Faroese-Japanese Fusion Cuisine!

There has been this series of short films put out of the Faroes lately, presumably to attract tourists.  Some really great stuff in these little pieces (produced by Kovboy Film).  Some stuff many of us (who've spent a lot of time there) have seen before, but also some totally new stuff like this:



WOW!  COOL!  I'm all for the fusion and introducing such a healthy food into the diet.  That makes it better for me for when I eventually move there.  But I am a little bummed that he has to use the microwave.  I try not to use the microwave at all for health reasons; some question whether it causes elements in the food to become harmful, but I think it's also fairly widely known that much of the good stuff is destroyed in microwaved food. 

Anyway, speaking of moving there... George is getting a little desperate for work at this point.  And I'm getting pretty nervous that nothing has materialized yet.  I want everyone in the Faroes to be on the lookout for software jobs for George!  (People here looking out wouldn't hurt either!) ;)

Building a green life, part 2

Here are some photos of some of the stuff I've been doing.

I've been doing serious clean up.  Our yard needed it badly after being neglected all last year.  And that included cutting back some trees/bushes.  I had all these amazing branches from that that I wanted to use, so I built Regin a garden fort.  I want to eventually train some vines or something over it, maybe even edibles like peas or something, but I wanted him to enjoy it right away, so I threw a sheet over it...

It was all I could do to convince him to get in there for the photo.  Then he rushed back inside to get on his new wooden tricycle that he received from his Abuela for his birthday.  Oh my gosh he loves that thing!!

Isn't it cute?  I love it.  It's so great.

Back to gardening... So I also bought a bunch of starts for indoor/outdoor veggie gardening.

This is batch one.  I have since bought batch two.  At first they seemed to be loving life, even after I moved them over our fireplace (behind our projector screen) and put grow lamps in there.  Now all of a sudden half of them are looking really sad.  I don't know if they are getting too much light from the lamps.  They are also getting natural light when I raise the screen and our blinds every day.  Maybe it's overwatering, which I tend to be guilty of when I get excited about new plants (later that shifts to under-watering, or no watering at all.)  Or maybe it's because I haven't made sure there was some air-circulation going on.  I need to put a small fan in there.

I have also started some seeds...

It's very exciting.  Most of them are purchased organic seeds, but one third, the ones on the left, are all from seeds I collected from our food.  Specifically those are butternut squash on the left.  I'm collecting seeds from everything we eat right now.  Especially the organic stuff.  If you're wondering about the red-brown powder all over, that's cinnamon.  Apparently it has fungicidal properties.  Sadly I needed it because my forest green thumb (that's gotta be somewhere between green and black, right?) caused there to be mold or "damping off" on these seeds.  And I already lost a few swiss chard seedlings.  Another natural fungicide is weak chamomile tea!  Go figure!

Building my green life

So I have been working on getting stuff ready for the indoor and outdoor veggie/edible gardening.  I have been watching/reading everything I can get my hands on that's related to food production on one's land and permaculture.  My indoor plans don't fit in with that.  I'm sure real "permies" would be dismayed that I'm using grow lamps and may even get a warming mat for the basement.  But you know what?  I'm not allowed a greenhouse, so this is what I can do.  Actually there's a lot I'm not allowed to do on my land.  Technically I'm not allowed a vegetable garden, green house, or compost.  I'm not allowed chickens which are so invaluable for self-sufficiency in food production.  Not only do they give us eggs, and possibly meat down the road, but they control pests and fertilize as they forage around the garden.  

In Colorado we're also not allowed to have a grey-water or rain-catching systems for various silly and outdated reasons.  Ugh!

I think it should be a basic human right to be able to grow one's food on their land.  In fact, I think it should be illegal for anyone to try and tell us otherwise.  I want to change things in this neighborhood.  I want to try and get the HOA to reconsider the limitations I've mentioned and other limitations such as not being allowed to hang my laundry out.  This community's rules are not eco-friendly.  That needs to be changed.  In my dreams I also go national and try and get a law established protecting the individual's right to grow food.  In a country that gives me the right to bare arms, I should also have the right to bare food on my land!  Of course there are all sorts of controversial things going on right now that suggest the possibility that food production will be strictly controlled in the future.  The Future of Food (a film I recently watched and want you ALL to see) shows how scary the situation is with GMOs and patents on plants.  Seems like pretty soon you will only be able to get GM seeds and only through Monsanto.  And the whole GMO thing turns out to be scarier than I thought.  It's worth looking into if you haven't already.

There is also supposedly some sort of bill trying to be passed somewhere right now that would effectively make it illegal to do backyard food growing.  Ack!  Can this be true?

One of my concerns beyond laws and HOA rules is that my neighbors are pumping my surroundings full of scary herbicides and pesticides.  I know they must be spraying my plants that start sending shooters to their yards.  And I get water runoff from the properties behind us.  How much pesticides then am I getting through that?  I became afraid to eat anything near the borders of our yard.  But the way our land is landscaped, it would be difficult to plant our edibles anywhere else.

I've also been reading Food Not Lawns.  As you guys already know, I am very interested in this idea that we are wasting the resources on this planet, and a lot of those wasted resources are going to our lawns, which don't even provide food.  So the movement is to replace at least part of our lawns with food-producing or otherwise useful plants.  I'm also reading How to Grow More Vegetables (than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine) and it talks about a 99% sustainable system (which is as sustainable as it gets) and the thing is EVERYTHING has to go back to the earth, (food scraps, and even human waste if possible).  And not only that, but something like 60% of your crop has to be for little more than soil-building.  Apparently grain fits the bill.  So I'm thinking of growing wheat instead of grass in the back.  We'll cut it short for part of the summer, since wheat grass is just like grass, then let it go to seed later in the season.  Too bad we can't use the grain since our diet is grain free, but I suppose one of you might be able to make use of it.  

In the front we're talking seriously about ripping out the smaller lawn and replacing it with a spiraled "flower bed" that will contain "ornamental plants" that just so happen to be edible.  We're also talking about taking out the ugly bushes in the front and replacing them with blueberry bushes.

Another part of this is putting in lots of fruit and nut trees.  But we have very established trees and bushes which I would hate to take out now, so I don't know we can do anything with that.  But I'm thinking of getting some nut trees to put on my parents' property.

There's a lot to do.  I hope I can produce a significant amount of food this year even though we started planning this really way too late.  Our food budget really needs to go WAY down and RIGHT NOW.  

Cheese crisps

I have finally perfected this snack! I have tried variations that use alterntive flours, but have found 100% cheese comes out best.


Sliced cheddar, monteray jack, pepperjack

Make sure they are fairly evenly sliced. Put them on baking sheets covered with parchment (very important. They become absolutely welded to the sheets themselves or to aluminum foil.)
Bake at 350 F until done. Monterey/pepper jack (left) will turn brown when done, cheddar (right) will not. But basically they are done when the cheese is no longer gooey. Remove from sheets, cool, eat! They are perfectly crisp!

I have experimented with a few cheeses. Some work, some don't. Mozzerella definitely doesn't work.

Let's take care of the Earth we've got.

Happy Earth Day!

First things first. George did not get picked for jury duty (thank goodness). He was stuck there from 8am till after 6pm while they decided who they wanted. Thank GOODNESS it wasn't him. Anyway...

I have been watching YouTube videos on permaculture, locavorism, and hyperlocavorism. I've seen videos on homesteading, and tips for easy vegetable gardening. The big theme for me right now is that it is irresponsible, wasteful, and vain to use your land (only) for something other than food production. And part two of that theme is it's easy and very possible to feed many adults from a average-sized, suburban plot of land. Not only that, but the gardens that result can be lush and beautiful!

Did you know that the White House lawn once had sheep grazing on it? Did you know that "lawns" were invented by aristocracy who wanted to show that they were so stinking rich they could waste the land they had on something as frivolous and useless as grass? Did you know that Victory Gardens were planted in the US during the World Wars and that it was actually patriotic during that time to produce your own food? Did you know that there is a shortage of arable land in the world? Knowing that, how can we waste what we have and not produce any or much food?

There have been multiple recent movements for the White House lawn to be used for food production to encourage a change in the rest of the country.  I supported it. It actually worked! There is now a good-sized organic vegetable garden there. I personally wish it were bigger, but baby steps I guess.

Unfortunately I am not ALLOWED by my Home Owner's Association to have a full-on vegetable garden.  I have been bending that rule a bit over the years and incorporating vegetables and fruits into our landscape, but now I want something more extreme and it will not be allowed.  I'm working on getting up the energy to try and change that.  In the meantime I'm learning about indoor vegetable gardening.  It doesn't solve my problem of wasting the resources I have on a silly lawn, but it does help cut down my food bill (which is desperately needed right now) and does provide me with the possibility of home-grown food year round.

Here's some videos to inspire you.  I don't have the video on indoor gardening that really inspired me.  For some reason it was removed from YouTube.  If I see it again in the future, I'll post it.

Here's one of the movements for food to be produced on the White House lawn:


This one is SUPER inspirational.  Look how much food you can produce on .1 acres!

They feed 4 adults (up to 80% of their diet) plus sell surplus to local restaurants and caterers from their tiny plot of land!

More from this family:


It's so easy:


So, so easy:


And with a little more work, maybe some help from friends...


Activism:


More Activism:

This Lawn is Your Lawn from roger doiron on Vimeo.



As for me. I've started my indoor gardening. I have some seeds, a grow lamp, some established plants and motivation. I'm planning my attack for the outdoor gardening and how to green up our lives. What are you guys doing?

Regin's Birthday Photos

Here are the shots that Teddi put up on Facebook. There are more and if you want to see the rest, I'll have those soon and you can check them out. If you want to order prints or get the high-res copies, you can as soon as I get the disk from Teddi. In the meantime, you can check out album 1 and album 2 on Facebook, and Highlights below:

Birthday boy!

I made a table covering for our airplane-themed birthday party by drawing airplanes with colored pencils on brown package paper.

Cheesy-bread airplanes

Little airplanes hanging between balloon "clouds"

Pretty much everyone was put to work.  Which was fine since it turned out to be mostly family that came.

Omma gave a hand-knitted airplane she made, Granddad gave an airplane book.

Omma would be mad if I didn't show off the airplane she made a bit more.  Pretty awesome, right?

Granddad also made an airplane.  Which, as it turned out, was NOT what Regin wanted.

But it turned out to be HUGE fun for the big kids among us!

Some portraits.

Happy Birthday to youuuuuu!  (Regin has been singing that ever since).

We'd been practicing getting him to blow out candles earlier that day, but we made such a huge chear when he actually managed it, that it scared him and he refused to blow them out again!

David Family portrait.

Yay!  Turns out the real kids (other than Regin) really liked the airplane too.  Anthony and Alexandra took turns putting it on over and over and over...

Special Day

Today is a particularly special day.  It's Regin's second birthday.  I'm absolutely thrilled (after his first birthday, where it was just the three of us in a foreign country, IN A HOTEL) that for this year's party, he will be surrounded by SO much family and friends.  Today we're trying to make some time for him too, even though there is so much to do.  I made Carob-swirl pancakes for breakfast (post grapes).

Then we had a few photo ops:

And right now, Regin is off with his Papi for Bilingual Storytime at the Denver Public Library.  I just made some practice carob candies:

And now I'm getting ready to go buy some milk paint (for the walls, not the food) and get the house ready for the electrician, who's finishing up his work tonight, and the drywall guys, who are hopefully coming in tomorrow.

Today is also the second anniversary of Regin's Abuelo's death.  He is terribly missed.  But I try to remember him on all the other days of the year, so there isn't a gray cloud that hangs over my little boy's day.  I do think that there will always be a special connection for Regin and his Abuelo though because they began/ended life on the same day, and because they share the name Oscar.  Not only that, but Regin looks so much like him!

We tell Regin about his Abuelo and show him pictures.  Abuelo is so real to him that he sometimes asks where he is.  

We won second place!

I entered Regin's photo in a "Baby's favorite food" photo contest a little while ago.  We got second place!  It's not exactly a contest for photography skill, but it's still cool to win.  It's a national (international?) contest by Whole Foods .  They will feature Regin's photo at some point on their website.  In the meantime, you can feast your eyes on his feast here:


Regin Loves Squash


I hope the photos go up soon!  I am so anxious to see the other winners!

Funny thing is.  Of the three top prizes (of which there are some 12 given out), the second prize is the one I have absolutely no use for!  It's a basket full of baby food!  Haha!  I'm going to ask for a gift card instead, otherwise that basket will be donated somewhere, unless one of you wants it.

Coconut Pancakes

So some of you have wondered how the coconut flour has been working.  Well... It's tricky, but some things have turned out pretty well.  Particularly my cakes, muffins, and these coconut pancakes.

I got the recipe from the coconut flour cookbook I found on Amazon, and I tried variations where I used dairy substitutions for the oil and coconut milk, and I have to say, the most moist, delicious, and fluffy versions were when I stuck with all coconut.  I add ground vanilla bean, and I substitute the sugar with xylitol and/or a smidge of honey and they come out great!  Everyone in the fam loves em.  Especially when made into peanut butter (actually sunflower seed butter) and jelly (fruit-sweetened jam) sandwiches.  Regin asks for those daily.

Shrimp curry with noodles.

So these kelp noodles have turned out to be trickier than I originally thought. For starters, they have this faint smell that I really dislike. Once they're all sauced up, you can't tell, but when I'm cleaning and cooking them, the smell affects me like I'm pregnant, and I want nothing to do with them. Bummer. But again, it's really faint.


Second, they have a really bizarre texture that can be cooked off, but though I have prepared some 5 or 6 batches now, I still can't figure out how I get it right when I do! At first I doused them in oil and cooked them with a bunch of other stuff and no problem. So I thought it was the liquid. So I boiled them in water first the next time. Didn't work. No matter how long I boiled, they still kept they're crunchy, rubbery texture. Even tried adding a bunch of oil and nothing, that is, until I added the sauce. So the next time I cooked them in the sauce, which really didn't work. So now I cook them in water first (with some oil) and then drain and cook in sauce. Works fine, but I am not sure if there are steps I could be eliminating or should be adding.


On to the shrimp curry...


I found a Thai curry paste at the grocery store that doesn't have any sweetener (yay!), and basically you just add it to coconut milk which I always have on hand now since I use it a lot in my cooking. So for this dish I add the coconut milk and paste to the noodles, mix around, add whatever vegetables I want (here I've been adding frozen, whole spinach, and canned, roasted tomatoes), plus whatever cooked meat I want (in this case shrimp). Some xylitol for sweetness, which I could skip if I'd cooked some onions down in the pot first. Then season as needed, add a little turmeric for color, and it's done! For added crunch and freshness I add julienned cucumbers, zucchini, or toss some bean sprouts on top. Some sort of chopped nuts would be good too.


It's pretty good, though a little bitter. Is it the paste? The noodles? I don't know! The second time I added some lemon juice to counteract the bitterness, which worked, but then my dish was sour which is not very 'curry'. But both times I made this, the leftovers were way tastier, though also mushier.


So, these noodles aren't exactly simple to work with. I guess I have to just keep experimenting, because it's great to have noodles again!


By the way, they also do fine with pasta sauce and cheese, maybe some sausage. Mmmmmm...

A Hypoglycemic/Organic Meal

Wild Buffalo Burgers, Baked Curry-Seasoned Broccoli, Butternut "Fries", and home-made ketchup:

Cucumber-Tomato Salad with Lemon-Olive-Oil Dressing:

Banana-Coconut Flour Cake Topped with Apple Butter and Whipped Cream

That last one is super iffy for a lot of hypoglycemics, including me. But I have it only on occasion. It's made with 100% coconut flour, bananas, a small amount of honey, and eggs. It's topped with home-made whipped cream with no added sweeteners.
I got the recipe for the cake from this muffin recipe and modified it a bit. I reduced the honey, put it in a cake pan, and extended the cooking time. I've made this cake three times now (this first time pictured here as well as two layered versions for birthdays), and I've since made a lemon cake from coconut flour. I've found it important to put a piece of parchment paper down and thoroughly grease the pan before the pouring batter. I added a thin smear of apple butter on top (under the cream) and it gives it a nice little acidic kick. I also put it between layers on the layered versions. The apple butter I used is not sweetened, other than with apples.

YUM!

NOODLES!!!

One of the things I never get to have that I really love?  Noodles.  Being grain free pretty much makes them impossible.  I've tried some substitutes:  spaghetti squash, enoki mushrooms.  I have read about others: cooked bean sprouts.  Well today I received another box of food goodies in the mail: kelp noodles!

OK, I also thought they sounded kind of gross; they're raw and ready to eat and made from kelp.  I imagined dark green twisty strips that were about linguine size and tasted like fishy shoe leather (I had a bad experience with a seaweed snack once).  But the promise of noodles made me order a batch anyway.  What I received was something that was virtually indistinguishable from fine rice noodles (think ramen but translucent and of a more angel-hair gauge.)

I know you're probably thinking, "yes, but what about the icky taste?"  Well, I have a higher tolerance for odd flavors now with my odd diet, and I had put fishy shoe leather out of my mind, so I was still excited and quickly dreamed up a quick stir fry recipe.  I threw in eggs, spinach, tomatoes, chunks of leftover meat, oil, soy sauce, etc., and ended up with this:

I suppose I should have highlighted the noodles more in the photo,
but if you look at the pale, translucent strings in the center
and the bottom center of the picture, those are they!

Turns out... the noodles are perfectly noodley.  They are white, fine, and have no weird seaweedy flavor!  They barely have any flavor.  They bathe themselves in the flavors that surround them, just as they should.  I did have to put a whole lot of oil on them for them to not stick together in one massive clump, and I had to cook them for ages to convert that weird chewy/crunchy/rubbery texture to a more palatable consistency.  But I did it, and it was good, and hubby went back for seconds and thirds, so it must have been OK.  Actually it was better than OK.  It was a bowl of stir-fried noodles!

These noodles have lots of good qualities beyond being noodley.  They have zero grams of carbs (or protein or fat for that matter!!!), very little salt, and are only six flipping calories per serving!  WHAT?!?!?  They're mostly made up of water and fiber I guess.  And of course they contain the nutrients of the sea.

If you're wondering where you can get you're own kelp noodles, wonder no more!  You naturally just set a course for kelpnoodles.com in your address bar and you will arrive at the site of the Sea Tangle Noodle Company.  You'll know what to do when you get there.

Where did I get my herbs?

Oops! Sorry people! Forgot to link the place where I bought my beautiful herbs and spices. It's called Mountain Rose Herbs. I heard about them through Monica, who has bought through them for a while. I have bought stuff from them twice. They're pretty good, but I did have a little 'moment' with their customer service rep recently. The wording on their bulk discounts is a little less than explicit. Apparently it's only good when you order multiple 1lb bags of various things. Anyway, I had been sucked into this huge order because of it, but then when the discount didn't appear I contacted them and they told me I'd misinterpreted the discount. So I was a little annoyed, I provided some feedback, and they weren't very receptive. Ah well.

I don't think any experience is perfect, is it?

It's like an apothecary in my house!

I received a shipment of herbs and spices yesterday.  Yummy!
I kept opening the packages up and sniffing.

Regin wasn't as in to all the smells as I was, but he was enjoying helping me unpack the box.

Right away I put my spices to use. I made savory spinach/cheese/garlic muffins (mmmm!) using spinach, onion, and garlic powders; I made us some soothing herbal teas; I sprinkled some Cornish hens with lemon peel powder (and salt, pepper, and butter) and roasted them for dinner; and then I made some chamomile chai before bed.

One of the things I was most excited to use was the pure ground vanilla powder. I really don't care for vanilla-scented things, but this little packet smells AMAZING! And there is no sugar mixed with it and it's not suspended in glycerin or alcohol; it's 100 per cent pure vanilla. It's also way easier to use than vanilla beans.

So I'm a little vanilla happy. It's going in our teas and pancakes and... everything!

I'm eager to order more now. It was so cool to receive all these beautiful aromas in a box. And a lot of these large packets are cheaper than those little grocery store jars, and they are organic! I can't wait till our stuff from Penang arrives next week and I can put these in my glass spice jars.

Maybe I should be an herb/spice vendor. Reem, you should totally order some of these as research for your book! (It's set in part in a spice merchant's home. Doesn't that sound fantastic?)

Food in the mail!

We're trying to penny pinch a little bit around here.  Our food bill is killing us!  We're on a psuedo-Paleo diet as a family and eating all fresh (mostly organic and natural) produce and meats with virtually no processed/packaged foods is CRAZY expensive.  The few baked items we eat are made from pricey nut and coconut flours.  George is suggesting we scrap the diet for all but me since I am the only one who has to eat that way, but I want to try harder to save first.

So I'm a sale girl now.  And I am maybe a bulk girl; I'm still working on that one.  I've done research on buying a half cow and storing it in a chest freezer.  We are also back to getting all of our fruits and veggies through Door-to-Door Organics.

My theory is, if I can buy online, have things delivered, save on bulk, than George and I won't be impulse-crazy shoppers at the grocery store, or not as often at least.  And I'm hoping, through buying bulk meats and such online, we can get the cost of our food down to at least semi-normal for a 3-person family.  (I read online that the national average for a family of three is around $450.  We're waaaaaaay over that, but then again we buy lots of eco/organic/natural.  I wonder if there is an adjusted average somewhere for people who try to eat responsibly and healthfully.)

Anyway, I've been LOVING receiving my Door-to-Door orders every week.  Thursday is D2D day and Regin and I make and activity out of it.  We unpack the box and he gets to help me sort the fruits and veggies and put them in baskets that go in the pantry and then wash and put away the stuff that goes in the fridge. It's so much fun!  And so cute!  (I'll have to get some photos/video of it)  And it's nice to have the variety D2D supplies.  But even with their largest box it's hard to keep us fed for the week (Paleo is fruit-and-veg HEAVY) so I am experimenting with add-ons so we can still avoid the extra spending we do at the physical grocery store. 

Well that's fine, but that's just our fruit and veg, what about meat?  Oh my goodness, have you any idea how expensive it is to eat grass-fed/pastured/etc.?  And I've been extremely nervous about ordering meats online.  Shipping?  Raw meat??  E coli & salmonella anyone???  But I'm happy to report that we received our first batch of 6 chickens today (via UPS) that were still fully frozen, even after being shipped "ground"! Will this same thing be true in the summer?  I don't know.  But the shipment did originate in Florida, I believe.

 

  

 

I also received 20lbs of coconut flour since I was able to get it on sale for under $5 a lb.  Yay!

I'm still searching for a reasonable price on almond flour.  At the stores here it's generally $11-13/lb! OUCH!

Soon I should be receiving some bulk organic herbs, spices, and teas, as well as some seaweed chips (not organic) that I finally found online.  I have been missing those since we left Penang!

I joked to George that I should start selling organic foods with all this bulk ordering I'm doing!  Well, I don't know about that, but I do hope that this makes a significant and positive impact on our food bill.  Wish us luck!


P.S. I'm NOT thrilled about the extra packaging it means to ship things to me, especially all that plastic and styrofoam, YUCK!  But we're desperate to cut some costs while hopefully maintaining this healthy diet.  I'll go all local, no packaging, when I have more money.

A clean bill of health?

I had a whole series of blood/urine tests last week, then an ultrasound for some abdominal complaints on Saturday.  I brought all the results back to our doctor (yeah we're still with the same one.  It's just too much trouble to find a new one at this point.)  She goes through each line nodding, saying, "good... good... cholesterol good... nothing wrong on the ultrasound... kidneys look good... liver... pancreas... ."  And then she looks up at me and says, "you're in great health!"

Funny.  I don't feel like I'm in great health, which is exactly what I told her.  She then mentions things about stress and such.

There seems to be a common theme here.  She, the endocrinologist, and the dietitian all seem to think I could do with some psycho-therapeutic help.  While that may be true, it's not what is causing my issues, and if we're going to examine the causal relationship between my hypoglycemic symptoms and my psychological issues we would have to conclude the opposite:  the latter will be resolved by treating the former, or, put another way, the latter IS from the former.  My psychological issues are, by and large, symptoms of my hypoglycemia.

It's not unusual for doctors to dismiss hypoglycemia symptoms as psychological.  After everything I have read and researched I believe that, in truth, not just mine, but most psychological problems should be treated as hypoglycemia!  This includes anxiety, depression, alcoholism and criminal behavior, even schizophrenia!  The list goes on and on.  And then there are lists of "physical" ailments that are linked to hypoglycemia. 

GET THE PICTURE PEOPLE!  IF YOU WANT TO BE IN GOOD HEALTH AND STOP SUFFERING FROM THAT/THOSE _________________ (headaches? phobias? chronic fatigue? aches and pains? bronchitis? heart conditions? cancer? -- yes I have read about links with ALL of these to hg) STOP PUTTING CRAPPY FUEL INTO YOUR BODY!!!

It is so hard on me to see people putting crap in their bodies every day and dismissing any concerns about how their diets can put them in my shoes.  When I tell many of you that I have HG, most of you say, "sucks to be you!"  When I suggest that you may also have it (though not as severe) and that you should also change your diet you say, "no way!  Are you nuts?"  Yes.  I am nuts.  But regardless of that I have a hard time not taking your refusal personally.

I know you love and enjoy all of those foods and drinks you won't give up.  Believe me, I know how hard it would be (is) to stop.  And, realistically, I wouldn't want to give them up either.  But your refusal and immediate dismissal is like telling a mother of a drunk-driving victim that there is no way (how ridiculous!) you'd give up drinking and driving.  There are, of course, some obvious, major differences, but bare with me while I explain.

First, it says to me that you don't take your own health seriously, or the impact it has on others, or even that there are very limited ways in which you're willing to improve your current health issues, which I guess is all normal, but it also says that you won't do anything you can to avoid being in my situation, and by extension (at least in my crazy mind), you wouldn't save me if you could.

But there is little I can do to convince you all isn't there?  I mean if it were absolutely proven that my issues were actually caused by some other illness and I could go back to eating anything I wanted, wouldn't I?  I have to just let it go just like all the other things I get riled up about.  And besides, I'm getting off topic a smidge.


Back at the doctor's office...
OK so I'm annoyed that she's not taking my hypoglycemia as a legitimate complaint and that she doesn't see it as evidence of compromised health, but I have to admit, it's an awfully sweet feeling to hear that I'm otherwise doing so well.  And it was fun to think it proof that there is nothing wrong with the high protein, high (saturated) fat and high calorie content of my diet.  Proof also that mainstream nutrition information is totally bogus. 

Then George whacks my head out of the clouds with a big old baseball bat.  Maybe, for example, my cholesterol was even lower before and it's now on the rise.  We'll have to wait for future blood scans to decide anything so bold as my diet being the true ideal.

But you know, I did get the ultrasound for a reason.  When I ask the doctor about my stomach complaints, she decides it must be gas.
"Do you have a lot of wind?"
"No."
"I think it's wind."
???

Crushed with defeat

There's a not so fun thing about hypoglycemia: extreme excitement over foods I can eat often leads to enormous disappointment when it turns out I can't.  Sometimes those new foods turn out to be triggers for a hypoglycemic crash.

I crashed (big) yesterday after having flax foccacia toast with breakfast.  There are other possible contributing factors, but the bread is the most likely cause.  I was totally depressed until I decided to either get some real medical help here real soon or go back to the States for help.  I mean in the next week or two.  I can't wait until February to fix this.  Obviously I'm not that successful with self-treatment.  I know I'm generally better, but I should be pretty much symptom-free if I'm eating right and that's just not the case.

Furthermore, after a year, I should have a better handle on what I can and cannot eat.  For instance, I can't for the life of me figure out what the real, biological difference is between a grain, a nut, and a seed.  And it therefore seems totally illogical that I can't have the first one, but I can have the others.  Are grains not also seeds?  And did the fact that I had a blob of fiber for breakfast, thereby making breakfast less protein-heavy, cause my crash?  Are there more carbs in flax than I thought?  Or was it the baking powder in the recipe which probably has some corn starch in it?  If I use baking soda and cream of tartar instead, can I eat the bread with breakfast?  Or is this bread fine as long as I eat it later in the day when I can tolerate things better?  Should I be eating anything that I have to schedule like that?  I mean isn't it bad no matter what, even if I can better tolerate it at certain times?

I need to attack this more aggressively, because not only do I suffer, but everyone around me does too. And it's really taking its toll on me for sure.

Maybe I will only have meat and squash for a while and see what happens.  I'm also seriously thinking about looking into the cost of a personal chef for a month or so and calling it a medical expense.  I can't deal with food anymore.  It's overwhelming.  I have to eat so often and every single time it's a difficult decision for a foggy brain to handle.  Then add to that that I have to find creative ways to feed a picky toddler to eat.  I have to be honest and say that many times I just give Regin a piece of bread and/or cheese because my sad, slothy, hypoglycemia-addled brain can't manage to come up with something better, and my patience is so low thanks to my low blood sugar that I will do almost anything for Regin to stop whining, even if it's only been a few seconds since he started.  So much for the mom who was going to work so hard to make sure her son had good nutrition.  And the cycle continues.  He'll undoubtedly suffer similar health problems as a result.

This can't go on!  A change has to be made right away!

Will keep you posted.

The miracle of bread

I have a lot of catch up and photo editing to do before I can resume Penang and Thailand posts, but in the meantime I thought I'd another awesome food moment I had today.

The fun thing about hypoglycemia (if there can be a fun thing) is that suddenly food becomes miraculous.  Every newly accomplished recipe is a great victory and every new food I can eat is a gift from the gods.  I'm getting fat again because I have rediscovered junk food.  I don't have potato chips, but I have super-high-calorie seaweed crisps.  And now, in addition to almond flour bread, pancakes, and yes, crepes, I have flax foccacia!  And for the first time, I can have real sandwiches again thanks to this recipe!

It didn't look all that pretty in the pan.  I definitely have some not-so-nice visual comparisons to make.  But beggars can't be choosers, right?  I figured it would taste about how it looked, but I was already excited about how springy it was when I touched it.  It was like real bread!  Then I broke off a corner and ate it warm with butter.  It tasted like real bread!  And it's fairly fluffy too!  I'd actually prefer it to be a little denser, it's so fluffy!

Cut it up into 12 servings.  I was so excited to see how "bready" it looked.  See what I mean about miracles?  Are any of you ever this excited about bread?

George started craving brownies when he saw this photo.  Too bad.  I had a bad reaction to the Stevia I got from my mom, so I won't even be making carob brownies until I can try some natural stevia to see if it's better for me.

Very thick and fluffy.  Too thick for a sandwich. Maybe a bun?  George suggested I slice each piece in half for sandwiches.

Ta da!  I'm going to go out and buy some meat to put on this now!  Maybe some prosciutto!  MMMmmmm...

For those of you who don't need to make flax foccacia, you may want to try it anyway.  The taste is mild, even Regin and George liked it, and the health benefits of flax are tremendous.  Not to mention that this is one of the easiest recipes I have ever tried.  And fast!  I had bread (BREAD!) in half an hour (including prep time!)  Is all foccacia that easy and fast?

It was much less expensive than almond bread too.  I mean, I get 12 sandwiches from one batch, from one small bag of flax (two cups of meal).  I think the bag was a couple of bucks.  Whereas one canister of almond powder (that I get here in Penang) is $15 and that gets me a single loaf and that bread isn't at all sandwich-friendly.

Tips for flax:  always grind it yourself, a coffee grinder worked great for me; if it tastes strong or bitter, the flax is bad.  Fresh flax has a mild taste.  Also, it calls for sweetener, but I went without and it tasted fine.  If you are one of those who needs a hint of sweet in their breads (like American breads have) then I'm sure a little pinch of whatever would work fine.