Tongue Taco Salad

I'm not going to pretend this is old hat for me. I contemplated the title of this post for a while wondering if there was something that sounded a little more appetizing. Tongue. The first word that comes to mind when I think of tongue is not 'delicious', but guess what. It is. It may be a bit of a mental barrier to conquer, but tongue meat, just like all other parts of the animal, are used in many cultures around the world and loaded with nutrients. It's not much different than any other muscle meat, other than the fact that it's visible. Why can we eat a piece of thigh or rump meat just because it's covered in hair and we only see the final, butchered product?

Not only is tongue meat absolutely delicious, but it's usually purchased for a song. In our case, the farmer we buy our grass-fed beef from was happy to give us a whack of them, leftover from more picky customers. So, with a freezer full of tongues, I decided to finally experiment with it.

I found a great recipe online for cooking the tongue according to traditional Mexican cooking. It was really easy and left us with this incredible, extremely tender meat. The texture was pleasant and it tasted wonderful. Traditionally you would put the meat in a tortilla with some fresh salsa, but we aren't that big into starchy food so taco salad it was. Below is the recipe I used to build our healthy, delicious salad.

Tongue Taco Salad

• 1 organic, preferably grass-fed beef tongue
• 1 onion
• 1 head of fresh garlic
• salt and pepper

Put tongue in slow cooker with all other ingredients. Cover completely with water. Cook on low for 8 hours in a slow cooker. Once tongue is cooked, remove, let cool and remove skin with a sharp knife. Pull meat apart or cube with a knife.

• organic, extra virgin coconut oil
• taco spice (try to find the organic kind without any added sugars or flavourings, it should just have dehydrated spices in it or better yet, mix your own)
• sea salt and fresh pepper

Warm coconut oil in pan over medium heat. Add the cubed meat into the oil and sprinkle with the taco seasoning, salt and pepper. Cook until warmed through.

That's it, now just build your salad. For our salad tonight we used the following:

• organic romaine lettuce (very lightly tossed with a tiny bit of vinaigrette)
• organic, raw sharp cheese (raw, pastured dairy)
• fresh, organic cilantro
• homemade cultured salsa
• organic, blue taco chips (we just smashed a couple of chips over each one for some crunch - optional 
• organic avocado
• organic, fresh lime
• a dollop of goat's milk creme fraiche (raw dairy, homemade culture if possible)

The cooked meat is so tender and tasty that you could use it for all sorts of things. It would be great stuffed in romaine leaves with a bunch of veggies or just cooked up with some veggies and spices as a simple saute after the initial slow cooking to tenderize it.

Note: You can further paleoize this ditty by just skipping the dairy if that's not on for you. It's just as delicious without. We're not doing the chips either, although, I have started making our own every few months, when the craving hits. It's super easy. Buy a package of sprouted, organic corn tortillas in the freezer sections. Defrost, cut in wedges, and fry in pastured lard or tallow until crisp. Sprinkle with sea salt. There you have it, forego the nasty PUFAs inherent in commercial chips and WAY tastier.

Ghee-lish

Ghee is a clarified butter void of any milk solids or water. More importantly, ghee is absolutely delicious. I've been making ghee for years now and I'm sure that I would be unable to cook in the style I'm used to without it. It adds a rich, nutty taste to vegetables, sauces, and baking. If you have anyone in your family that has problems with the milk proteins in butter, you may likely find that ghee is digested well. I have found that I can easily use ghee, even though I am intolerant to dairy products. It's worth trying.

Ghee is used daily in Indian and South Asian homes. It's very easy to make. The beauty of ghee is that it's a saturated fat which means that it's stable to cook with at higher temperatures. (If you would like to read further on the right types of fats to cook with, this is a good starting point.)

I sometimes mix our ghee with organic, extra-virgin coconut oil.  We use it as a spread on bread, to bake with (using a 1:1 ratio with any butter called for), on popcorn (gloriously delicious!), and to cook with. In fact, this is the only fat I cook with aside from goose or duck fat.  I usually make a big supply of ghee every two weeks.  If you make it correctly, getting all of the water and milk solids out of the ghee in the cooking process, it will not have to be refrigerated.  

Ghee

What you need:

1. Organic, unsalted butter, raw if you can get it (use as much as you want, I usually buy 8 blocks at a time)
   
2. Sieve
3. Cheesecloth
4. Jars, butter dishes, or whatever you want to store the ghee in

What you do:

1. Put the butter in a deep, heavy pot. If you have enameled, cast iron cookware that will hold it, use it.  If not, whatever you have that is heavy and big enough will do. 
2. Bring the butter to a boil and then quickly reduce to low heat. You want the butter to be lightly simmering, a few bubbles here and there.
3. You will notice some foam on top of the butter.  If there's a lot of foam, you can skim a little off, taking care to not disturb the butter.
4. It usually takes anywhere from 20-45 minutes for the ghee to be ready. A golden crust will form on the top of the liquid. The liquid will be a deeper, golden yellow colour. You will notice a different smell - deep and rich, almost 'nutty'. The liquid should look clear below the crust. 
5. Place the cheesecloth in a sieve over a bowl. Pour the ghee through the cheesecloth slowly (be careful, it's really hot). Pour the filtered ghee into clean jars, butter dishes, or any other vessel you want to store it in. Let it sit at room temperature to cool off before putting the lids on. 

Update October 2010: One of the things I've been doing, to stretch my ghee out, is to mix it with some organic, extra virgin, unrefined coconut oil. Simply let stir in some coconut oil after you've completed step 5, before you let it cool and seal.

Keeping Warm with Thoughts of Happy Bees

There's snow on the ground now. Not much, merely a skimming of the cement, but enough that it's not melting straight away. I find myself traipsing about wearing my big, old wool army socks with layers of long johns and sweats. I'm actually wearing a hat right now, content to be warm even if I look a little ridiculous.

This time of year I find myself naturally pulled towards the heavier, warming foods available to us locally. Squash, sweet potatoes, sweet onions, cabbage, and fresh goose and duck have all been gracing our table. I've been using (and making) a lot of broth for our soups. I think we could eat chicken soup all day, every day. In fact, some times we do. My husband and children have jointly mastered a roasted squash and apple soup that they automatically default to anytime I'm not around to make supper. Luckily, it's pretty tasty and we seem to always have a whack of squash lying around.

Most of all, we enjoy a steaming cup of organic, Earl Grey tea with some wild flower honey drizzled in it. Because I'm staying away from honey for a while, I plan on returning to a drop of my lovely honey in my tea at some point. Our honey is generously supplied by a local farmer with happy bees. It's interesting to see the colour of the honey change as the season does. The last of the honey, for this year, has been a deep, golden yellow whereas the honey from earlier in the season was lighter and 'quieter' on the palate. Our honey is passed through a filter and then bottled, that's it. It's sweet, but still holds a lot of flavour. I've sampled honey that's sweet, but lacks any real taste other than that bold sweetness. This is not how honey should taste. There should be flavour to it and depending on what the bees have drawn on to make the honey, the colour and taste can vary greatly. 

Raw honey is best.  Pasteurization kills the delicate enzymes within the honey. Also, look for honey that's from an organic farm so chemical residues aren't finding their way into your food. Another thing to note is that it is common practice for beekeepers to feed their bees a sugar solution over the winter. By getting to know your honey farmer, you can find out what practices are used for pest management, processing of the honey, and what they use to winter their bees. Our farmer feeds the bees back their honey over the winter which is more preferable to the sugar solution. 

Beekeeping is actually pretty complex, but if you're interested in learning more about the right way to do it, and all of the wrong things that are presently being done by industrial beekeepers (hence the colony collapse problems), there's some great reading available from Michael Bush of Bush Farms.  Michael, along with many organic beekeepers, are producing honey with no disease or pest problems in their colonies. You may also like to familiarize yourself with the rules for producing organic honey. While organic is definitely preferable, I still opt to find a farmer that I can visit to find out what their practices are regarding winter feeding of the bees. Even organic aviaries can use the sugar solution.

Happy bees that produce honey like they would in the wild make the most delicious honey. I've got nothin' scientific to support that one, it's just a hunch that's proven true on my tongue.

Out of the Fog

One of my biggest realizations since removing sugar from my diet (in all of its forms) is the difference in my mood and the clarity of my thoughts. I feel like a veil has been lifted. I'm more connected to my husband, less irritable. There's stuff going on in a more subtle way though. It's like a shift in my default. I have noticed an awareness that seemed hazed-over before. I don't want to make it seem like I'm radically different, it's more as if I am processing things more clearly.

I've always known that sugar changes me. And I really mean that it changes me. I become irritable and less affectionate. There's been so many studies and all of the harmful effects of sugar on our bodies, but I think the scariest is the possibility that sugar can alter who we are. 

There was a study done a few years ago with prison inmates to determine the level to which crimes increase in correlation to the consumption of junk food. Now, some prison systems are looking to add supplements to inmates' diets to curb violent behaviour. We're just on the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding the way food affects our mood and behaviour. Depression is rampant, violent crime is up, and autoimmune diseases and cancers seem almost commonplace. I can't prove that all of this is related directly to sugar, but there's evidence connecting our illnesses, both mental and physical, with our poor diets. The further we move away from eating whole, organic foods like our ancestors did, the faster we fall out of balance with our innate nature.

eBites

• Raw milk is a big issue at the moment.  Michael Schmidt of Glencolton Farms has been legally charged for running a cow share program in Ontario, Canada. Michael is fighting his charges. Go, Michael, go!
• The Weston A. Price Foundation wrote a great rebuttal to the FDAs position on the safety of raw milk consumption. It's long, but worth the read.
• Pasteurized? Ultra pasteurized? Organic? Commercially-raised? Real, healthy milk is hard to find, but worth the search. Understanding 'why' is your first step. My mind is made up about raw milk. I definitely wouldn't drink pasteurized dairy, and indeed we've raised our paleo kids quite nicely without. However, now that I have access to 100% pastured, raw dairy, we've been making some cultured products: yoghurts of all types and kefir. I also like some pure, heavy cream in my tea now and then. I keep it as a compliment in our diet and at times we go without with no noticeable change or effect.
  

The Good Egg

I had some further questions about selecting healthy, fresh eggs. Here's some great tips from the Weston A. Price Foundation (their site is loaded with excellent articles on all aspects of nutrition - definitely worth paying a visit).

GOOD EGG, BAD EGG -- HOW TO KNOW?

They all look about the same, standing at attention in their platoons of twelve, and the cartons don't tell you much. How can you know whether the eggs you are about to buy are fresh and have come from healthy chickens, or are old and have come from poorly fed, stressed birds? The only way to know is to look closely and ask questions.

First, how do the eggs look? The shells should be dull, not shiny. Look at the air sacs on the shell's surface: the bigger the air sac the older the egg. The eggs should feel strong, not so delicate that regular handling threatens to crack them.

Once you get them home you can perform two more freshness tests: Place the eggs in a large bowl of cold water; if they float, they are quite old. Unshelled onto a plate, the yolk of a truly fresh egg will dome up and stay up, and the white will clearly be thicker in the middle part, thinner on the edges. The yolks should also be a deep yellow orange, not pallid. Another test is to break the egg into boiling water--the so-called water poach. If the egg stays together, it's a good one. Most supermarket eggs break up into tiny pieces on contact with the water.

But how the chickens are treated is the big question. It's best to bypass the cheap, supermarket brand egg. These are usually produced in vast factory "farms" with upwards of 500,000 birds in one facility. The birds are caged in buildings that are artificially lighted and ventilated. The feed is most likely a mixture of conventionally grown corn and soy, undoubtedly contaminated by GMOs and laced with antibiotics. There is not much goodness in eggs like these.

Then there are the smaller, commercial operations that produce free-range, antibiotic-free eggs. These are certainly a step up, but living conditions vary considerably--some producers have their birds on pasture, some give the birds access to the outdoors, some don't; some keep a few roosters, some have none; some keep the groups small, most don't.

If you seek out eggs from a small local grower, consider asking the following questions to learn more about the eggs you buy:

What do you feed your chickens? The ideal feed is a combination of organically grown grains, legumes, grasses, greens, worms and insects. Less than ideal but still acceptable to many is organic lay pellets and organically grown corn and soy. At the bottom of the heap are commercial lay pellets, conventionally grown corn and soy and cottonseed meal.

Do you use antibiotics? If the health of a whole flock is threatened, then the judicial use of antibiotics can usually be tolerated by the consumer, as long as eggs from that period are not sold. Antibiotics routinely added to the feed ration, however, must be strictly avoided.

How many birds do you have? How many chickens in the whole operation, and how many in each flock? Smaller is better. Even with a big operation, if small flocks are maintained--maximum 100 to 150--then the chickens can maintain a chicken society (a pecking order) and will be less stressed.

What are living conditions like for the birds? Do the birds have regular access to the outdoors? What is the square footage of their house and yard? If chickens are given enough space, they are less likely to become stressed and/or diseased.

How fresh are these eggs? Small producers sometimes store eggs for a period of days or weeks until they have enough to make a delivery. Eggs should not be older than 10 days when they are brought to market, and should be labeled with date of harvest.

Are the eggs fertile? What is the ratio of roosters to hens? Anywhere between 1 to 10 and 1 to 20 is a good balance. If the producer keeps roosters, the flocks will better resemble a natural chicken society and the hens will be less stressed.

What breed are your chickens? While this likely doesn't matter much to individual egg quality, it gives the consumer an idea of how much the producer knows about his birds.

May I visit your farm? While you might never do this, the producer's response will give you an idea of whether he or she is proud of the operation or ashamed of it.

by: Barbara Gerber, Weston A. Price Foundation

143 Reasons that Sugar is Ruining Your Health

Here's a fantastic list, complete with scientific references, put together by Nancy Appleton, Ph.D.

Sugar on the Brain

As a Nutritionist, one of the most common things I encounter is sugar addiction. It's no surprise. Sugar is everywhere and in everything. It's comfort. It's satisfying. It's tasty. It's highly addictive. We're brought up on the stuff and the problem only gets exacerbated as we age.

I have a big problem with sugar. Oh, but I'm a sugar snob.  I don't eat those cheap chocolate 'candy' things or grocery store cakes.  No, I like to placate my sugar addiction by feeding it only the 'unrefined' sugars. So, let the organic, raw honey pour, sprinkle on the unrefined sweetener, simmer up the maple syrup. It's dark, organic chocolate for me. And baking? I'm a really good baker. I can take any recipe and translate it into an organic, wholesome treat (complete with those organic, "natural" sweeteners). It's all just feeding the addiction.

Sugars hold on us can only be loosened by the removal of it. Think I'm exaggerating? Studies have shown that sugar is more addictive than cocaine. Given the choice between cocaine and sugar, rats chose sugar. Even the cocaine addicted rats would switch to sugar over the cocaine when given a choice.

Sometime, in the complimentary circle of care we get a little sidetracked by trying to help people replace bad habits with 'better choices'. So, you're not drinking pop anymore, but you are drinking juice in soda water. What's the difference? It's used by your body in the same way. It's sugar. Pasta, rice, bread, doughnuts, juice, organic this or that... it's all still sugar and it keeps you on that blood sugar roller coaster. Diabetes, circulatory problems, decreased immunity, PMS, and heart disease have have all been linked to sugar consumption.

So, here I admit that while I may not be eating the worst of the worst, I'm still including foods in my diet that are keeping me gnawing at the bit for my next sweet fix. The result is a lack of energy, irritability, and the inability to wipe out the candida in my body for good. I've had enough.

It's day 5 of not eating 'sugar' (in all its forms) and it ain't pretty. As the candida dies off, I've been feeling the strong detoxifying effect it's having on my body. I'm tired, irritable, craving sweets, and generally feeling quite sorry for myself. I realize that I have to change my perspective and view this as a gift. I have the knowledge and ability to change my health. I can age with glowing health if I so choose. I can be vibrant and full of energy if I choose. I can have complete control over my body if I choose. I choose.

"The Sweet Tooth: Defeating the Little Rascal".  Great article with useful tips.

Update, October 2010: Getting rid of the sugar was the last step on our road to adopting the paleo lifestyle entirely. I realized, after many failed attempts, that not having sugars in my diet was a matter of simply removing the things that triggered my cravings. Stevia may be great for some, but for me it was like a little drop of crack to a crack addict. It just got the cravings going. Same thing with dried fruit or a spot o' honey in my cuppa' tea. Nope. Doesn't work. Along with removing those sweets, I took aggressive measures to include more probiotic foods in our diets. Fermented veggies and homemade kefir from raw, pastured milk was essential in my quest to get my body ecology balanced.

I want to be clear that we were not eating sweets like fiends. In fact, most people would think we hardly ate them at all. My concern is that I always felt like I was in a perpetual state of fighting my cravings. Even if my homemade treat was some nut butter in a date, it would have my hanging on, white knuckled for days after, trying to placate myself with stevia soaked tea (which would then continue the cycle). It was these cravings that kept me away from my physique goals and a state of mental and emotional peace.

Can you pick out the organic, free range egg?

Eggs from happy, free roaming chickens are measurably different from your regular grocery store variety.  Besides the issues of antibiotics, hormones and the like in industrially raised eggs, there are some vast differences in taste between the two.  It makes sense really. Eggs carry the energy from where they came from.  Battery hens in cramped conditions laying egg after egg without ever seeing the light of day could not produce the type of egg a healthy chicken would.  Taste the difference yourself.

Be wary of terms like "organic", "cage free", or "free range" on supermarket eggs.  Organic simply means that the chicken is eating organic feed, they can still be living in cramped, indoor barns. Cage free is equally ambiguous.  A barn crammed full of chickens, without basic sunlight or fresh air, can produce "cage free" eggs.

Your best bet is to find a local farmer that can supply you with eggs.  Go visit them.  Any time we've ever moved I've had to source our farmers to supply us with the quality of food we wanted.  It's a wonderful experience to speak with the people that produce your food, to share in their passion. We've been so grateful to have made such incredible friendships through our search for healthy food. It's also a wonderful experience to share with kids.  Teaching our children what healthy animals look like, how they are raised, and how we can make a difference by purchasing food locally is a benefit to them and their communities in the future.

Roasted Fall Veggies

Hmm.. what do we have here?  Some red onions, two types of beets, butternut squash, acorn squash, garlic, and some lovely parsnips.  All lovingly dressed in homemade ghee, herbes de provence, and some sea salt. Picture taken before they were roasted in the oven until tender (there's no time for pictures once this is cooked and the savages start sniffing them out).  

eBites

• Prescription drugs responsible for more deaths than recreational drugs.
  
• Your body needs saturated fats (just make sure they're from healthy animals).
  
• Sunshine helps cancer.  Or is it the Vitamin D?  Hmmm... we'll have to wait, but in the meantime, we're starting to bundle up on the Western Hemisphere.  You might want to cover yourself with some vitamin D.
  
• Need to source local farmers in your area?  Looking for organic, pasture raised meat and poultry?Check out this site.
  

Real cows eat grass.

Love in a Bowl

I don't know what could be more delicious than a steaming bowl of chicken soup on a dreary day. I mean real chicken soup, not that bought stuff.  That first dripping spoonful makes its way into the crevices of the weary soul and elicits a grateful "mmmmm".  And it really is so easy to make. A little more time than opening a can, but what you're left with is a giant pot of soup that can be reheated and eaten for the week. After a week it's just as good better than when it was first made. The trick, as it is with any nutrient-dense soup, is in making your own broth. Skip the useless bouillon cube and make jars of homemade broth that you can freeze and just thaw out any time you want to make soup.

Here's a super easy description of how to do it.  Remember, buy fresh local, organic ingredients for best results.

Delicious Chicken Soup

Put some carrots, celery, onions, and garlic in a pot with some ghee or coconut oil. Simmer for a few minutes. Add in some fresh chicken.  I prefer using the dark meat on a bone for extra flavour. Simmer to brown the outside of the chicken. 

Pour in your stock and add some extra water (about the same amount of water to the stock). Nothing is exact, just add a couple of jars of stock and some water to cover the chicken and veg by a couple of inches. Add whatever spices you like to taste in your chicken soup. I use fresh rosemary, whole allspice (as per my Bapka's instructions), whole black pepper, and some marjoram. Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 40 minutes.  

Throw in whatever hearty veggies you want.  We like kale or collards cut into chunks, arame seaweed, and fresh parsley.  Season with salt and pepper. 

In the winter I add extra garlic and maybe some ginger to fend off the beasties.

Homemade Broth - The Commoner's Superhero

I love broth.  I mean, I really, really love it and you should too.  Here's why:  

• It's super easy to make
• It's super cheap to make
• It's super healthy to eat

See, what's not to love?  I always try to have some good soup broth on hand so I can whip up homemade soup whenever we feel like it or our grocery budget is dwindling and we need something healthy, yummy, and inexpensive to eat.

Whether you're making beef, chicken, or any other type of broth, the directions remain the same. I'm sure there's probably a more gourmet way to make this, but my way works and it's simple. You can get beef soup bones from a butcher, or try a local,organic farmer who can supply you with some tasty bones at a reasonable price.  

To make the stock:  I'll usually make my chicken broth after we've had a roasted chicken for dinner. Use all of the pot drippings, skin, and bones for the broth. Throughout the week I'll freeze ends and bits of veggies that were used for dinners and just pull them out to make the broth. This week we had a lot of root veggies in our CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) box so I had butternut squash skins, onion bits, carrots, parsley, garlic, celeriac skins, some leeks, and a few other bits of stuff in my freezer. I threw all of my veggies in with the chicken bits and covered it all with filtered water. I added some herbs (whatever you like), a small splash of apple cider vinegar (to pull the minerals and gelatin out of the chicken bones), some kombu and wakame seaweed (full of minerals), and some salt and pepper. I brought it all to a simmer and let it cook overnight.  

In the morning we had a beautiful, big pot of rich chicken broth. Once its cooled down, filter it. Pour the stock into jars, leaving at least an inch at the top so it doesn't explode when it freezes. If you like, you can pull the broth out of the freezer after about an hour and scrape the layer of fat off the top before it freezes solid.  

Use your stock as a base for any type of soup, gravy, or sauce. It's especially good with some miso, garlic, ginger, and some greens thrown in for a delicious miso soup.

A freezer full o' stock.