was described.  My mom would say, "You are not really sick, you just feel sick, and telling yourself that you feel sick is only making it worse.  You just need to stop telling yourself you are sick and feeling sick."  It's no wonder that now I am seeking out a hypnosis certification, or that I spent the last year using various natural rememdies, including hypnosis, to cure myself.  

Anyway, because of my mom's experience with her lumps, I've always figured there must be something to this cleanse, but at the same time I have never tried one.  I've always appreciated the healing properties of lemon, cayenne, maple syrup, and ACV, but haven't felt the need to live exclusively off these things.  In my house, that's what you drink when you are sick, and we call it the cure.  I've added my own touch over time, sometimes including some grapefruit seed extract, or now that I've started using doTERRA essential oils, which can be taken internally, adding a drop or two of On Guard or Oregano as needed.  I appreciate these healing properties, but still question a cleanse.

A wise wise friend who is also an herbalist gave me her take on cleansing.  She said that we are constantly rebuilding our cells and replenishing our body.  Rather than take away all but a few specific things, she recommends adding nurishing foods and supplements to your diet in order to rebuild the best you, and that your body will naturally release toxins as it always does.  This resonates with me.

On the other hand, I've read compelling arguments that certain foods/supplements encourage flushing of toxins.  When I was told that I had nickle poisoning in my heart, I took chlorella tablets because I read that they would help with detoxifying heavy metals.  I also ate a paste that included lots of cilantro, which is also said to be a strong heavy metal detoxifier.  TMI, but I definitely cleaned out my system, and in a healthy way, using these supplements.  Does that mean that my organs and cells released toxins, or just that my colon was cleared of all that had just been hanging around?  That I don't know.  Plus, that was a detoxification regimen, but I didn't cleanse.

I ordered an eBook on juice cleansing that works on the premise that when your body is not expelling energy on digestion, it can work on healing.  This logic has some interest to me, and the author of the program seems very informative and well-researched.  However, as far as research goes, I recently read on The Vegan RD's facebook page that there has never been a professional study that proves that juice fasting actually produces a "detox" or even beneficial result.  

Sometimes I think that when I finish breast feeding (after 3 1/2 years I feel like there must be an end in sight... somewhere out there), I'll maybe do a juice fast, or a green smoothie feast, or the Master Cleanse.  Honestly, the Master Cleanse is the one that appeals most to me.  Other times I worry because ever since going through a struggle with self-starvation in high school, my body doesn't react well to limiting my calories.  The benefit of the Master Cleanse is that you get adequite calories from the maple syrup.  

For now, I'm listening to my own intuition, and eating a plant based diet helps me personally to get in tune with what my body needs.  I believe that we know how to heal ourselves, we just usually don't know how to listen.  

Black Bean Brownies I LOVE!

I finally found the black bean brownie recipe that I love, the one I can hang my hat on, the one I endorse wholeheartedly.

Thank you Pinterest!

The only changes I made to this recipe were that I didn't make the peanut butter topping, I added some chocolate chips, and I used maple syrup instead of agave nectar.

I love that it calls for dates and syrup instead of sugar, coconut oil, and flax meal.

http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2012/12/fudgey-peanut-butter-swirl-brownies.html

Try it out and tell me what you think.

Smoothies, Remixed and Rethought

I'm a bad vegan, or a weird vegan, or something.  I just have never been a huge smoothie fan.  I like to chew my food.  I like the taste of greens, so when I hear people talk about "hiding" delicious leafy greens in a sweet smoothie it turns me off.  I don't want to hide delicious tastes.

Still, I'm a mom of two wild toddlers, so I like the quick and easy aspect of a smoothie and make them from time to time.

I always thought that a smoothie needed something creamy, like yogurt or milk (soy/rice/coconut), a protein source like powder or nuts, and of course greens.  Those things are all good.  I'm not saying you shouldn't make a smoothie that is a complete meal, but I'm learning that a fruit and vegetable puree is just as good, even if it's not a complete meal.

I've been making "smoothies" that are just fruits and vegetables with water or coconut water, and I love them.  They don't have a weird chalky flavor from some powder, they don't taste overly sweet because I'm not adding dates or syrup or even, again, the sweetened powder.  They don't taste odd because I'm keeping it simple with just a few ingredients.

Here are a few of what I'm talking about from this week.  Each serves 2 or more.

Tropical Orange
3 kiwis
2 cups loose spinach
1 orange
1/2 cup frozen mango
1 frozen banana
about 2 cups coconut water

Sweet Berry
2 pears
2 cups spinach
1/2-3/4 cup frozen black cherries
1/4 cup goji berries
1 frozen banana
1 1/2- 2 cups water

Carrot Orange
5 carrots
3 oranges
2-3 leaves of kale
1/4 cup goji berries
1 cup water
1 frozen banana

Sometimes, for something more filling, I add chia seeds, or I eat some leftover quinoa or nuts with my smoothie, or eat something else.  I find that thinking of a smoothie as a way to highlight the flavors of fruits, incorporate a bit of greens, even though I like a salad too, and get healthy fiber/sugar/nutrients, makes it so I don't have to make something that is a complete meal (even if in many cases it is), and then I can just enjoy it.
A great trip I picked up for making smoothies is to blend everything except the frozen ingredients until smooth, then add frozen stuff to cool it down.

Energizing Naturally with Slim and Sassy Oil Blend by doTERRA

When you drink a cup of coffee or a soda, and you get that JOLT of energy, it's easy to identify.  You get wired.  You bounce bounce bounce until you crash crash crash.  I drink coffee every morning.  I know it's not what's best for me, and it's an ongoing battle.

Since just before the beginning of the year, I have been running on my elliptical each night.  Of course, while I run I drink water.  When I began these runs, about a month ago, I was struggling to run for 20 minutes.  I was achy, out of shape, and my endurance was terrible.  I would try to do 2 miles.  Within a week, I was running 3 miles and feeling stronger.  When my doTERRA Family Physician Kit came, it had an added bottle of Slim and Sassy.  That sounded pretty silly to me, but I figured I'd give it a chance and added a few drops to the water I drink while I run.  

I learned three nights ago that the monitor on my elliptical machine maxes out and stops at 60 minutes.  I have had that machine for 4 years and didn't know that, because I've never had the energy to run that long.  That's where I am now.  I'm at the point where my daily runs max out my machine.  I feel awesome and strong and healthy.  The Slim and Sassy definitely helps with that, and more importantly it doesn't wire me up.  I get off my elliptical, and if I sit down and rest, I'm able to relax within minutes and go to bed as soon after my workout as I'd like.  

In the past, I've taken diet pills that jacked me up so much that I became an insomniac.  I would take the pills and have the energy to work out for long periods, but then I couldn't ever rest.  I would feel my heart racing, and I didn't feel healthy or strong. I felt jittery and it scared me.  It was working though, and I continued to use them for months before finally realizing that what I was doing was dangerous.  

That was over ten years ago, and since then I had just accepted that I didn't have that kind of stamina or ability.  It also helps that I've been watching The Biggest Loser while I work out.  That is some motivation!

Changing my Family's Health with doTERRA Essential Oils

A friend of mine started selling doTERRA Essential Oils recently and it was my chance to check it out.  You see, my news feed has been a buzz with mention of doTERRA for months now, and I've been dying to try some.  I couldn't figure out what could make them so great.  Honestly, I had no idea that essential oils were for anything other than aromatics.  I have used tea tree oil my whole life, but I didn't even realize that was an essential oil (and usually it was a fairly diluted version of an EO anyway).

So I went to the party with an open mind, some interest, and the expectation that I would like some of what I smelled.  I also showed up with a stuffy stuffy baby who had been on and off feverish, unable to sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time, and wouldn't leave the cuddly security of my chest.  During the talk about all the oils, vials were passed around and each one went under my nose and under my son's nose.  Particularly the blend called Breathe, I let linger and tried to get him to take some sniffs of.  About ten minutes into this talk, after a few of the oils had been passed around (including Breathe), Desmond began to nurse and instantly passed a large chunk of dried snot from his nose.  Once that was out, he could nurse much more because he could breathe.  He warmed up considerably, and the as peppermint went around to smell, his fever went back down and he fell asleep.

Since I was at my friend's house for the talk, I just laid him on the couch and let him sleep for TWO HOURS.  Even when he's at his most healthy, his naps are usually only one hour.  Two hours is truly unheard of.  I was definitely hooked.  I signed up to be an independent product consultant (IPC) that very day.  I've seen lots of these products that friends sell, and I always think, "How do they pretend that they really think that what they are selling is so great."  Well, in my doTERRA information packet about selling, I loved that their stance was; "Be a product of the product."  That's easy enough.

I use my oils every day.  My daughter, Violet, calls them my medicine because any time she's hurt or not feeling well, I have an oil to help her.  She even smashed her foot badly while playing on my elliptical trainer and I used a combination of lavender and frankincense essential oils to help calm the reaction.  She had instantly swelled, but the swelling quickly went down with the oils, and she said it didn't hurt anymore.

I have so many more testimonials of how much this has changed our lives and health, but I'll close with a link to my store for now.

My doTERRA store