What I'm Reading Today

I ordered two books by Victoria Boutenko about raw foods, they arrived today and I've read both of them. I haven't done much else, it's a lazy, sit-around-and-try-to-stay-warm day.

I liked both books, especially Green for Life, which details the benefits of green smoothies and scientific logic for why they're good for you. For years, all the reading I've done in diet and nutrition has seemed to be pointing to one conclusion - that people do best on a diet of rabbit food. No matter which diet is glorified, if you really look at what the author is eating day to day, it's mostly salad. Sure, they may say you can eat cream, steak and cheese if you combine correctly, or you can eat lots of carbs if you stay away from animal products, or if you count fat grams, or if you stay away from sugar - but, when you look at their own real life diets, they're eating a lot of salad. My own conclusion was that, if you eat mostly rabbit food, it doesn't really matter what else you eat, you're going to be healthy.

As it turns out, my sarcastic conclusion wasn't far from the truth. Victoria Boutenko points out that chimps are closely related to humans, so much so, that we use them for scientific experiments to find cures for humans. But if we reverse our perspective and try drawing some conclusions about the best diet for people by looking at what chimps eat in the wild, we might prevent the diseases we're trying to cure. And chimps eat a LOT of rabbit food. They eat almost half fruit, a third leaves, and the rest is insects and other stuff. Her conclusion is that humans should be eating a whole lot of fruit, almost as many greens, and only a little bit of everything else. But our bodies are so out of balance that we've lost our natural taste for greens. The solution: blend them with sweet, delicious fruits in a green smoothie! She notes an experiment she was a part of where volunteers drank a quart of green smoothies every day for a month. She made the smoothies and delivered them to a central location where participants would pick them up. They continued their usual diet, but added a quart of green smoothies each day. The book lists all the symptoms they saw improvement in after a month, and it was everything from bad digestion to allergies, and fatigue and warts in between. It sounds like a typical miracle cure, but I do think there's something to it, if only because every other diet that works seems to point to greens as a necessary portion (if not the base) of a healthy diet, although that's never the part of the diet they advertise.

She goes into hydrochloric acid and acid/alkaline balance, which I think is a more plausible explanation for why raw foods work than the live enzyme theory.

More reading: I found an interesting question about John Locke, and Charlotte Mason's conclusion that he was partially responsible for the terrors of French Revolution on one of the blogs I regularly check, CM, Children and Lots of Grace. I've printed it out and I'm off to read it now; I hope to gain some understanding.

Thanksgiving Evening

We had a wonderful day. I spent most of yesterday and then all day today in the kitchen. We're not very fussy, we don't have exotic tastes, so everything we make is just plain old-fashioned traditional Thanksgiving fare - roasted turkey, plain old bread stuffing like my mother always made (she says she got her recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook), mashed potatoes, frozen corn, carrots with tarragon and butter, canned sweet potatoes with butter and maple syrup, jellied cranberry sauce from a can, gravy from a jar and a dark green salad. Everything came out great!

What did I eat? Salad and a wonderful, creamy soup I made by putting three plum tomatoes, an avocado, and a teaspoon of salt in the blender. It looked like a little bowl of refried beans, but it was delicious! Nice and salty. I've been craving tomato soup or spaghetti sauce lately. I really need to go online and find a thick, tomato-ey raw soup recipe, but this worked for today.

The pecan pie was really good, rich, sweet and decadent like real pecan pie. And you feel about the same afterwards - like you ate too much rich, dense dessert. The rest of the family had pumpkin pie (baked from frozen) or apple pie (Walmart) with Cool Whip.

After dinner, I read aloud while the guys cleaned up. :) Food for the mind as well as the body! I read an article I'd printed out days ago that I found from The Common Room and Dewey's Treehouse. It's called The Image Culture, and is about the various aspects of visual images replacing the printed word. It articulated what I've suspected all along about Power Point - that it allows people who have nothing to say, to say it with polish.

One message board I visit asked everyone to name five things they're thankful for, and here were my five:
--My family, and the opportunity to be a Mom; a husband who really loves me, values family, and doesn't mind helping out
--A comfortable home and enough to eat
--The freedom to adhere to what I believe is true, read what I choose, say what I think, homeschool my kids if I want
--the wonderful women I work with in the Ambleside Online project who are more than intelligent, they're also role models for everything I aspire to be
--The best friends I've ever had, who I met since moving here (one is an online friend, but I still met her since I've lived here) For someone as reserved as I am, who doesn't make close friends easily, this is truly a blessing and a source of amazement to me.

It's hard to stop at just five!

Pie and Cookie

This is the raw pecan pie; it's in a little pan about the size of a tea saucer. The little bit I tasted was very sweet. Pulverized nuts and dates - what's not to like?

And I baked chocolate chip cookies, I used the recipe from Marilu Henner's book Total Health Makeover book , it's a bit healthier than most. And Miss M sampled one - her first homemade cookie! Thus far, all of her cookies have been from the health food store. She loved it!

Raw Eggnog

I'm trying to be better on my raw diet, and I've decided to stick to raw foods, if I can, for Thanksgiving. I've been feeling pretty good this week sticking more (yet not religiously) to the diet, and I don't want to get back to cheating a lot and then dealing with the cravings again.

One thing I really want, though, is eggnog. I found a recipe on my favorite raw foods message board, and I altered it (it called for almond milk, but that sounded like too much work) so I used sunflower seeds and water instead. And I didn't have any cardamon, so I left it out. What does cardamon taste like, anyway? To me, it's the nutmeg that makes it eggnog. It was brown from the sunflower seeds and vanilla--it looked more like creamy hot chocolate. But it tasted very good!

I'm going to make a small serving of raw pecan pie, too (mostly pecans and dates, much of it pureed in a food processor). The rest of the family is having a normal Thanksgiving turkey dinner.

Eggnog, 1 serving

1/4 c sunflower seeds (raw, of course!)
1 c water
2 medjool dates (no pits)
1/2 t cinnamon
1/8 t nutmeg
1 t vanilla
half a dash sea salt

Run it all through the blender until smooth.

-------------------------------

I'm editing this out of guilt. ;)

The Common Room posted that I have "some raw food recips for Thanksgiving!" But all I have is the one piddly little eggnog recipe. So, here's a link to a whole page of holiday recipes from my favorite raw food message board.

And here's the raw pecan pie that I'll be making. This is just half the recipe; there will be a traditional apple and pumpkin pie, too, so this will be just for one person - me! This is from Alissa Cohen's book, Living on Live Food.

Crust - Blend fine in food processor:
--1 cup pecans
Add and blend some more:
--1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
--1/4 cup pitted dates
--1/16 teaspoon vanilla (a pinch? smidgen?)
Press into dish. Fill with filling:

Filling - Blend fine in food processor:
--1/4 cup pecans
Add and blend more:
--3/4 cup pitted dates
--3 Tablespoons unpasteurized honey
--1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
--1/4 cup raw cashews
--1/4 cup water

Garnish with:
--1/2 cup walnuts


There. I feel better now. :)

BTW, for anyone considering a raw diet, I can recommend Alissa Cohen's DVD (it really helps to actually hear her explaining how it all works, and see her making some of the food) and/or Carol Alt's book Living in the Raw (check your library). They both make it seem do-able even for a beginner and give tips for going from theory to practical application.

Need a Monkey

For years, the boys have had fun making up ridiculous things that their imaginary chimpanzee, Gibber, does. Gibber doesn't like monkeys, he calls them "swabs" (I have no idea what he means by that), but I think he'd appreciate this anyway.

Why Our SWAT Team Needs A Monkey

New Bibs

Miss M needed new bibs; she likes to pull them her bib when she thinks she's done with it, which is always after she's done with the business of eating, and ready to play with her food. And that's when she really when she needs it most. All the bibs I see at Walmart and other places are velcro or pull-on with a stretchy neck, and she can pull those right off. So I made some out of an old towel, and sewed the trim and ties on, made from scraps of the tunics we made for the boys to wear when they go to the Narnia movie in costume. She can't get this one off! It's big enough to cover everything, and she has three of them, all free! Yay!

Interesting Observations

This evening, we watched West Side Story for the first time. After years of resisting our rules about play-fighting and shooting, one son said he didn't enjoy the movie because it was too violent, there was too much fighting.

And, during the movie, Miss M picked up a particular stick that all of the boys have never been able to resist using as a play weapon over the years, and tried to brush her hair with it.

There must be some scientific conclusion that can be drawn from these incidents, but I'm not quite sure what.

Burning

A pine needle hung above the fire
Sweating in the blazing heat
Then leapt, engulfed in short-lived spire
Of living flame. It curled and hissed—
Became a coiling, writhing snake,
An ashen serpent breathing smoke,
A memory of the ancient drake—
A twisted glede of glowing wire—
Till, burnt by its own flame, it broke
And lifeless fell into the pyre.
When all the flames had died away
And fire had quench'd its burning lust
There nothing of the snake remained
But lightless, shapeless, lifeless dust.

Does this offend you?

Why is this picture being removed as offensive? Buried Treasure Books has a blog entry that explains.

The Headmistress at The Common Room (which is where I found this bit of news) has some comments about it here.

I've always loved this painting, so I was happy to share it here.

Imagine

I'm watching my sons play with their Lego, and it got me thinking. Imagine if Charlotte Mason were here today and could see the toys available today. Plastic, lots of colors, such variety! In her day, children had fewer toys and mostly wood, I think. I wonder if she'd be distressed at the number of toys my children have? Which toys would she recommend for children?

Imagine if she could see the kinds of things children are into today - the twaddly books, Disney movies, video games, Saturday morning cartoons, educational software. I imagine she'd be horrified.

Imagine Charlotte Mason alive today, seeing the state education has come to, and the re-discovery of her methods.

Imagine Charlotte Mason alive today - and blogging! LOL!