From the category archives:

Health and Wellness

I've added a few new features to Musings of a Housewife that I hope will be helpful. Over the weekend I created a Whole Foods Resources page that is a great place to start if you are interested in learning more about the whole foods lifestyle. I also compiled my design tutorials into one convenient location. Both are linked in my nav bar. And there is now a Print Friendly button at the bottom of each post, should you feel like printing recipes or information for future reference. Before printing, you will have the option to delete any photos or content you don't need.

Kristen has another question! :-)

She writes: I’ve never been much of a water drinker. I get so tired of plain water. So I was drinking a lot of Crystal Light. But I know that’s not good for you so I stopped and am trying to drink more water, but am getting sick of it and not getting enough to drink now. What do you suggest for a Crystal Light alternative? Are any of those flavored waters ok or are they all crap?

My reply: I’m afraid I’m not a whole lot of help with drinks.  Even before I discovered Michael Pollan and Nina Planck last summer and started moving our family to more whole foods, I was a health snob about those flavored waters.  Anything with fake sugar or artificial color in it has always been a huge red flag to me.  I’m an all or nothing kind of girl.  I love my Coke Classic, but if I can’t (or shouldn’t) have it, I’d rather drink water.  So I never sought out an alternative.

A few suggestions:  can you try squeezing fresh orange or lemon or lime into your water to make it more palatable?  There are probably other clever ideas, perhaps my readers can help.

The bigtime Real Foodies talk about drinking Water Kefir — a drink that is carbonated by fermentation.  (I think?)  Read this post at Kitchen Stewardship, Is Water Kefir as Good as Soda Pop? It’s an entertaining read, and it also might answer your question about a healthy alternative to flavored water drinks.  I haven’t tried it, but I’ve been wanting to try making raw milk kefir for the probiotic and digestive benefits.

Your Turn! Do you have any recommendations for Katie?

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Kristen writes: My husband and I are trying to steer the family into a more real foods lifestyle. We’ve been cutting out HCFS, no more fruit snacks, I’ve started making our bread, etc etc. I’ve always been big into baking and am trying to take that into a “healthier” route as well (although there aren’t many ways to make a chocolate chip cookie healthy!) So when I’m baking, be it cookies or bread or whatever, what should I be using for flour? I’ve been using unbleached all purpose flour for my sweets and I’m trying to get the kids to eat bread made from whole wheat flour, although sometimes I mix the two so that they’ll eat it.

My reply: Yay you!  Cutting out HFCS and fruit snacks is a great first step.  And making bread is quite a commitment.  I have compromised with my bread, and I use half whole wheat flour and half white flour.  If I have spelt flour, I will use that for some of the white.  I am happy enough knowing that it is freshly homemade and doesn’t contain preservatives and HFCS.  I haven’t yet banned white flour from our house, and I doubt I ever will.

When I make cookies, I usually use unbleached all purpose flour and white sugar.  I often buy organic sugar, but I’m not sure how important that is.  I usually do half sucanat, and no one seems to complain.  Sometimes I will substitute 1/3 whole wheat pastry flour, and no one usually notices.  I can’t get away with 1/2. Again, using refined flour and sugar is a compromise, but it beats industrially processed cookies any day.

I could go totally extreme with all of this, and I’m sure some thing I already have!  But I really do try to keep everything in perspective.  I go back and forth on how much I try to avoid the refined carbs and sugars; I know they are really bad for us, but I also don’t want my kids feeling so deprived that they go hog wild when they have the chance to make a choice for themselves.  It’s all about balance, you know?

By the way, for muffins and things, whole wheat pastry flour works really well, especially if you go to the trouble of soaking the night before.  I know, it’s more work, but much better for digestion, and it gives them a lighter taste.

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The past few weeks I’ve been buried under design work.  Which is a good thing; it helps pay the bills, you know?  But now I’ve caught up on most of my projects, and I feel like I’m finally surfacing to take a breath.  Of course, that happened right about the same time I came down with this nightmare of a head cold, so I’m not being as productive as I should be, but I’ve been using the last few days to catch up on Wardeh’s eCourse on cooking traditional foods.

I took the course mainly because I wanted instruction on soaking grains and nuts and seeds, and that’s what the first few weeks are about.  Given my digestive issues along with my fondness for carbs, it seems like it might be wise to learn to prepare them in the most easily digestible way, which seems to be soaking and/or sprouting the grains before cooking.

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Here’s the thing.  Soaking your grains requires forethought, preparation, planning. You see my quandary?  I am so NOT a planner.  I am a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pantser.  When I decide to make bread, I want to make it right away.  I do not want to soak the flour and wait 7 hours to put it together.  Besides being spontaneous, I’m a procrastinator.  I often wait until we’re down to one slice of bread and the granola container is crumbs to make more.

So I’m going to have to learn to think ahead.  Tonight, for instance, I’m already thinking about breakfast in the morning, which is the last thing on my mind when I’m still digesting my spaghetti and meatballs.  But before I go to bed I plan to set some grains to soaking so we can have homemade soaked pancakes in the morning.

The really nice thing about soaking your grains — other than the fact that it’s kinder to your digestive system — is that it makes things made with whole wheat flour taste a lot lighter and a lot more like things made with white flour, which makes the kids a whole lot friendlier to whole grains.  I highly recommend it for that reason alone.

You may be wondering why soaked grains are easier to digest. (What, didn’t I tell you that mind-reading was one of my many talents?)  This morning, I just so happened to come across this post by Shannon at Nourishing Days called What is Phytic Acid? where she researches the topic.  I’ll just let you read that instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.

Here are some soaked grain recipes for your convenience:

Soaked Waffles/Pancakes

Baked Soaked Oatmeal

Soaked Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

Soaked Granola

Granola with Soaked Oats

Oh and hey!  Please check out my two new pagesWhole Foods (it is the story of my whole foods conversion) and Resources (basically this is where to start if you are new to the whole foods thing.)  Both can be accessed at any time via the Nav Bar at the top of my blog.

And one more thing.  I’ve added the Print Friendly plugin to my blog, so at the bottom of every post is a little Print Friendly button. If you ever want to print one of my more informative posts or recipes, it’s easy to do that.  Once you click the button and it brings up a printer friendly version of the post, you can easily delete any superfluous information before you print, in case you don’t want to save every charming word I utter for posterity.

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Links and Shout Outs

by Jo-Lynne on March 6, 2010

in Health and Wellness, Linky Love

links-and-shout-outsMSN: More Saturated Fat Nonsense — Fat Head.  I could pretty much could link to any post on this site and tell you to read and savor every humorous, wise word.

Okay so here’s one more — The American Heart Association: Do These People Read Their Own Data?

Puffed Grains and Breakfast Cereals: Should We Eat Them? — Nourished Magazine.  This one isn’t so funny.  It is downright frightening, if what it suggests is true.  I’d love to see more studies on this topic.

America Needs More Brothals — Food Renegade.  There is some fabulous information in this article.

Okay, enough on food.  I do read other things, I swear.  How about this?

How Much Should Mom Bloggers Earn? — Jennifer James.  I was fortunate to make Jennifer’s acquaintance several years ago, and she is so generous and lovely and smart.  I hang on her every word.  This article is excellent.  Notice she doesn’t say reviews and giveaways should be paid.  (See the post where I explained earned media and paid media if you are confused.)

And speaking of mom bloggers doing a lot of work for nothing, I just came across this article in Social Media Today — Do Big Brands Exploit Mommy Bloggers Who Work for “Prizes and Rewards”?

How to Look Beautiful in 1 Minute or Less — Wardrobe 911.  These are my basics too.  And also, I use the precision curler she mentions; I also learned about it in Looking Younger.

Are y’all using Swagbucks yet?  I’m making money just by searching the web, which I do A LOT.  I can’t wait to trade in my points for Amazon gift cards and go Christmas shopping!  Yeah, I’m thinking long term.

And that’s all I’ve got for you today.  It’s time for my weekend run.

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I’ve spent my entire adult life battling my addiction to food, and finally, at 37-and-a-half years of age, I have a taste of freedom.  I don’t want to say I’m there yet, because I still backslide from time to time, but as soon as I overdo it, I feel so gross that I am instantly reminded of why I no longer live that way.

My slavery to food started, I believe, in college when I suddenly found myself putting on the pounds due to the impressive amounts of pizza and Coke I consumed.  I tried to lose weight by cutting back, but I didn’t have much success so I sought out a popular diet plan that provided me with prepackaged food for almost every meal.  It worked at first, but eventually I tired of the bland, processed foods and found myself cheating, which usually ended up in a junk food binge.  One afternoon, for example, I ate an entire box of Girl Scout Cookies in about two hours.  I cycled between dieting and binging and eventually lost 20 pounds, but it was a constant battle to keep it off.  For years my mood was entirely dictated by the number on the scale every morning and night.

After I had my first child, I turned to counting points to lose the last 10 pounds and to try to keep my weight where I liked it.  Counting points appealed to my obsessive nature and my need for a formula, but I still found myself practicing the binge-and-starve approach to managing my weight that had served me well for so long.  Or so I thought.

Two more children later, an aging metabolism, and years of destructive eating habits finally began to take a toll on my weight management abilities as well as my health.  Riddled with stomach ailments and extra pounds that I could not seem to budge, I discovered the real food movement last summer.  And Dinneen.  And that’s when everything changed.

I used to say that my problem is that I just love food, but Dinneen taught me that it’s much more than that. Plenty of people love food and are not slave to its wiles.  With Dinneen’s help, I learned that it’s not my love of food that has kept me on a dieting roller coaster for the past 20 years, but it’s my emotional attachment to food and the bad habits I’ve developed since becoming a busy mom.

Turns out, the low-fat diets that I relied on to keep my weight in check were sabotaging my ability to make lifestyle changes that were effective and sustainable because they did not satisfy my cravings and ultimately left me feeling deprived and frustrated.  Counting points caused me to think about food all. the. time.  And while those neat packages of pre-packaged meals freed me from the food obsession, they left me feeling dissatisfied and deprived because they lacked the taste and the nutrients that we naturally desire.  I always ended up “cheating” — a word that I now believe never should be applied to our diets.

Anyone can lose weight by counting points or cutting fat and calories, but only the most self disciplined can sustain it for the long haul because low-fat diets do not satisfy, nor do they properly nourish the body. I like a formula as much as the next guy, but it’s such a restrictive way to live, and besides that, it isn’t as fool-proof as we’ve been led to believe.  This article by Tom Naughton is worth a read.

I always watched people eat intuitively — stopping when they were full, only eating if they were hungry, choosing an apple over a bag of Doritos because they honestly felt like it — and I thought that I could never have that.  I thought I would always be slave to diet plans and my “love for food.”  We all hear that healthy eating “can’t be a diet; it has to be a lifestyle,” but I thought I was incapable of making that lifestyle a reality.  I figured that I would live the rest of my life on the diet roller coaster, and that I was doomed to a love-hate relationship with food.

But today I am here to tell you that I AM FREE.  I have learned how to eat intuitively, how to choose my foods wisely, stop when I’m satisfied, and eat only when I am hungry.  It’s not to say that I never over eat, but I never binge anymore.  I eat food that I like, and I am satisfied because it is wholesome and full of good fats and nutrients that my body craves.  I’ve learned to focus more on how I will feel when I’m done than how it will taste going down, and I’ve learned to eat a better balance of foods, which helps me maintain my weight easier.  I’ve also learned how to interpret my cravings correctly.  For example, when I crave something sweet, eating a cookie just leaves me feeling icky and wanting more, but eating an apple satisfies my sweet tooth and leaves me feeling satisfied and full without that nasty bloated feeling you get when you eat too much carbs and sugar.

I would still love to lose five pounds and keep it off, but as I hone in on 40, I am willing to accept the number I see on the scale and be satisfied with the fact that I am healthy and fit (or getting there) and enjoy my new-found healthy relationship with food.

If I can do it, you can do it too. TRUST ME.  Don’t let the skinny fool ya.  It wasn’t a healthy thin.

You may be thinking, Yeah, that all sounds great, but she had help.

Yes, I did.  And that is the reason I am writing this post today.  I couldn’t have done this alone.  Even though it sounds simple, I needed someone to look at what I eat and listen to me talk about how I eat and how I think about food and give me advice and counsel to get to where I am today.  I am so thankful I found Dinneen.  Which brings me to the second reason I am telling you all this.

Next Tuesday, March 9th, Dinneen is holding a FREE call titled “5 Simple Secrets to Eating Intuitively:  How to Create a Healthy Relationship with Food, Mind and Body and Make it Work for You.”

You can register right now by going here.

On this call she will be sharing how she’s been eating intuitively and what it has done for her and her physical and mental health.  I am not getting ANY kickback for telling you about this. I am telling you this because I want EVERYONE to know the freedom that comes from making peace with food.

Besides being a Certified Health Coach, Dinneen has also struggled with and overcome food issues including overeating, binging, using food for comfort, not being relaxed around food, and thinking about food all of the time.  When she lived in France, she learned how to eat intuitively, so she brings both professional training and her own personal experience into her coaching.  In other words, she’s the real deal.

I love her, and I know you will too.  That Eat Without Guilt button on my sidebar — that’s her.  She’s not paying me for that ad space.  I have it there because I believe in what she offers and I want to promote her business.  Let me know if you take the call and if you find it helpful.  Also, you can sign up for her free newsletters, which is how I found out about this call.

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Jill says: Can you also refresh my memory as to why skim milk is bad?

Me: Ah yes!  I can do better than that.  I will just link you to that original post.  :-)   For everything you wanted to know about milk and then some, I give you my post On Milk.

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Random Reader Questions Vol. 7

March 3, 2010

Tiffany says: Please explain the ultra-pasteurized thing because I’m really ignorant about why that’s a bad thing. I’m asking because we buy the organic milk, but I think it’s ultra-pasteurized, so maybe I should be buying something different?
Me: Good question!  I talked about this long ago when I first discovered the information, but I fear [...]

13 comments Keep reading

Whole Foods from the Conventional Grocery Store

February 26, 2010

In response to the comments on the Random Reader Question Vol. 5 post, I thought it might be helpful to discuss how to do the whole foods lifestyle if your only option is the conventional grocery store.  First of all, there are usually other options, especially in the summer months.  I urge you to look [...]

49 comments Keep reading

Random Reader Questions Vol. 5

February 23, 2010

Whitney said: My husband and I aren’t totally sold on the whole organic/raw food thing, for several reasons that would take too long to explain. Can you pursue a whole foods mentality with what you find at a normal grocery store? I look for all natural ingredients, low sugar, whole milk, etc, but it seems [...]

10 comments Keep reading

Real Food on a Budget

February 17, 2010

The way I see it, there are two main road blocks to eating real food:  time and money.  Doesn’t everything come back to that?
So I decided to google “real food on a budget” and see what helpful tips I could come up with.  Ironically, 5 of the top 7 hits are blogs that I already [...]

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