A-Z Challenge - 'E'

Nope, vitamin E is not the topic of the day. Instead, I am choosing Ezekiel 4:9 Bread as my topic. One of the giant steps on my journey to wellness was when I began to follow The Maker's Diet which recommends limiting the intake of bread. When eating bread, however, the author suggests using an Ezekiel-type bread - meaning a bread made from sprouted grains.
Ezekiel Bread gets its name from the biblical passage: "Take also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make bread of it..." Food For Life, Inc. says: "We discovered when these six grains and legumes are sprouted and combined, an amazing thing happens. A complete protein is created that closely parallels the protein found in milk and eggs. In fact, the protein quality is so high, that it is 84.3% as efficient as the highest recognized source of protein, containing all 9 essential amino acids. There are 18 amino acids present in this unique bread – from all vegetable sources – naturally balanced in nature.
Ezekiel 4:9® Bread, made from freshly sprouted organically grown grains, is naturally flavorful and bursting with nutrients. Rich in protein, vitamins, minerals and natural fiber with no added fat. Try it served warm to release its exceptionally rich nutty flavor."
One of the major problems with the Standard American Diet is the inclusion of bleached white flour. Whole wheat flour isn't much better, either. Sprouted grains are really what we should be using. I recommend reading any or all of the following books:

• Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats 
• Sproutman's Kitchen Garden Cookbook: 250 flourless, Dairyless, Low Temperature, Low Fat, Low Salt, Living Food Vegetarian Recipes
• The Maker's Diet

Today Was Just What I Needed.

Sorry, yesterday's mention of The Cars just made me want to do it again, but the title really does fit.  Today really was just what I needed.  Nutritionally, physically, and even spiritually, today was amazing!

Greenspring, the new name for the homeschool co-op that we are a part of started today.  Well, it actually started yesterday, but the girls didn't end up taking any classes on Tuesday.  So, with them gone all day, I had the house to myself.

My morning pretty much ended up the same as it normally is.  Breakfast - after my regular, daily VidaCell - consisted of two free range eggs fried in my cast iron skillet, 1 slice of Ezekiel bread (the sesame variety), and a banana.  After breakfast, I did some surfing on the internet.

I recently joined a social network similar to facebook but with a twist.  SideTick is really new, so it isn't quite as deep in what it offers when compared to facebook.  It does have chat, blogs, picture albums, video links, and other common features.  One thing that it does have that facebook doesn't offer is your own, personal, video channel.  It will interact with your webcam allowing you to run a personal TV station.
Further, SideTick also rewards you with 'tickbucks' for all of your unique actions each day (up to 1,000 per day).  There are other ways to earn more tickbucks, as well, over and above the 1,000 earned for actions.  One way is through referring new members.  For each new member that joins SideTick through your invitation, you earn 2,000 tickbucks.  Here's the kicker... each 2,000 tickbucks earned converts into $1.00.  Yup, you can earn money to be social.

If you are interested in checking out SideTick, I invite you to click the banner on the right.

After surfing, I cleaned up from breakfast and took the pepitas out of the dehydrator and replaced them with the almonds.  Almonds take longer to dry, so they won't be done until some time tomorrow.

On the last trip to Deerfield Farm, I picked up a package of two veal chops.  Deerfield Farm, in addition to offering their own raw milk, cheese, and other products also provides space in their store to two other farms that I am aware of.  One of the farms sells free range eggs through the store and the other sells grass fed veal.  The veal is neatly packaged, frozen, and marked with the type of cut (cutlet, chop, kidney, etc.) and price.
Well, I decided that I wanted to cook the veal today so I took it out of the freezer to thaw.

Next, it was time to take Ginger for a walk.  We headed out the door and began to walk on the glorified sidewalk that runs along West Lake Blvd.  Instead of heading toward the bike trail that leads through the woods, I went the other way.  She was really anxious about the cars, so after a short walk we turned around.  I wasn't ready to go home so I kept on walking past our street and went on to the bike trail after all.  Rather than taking the trail all the way to the bridge, however, I decided to veer off into the woods.  Years ago, before they paved the trail, we had discovered a foot path that wended its way through the woods, past a swamp, and eventually back to the road.  I decided that this would be the route that Ginger and I would take today.  After getting out of sight of the paved trail, I let Ginger off-leash.  She doesn't get much of a chance to roam free and I wasn't sure how long she was going to be able to handle it.  I was a bit concerned that she might decide to chase a squirrel or rabbit and not come back to me.
She handled it so well that we made it off-leash until we started to approach the road again.  We got home after about an hour of walking and she immediately claimed a spot on the floor and promptly fell asleep!

At this point the veal was thawed out enough for me to put it into a marinade.  Last week, Tatyana and I made another batch of mojo de ajo so I decided to use that as the base of the marinade - a little mojo de ajo, a little balsamic vinegar, some sea salt, and some papaya pepper.

After the walk, my feet were really sore and I was a bit sweaty, so I decided to soak my feet in the tub before taking a shower.  Some warm water, epsom salt, and Dr. Bronner's Peppermint soap made for an amazing foot soak.

Next came some reading time.  Currently, I am reading Deepak Chopra's Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul.  I'd give you a review, but I really haven't gotten all that far into it yet.  Reading pretty much filled the time until everyone else came home.

Time to cook dinner.  I lit up the grill and got out the food processor.  I needed to do something with the eggplant that came home from the library garden before it rotted on me.  First, I prepared a baking dish by spreading a little mojo de ajo into the bottom of the dish.  I used the food processor to slice the eggplant thinly.  I put down a layer of the eggplant in the dish.  On top of that I spread some sliced zucchini and some tomato sauce.  I then repeated the pattern of eggplant, zucchini, and tomato sauce.  Next came some Parmesan cheese followed by a final layer of eggplant and tomato sauce.  Into the preheated oven (400 degrees) it went for 15 minutes.  The veal went onto the grill shortly after that so that it was ready to turn when the timer went off.  At this point, I added some shredded cheese to the top of the eggplant dish and let it finish off for another 5 minutes - just in time to pull the veal chops off the grill.
OH MY GOSH!!!  Everything tasted absolutely amazing!  ..and I am not even a particularly big fan of eggplant!

A great day that was indeed just what I needed.

Givin' the Dog a (Bath)

Today was quite the busy day!  The weather was (and still is) amazing and we had already planned on going letterboxing today.  Last night, the girls had a friend sleep over (so none of us got a whole lot of sleep!) and we had her accompany us on today's letterboxing trek.  After the usual morning routine (wake, walk dog, VidaCell, deep breathing, quiet time), I made myself some breakfast of two free range eggs, 1 slice of Ezekiel bread, and a banana.

Shortly after everyone had eaten breakfast, we headed off on our trek.  Of course, we took Ginger - our dog - along with us, too.

"Did someone say 'Ride?'"

Our destination was not too far from home - Smith Park in Middletown.  While I am not sure of the significance, the letterboxer - dubbed 'chthiker' - that placed the three boxes along the trail had the theme of 'building a concrete mixer' for the boxes.  As you walk the trail and find the three boxes, the stamps all work together to create a picture of a cement truck. 
It was a fairly short walk, but it was a really nice trail that led around a small pond.  While we were on the trail - well away from the park - we let Ginger off-leash.  The girls, my daughters and their friend - ran ahead of my wife and I.  Ginger had a blast running at top speed between both groups.  At one point, there was a small side trail that led directly to the pond (that was really green due to the overgrowth of plants - fortunately not algae).  The girls got to the edge of the pond first with Ginger racing along behind them.  Well...not being able to detect the edge of the pond, Ginger ran full speed into it!  SPLASH!  She immediately did an about-face and got back on the land.  It was too funny!  Thankfully, we hadn't yet made it to the third box at this point, so she had some time to dry off before we were ready to head home.  We also let the girls spend a little time on the playground in the park after we finished our trek.  When we got home, it was time to give Ginger a bath (hence the title - my homage to AC/DC's Givin' the Dog a Bone).  She absolutely hates it, but even before today's dunk in the pond she was in need of one.

Not wanting to end our outside adventures, we decided to head to Lyman's Orchard and do some apple picking (and whatever fruit we might be able to pick).  Lyman's is a wonderful place to go to spend a few hours or more.  They have a corn maze to navigate, the Apple Barrel store where they sell all of the fruit they grow (for those not wanting to pick their own) among other things, a golf course, and quite a few pick-your-own groves.  Our target was apples but pears, pumpkins, and peaches were also able to be picked.  We spent some time picking gala and ginger gold apples.  The raspberry patch was right near where we were picking apples, so we diverted through there on the way to pay for our apples.  No luck, though...it was really picked over.  Victoria wanted to find some pears, so we hopped in the car and headed to the pear grove.  Rae and I decided to let Victoria and Tatyana go on their own adventure, so we sat down on top of a hill with an absolutely amazing view while the girls went off pear hunting.  They came back empty handed, though.  Of the two varieties of pears available, they didn't like the taste of the 'brown pears' and they couldn't find any of the other ones.  I can only guess that the brown pears were bosc pears...  Our plan was then to go to the Apple Barrel and buy lunch at their deli.  The line was way to long, so we ended up getting a couple of things to snack on.  We all pretty much had our fill on apples, so we really weren't all that hungry anyway.  We took our 'lunch' to another park right near Lyman's and spent some time there before heading home.

Having mentioned Ginger, I wanted to share another VidaCell testimonial with you...

About a year ago, Ginger began favoring her back leg.  At times, she just didn't want to put any weight on it.  There was no real pattern to when she would and wouldn't do it, though.  We took her to the vet and had her checked out.  They told us that she had a luxating patella.  Essentially, this meant that her kneecap would pop out of the groove that it rode in.  While it didn't really cause any pain, it made it difficult for her knee to bend properly.  This is fairly common to small breeds - which she really isn't 'small' - and the only fix for it is surgery.  We obviously couldn't just shell out the $2,700 for the surgery and they told us that it wasn't really an emergency and that we could schedule it once we had the money.
I had already been adding Omega-3s to Ginger's food in the morning to help with any inflammation that she might have had.  After the diagnosis, I decided to try VidaCell with her, too.  I didn't use a whole packet for her as she only weighs 40 pounds.  Rather, I would just split the packet I was using with her.  I would sprinkle just a small amount on her food, moisten it,  and add the Omega-3.
After about a week or two, her limping became less pronounced.  Not too many weeks later, it completely went away.  We took her in for a follow-up visit with the vet.  He was amazed at her recovery.  Surgery was no longer required.

Went away (from blogging) for a while, but now I am back.

For the last month - and then some! - I just haven't posted any new information here.  It isn't because I have lost interest in blogging about my experience with The Maker's Diet, but rather it is because there just hasn't been anything new to report on.  I have pretty much settled in to the eating habits and have not varied my food choices very much.  I have revisited the 'egg fast' as I described in an earlier post, Eating on less than $3.00 per day, several times over the last month.  I am also still keeping to an average of one slice of Ezekiel 4:9 bread per day.  About the only change has resulted from my continuing effort to find better options for the foods that I eat.  I have been able to upgrade quite a few of the foods - cage free eggs and grass fed beef, specifically.

One thing that has changed for the better is the addition of 'quinoa' to my diet.  I have been hearing about this 'grain' for a while, but I balked at the price in the store as it is not terribly inexpensive.  Oddly enough, I finally decided to buy some when I was shopping at It's Only Natural the other day.  What is odd is that It's Only Natural is not the place to shop when looking for low prices yet they had quinoa in their bulk section that was priced comparable to other stores.  The truly nice thing was that I could buy only as much as I wanted.

Pretty much every reference that I could find to preparing quinoa called for it to be soaked prior to cooking.  Most called for it to be soaked for a minimum of two hours.  Nourishing Traditions has only one recipe that I could find that included quinoa.  This recipe called for the quinoa to be soaked in a solution of filtered water and yogurt for at least 12 hours.  Having never prepared quinoa before, I opted for the longer soak.  So, last night I started soaking the quinoa.  I used 1/2 cup of the dry quinoa in a solution of 1 cup of water with 1 tablespoon of plain yogurt.
Today, I rinsed the quinoa and set it to boil in 1 cup of fresh, filtered water with a teaspoon of soy sauce.  After bringing it to a boil, I turned down the heat to a simmer and added some peas, onion, and green pepper to the mix.  It seems that I should have cut down on the water a little bit because it took quite some time for it to cook off.  At any rate, I am happy to say that it turned out great!  I think that I have found my new favorite side dish.  As it is prepared similarly to rice, it can easily be substituted for - or blended with - rice to provide some variety.

According to NutritionData.com, one serving (one cup, cooked) of quinoa has:

• 4g of fat
• 39g of carbohydrate 
• 5g of fiber
• 8g of protein.

Compare this to a one cup serving of medium-grain brown rice at:

• 2g of fat
• 46g of carbohydrate 
• 4g of fiber
• 5g of protein.

In addition to buying the quinoa at It's Only Natural, I also bought two other Ezekiel 4:9 products; the Ezekiel 4:9 tortillas and the Genesis 1:29 English muffins.  These give me a little variety over just the bread.

Well, tomorrow morning I intend to start my day with a hot quinoa 'cereal' for breakfast.  I put 1/2 cup of dried quinoa in filtered water to soak overnight.  Tomorrow, I will prepare it with raisins, cinnamon, and some raw honey.  Rather than preparing it separately, I will add my VidaCell to the mix.  I am really looking forward to breakfast!

Happy Spring Day!

Today is the first day of spring and it is absolutely amazing weather!

It is also my birthday, today.  I had set a goal for myself to be down to 250 lbs. though my nutrition plan is not focused on weight loss.  Since I have started on The Maker's Diet, I have been losing weight at a fairly regular pace.  I figured that I might as well set a goal for myself.  When I set the goal, 250 lbs. seemed like a reachable goal, though not too simple.
Well, I haven't weighed myself yet.  I honestly don't think that I have made it to that goal and I don't really care that much.  I suppose that if weight loss were my primary reason for following the diet, I would be a little more anxious about it.  Depending on how the day unfolds - if I have the time - I may get around to weighing myself to see how close I came to my goal.

It has been a busy day, already.  This morning, I made French Toast again.  I used the Ezekiel 4:9 bread for mine, but for everyone else I bought a loaf of Texas Toast at Trader Joe's yesterday.  I think my cast iron skillet is finally seasoned properly.  I had no issues with the egg sticking to it at all.
After breakfast, we drove down to Deerfield Farm to buy some more milk.  On the way back, I went into It's Only Natural.  I have been wanting to pick up a mortar and pestle so that I can grind my own spices and It's Only Natural has a decent selection to choose from.  I also picked up a few other things - like Ezekiel 4:9 cinnamon raisin cereal! (This link is to the almond variety, but they don't seem to have the cinnamon raisin on their website)  I am looking forward to trying this cereal out.  It is a little pricey ($4.99 per box at I.O.N.) so I am sure that I will be using it only sparingly.  It will be nice to have something to eat that is easily and quickly prepared (get bowl, pour cereal, add milk, eat!) - not to mention easy clean-up - when I just don't have the motivation to cook a meal.

After arriving home, I washed my newly acquired mortar and pestle and started preparing some Crispy Almonds.  The almonds need to soak in filtered water and sea salt for 12 hours before being transferred to my food dehydrator.  I liked the way they tasted when I added granulated garlic to the soaking solution, so I did that again.

For lunch - not being terribly hungry - I ate a RAW Revolution Coconut and Agave bar and an apple.  Stop & Shop has three varieties of the RAW Revolution bars and they put them on sale for 3/$4.00.  I figured I would at least give it a try.  It was good, but it is not something that I will be eating too often (if at all).  I really like what they have to say about food, though.  From their website: "Raw, living foods are clean, and have higher nutrient content than cooked food. Processed foods such as protein isolates and grain based fillers are acidic and cause fermentation in the body. Raw Organic foods are closest to their natural state, bringing us closer to healing ourselves and the global ecology."  The bars are gluten free, vegan, wheat free, corn free, soy free, as well as being trans-fat, cholesterol and refined sugar free.  Personally, I am not concerned with gluten or cholesterol.  I have long been of the belief that dietary cholesterol is not the villain that it has been made out to be and while many people have issues with wheat gluten, I do not.  I also think that issues with gluten and lactose are more a result of the processing flour and milk undergo than any sort of inherent allergy - but that is a soapbox for a different day.

As I write this entry, I am sitting outside in the late-afternoon sun typing on my laptop.  My kids are playing with the neighbors, my wife is reading a book, and our dog is alternating between trying to make sure that she knows where everybody is and curling up at my feet.  The mail arrived a while ago and included were the tickets I bought to the New Britain Rock Cats games for the family as a Christmas present.  My older daughter announced that - in celebration of MY birthday - she is buying pizza dinner for the family (so I can't eat the pizza, but the thought is there).

All in all, a pretty good day!

Life is just a candle, and a dream must give it flame.

The title of this post is from a song by Rush from their Caress of Steel album, The Fountains of Lamneth.  This is definitely a thought-provoking line.

Well, the weather has returned to being amazing after several cold, overcast, rainy days.  The girls are all busy with their homeschool co-op today, so I decided to capitalize on the weather and take Ginger for a walk on the trail.  I did the now-usual walk to the bridge and turned around to come home.  For some reason, Ginger was really anxious and pretty much tried to pull me home once we started to head back.  I really hope that by taking her out for walks we can both benefit - me by getting the much needed physical activity and her by growing accustomed to the walks and not being so anxious all the time.


I haven't used the Wii Fit Plus for almost a week, now.  This is partially due to a lack of motivation to do so but it is more due to the fact that I just haven't had much of an opportunity over the last week.  The girls had a 4H event on Saturday and that took the whole day.  Additionally, I just wasn't feeling too great which is probably what led to my lack of motivation.

We need to go grocery shopping soon.  I am running low on milk and I am out of yogurt among other things.  So, today for dinner I made French Toast!  You know what is really odd about French Toast?  It is neither French nor toast.  Bread dipped in egg and fried in a skillet.  For my French Toast, I used Ezekiel 4:9 bread and cage free eggs along with a little 100% pure organic maple syrup.  I used 2 slices of bread instead of only one.  Finding the cheaper price on it at Trader Joe's makes it a little easier to use more than one slice, though I am still trying to keep to an average of 1 per day.

Window shopping...in a grocery store?!?

Today, we decided to visit our closest Trader Joe's grocery store.  It is 12 miles away in West Hartford, CT and only minutes away from where we attend church in New Britain.  We had already done our grocery shopping for the week, but I wanted to at least see what they had to offer and at what prices they offered it.  We had been to Trader Joe's on occasion, but never with The Maker's Diet in mind.  This time around, I was looking specifically for grass-fed beef, free range chicken, and anything that featured sprouted grains.

My mission was quite a success!  Trader Joe's has a selection of beef that is labeled as free range but not specifically grass-fed.  They also have one offering that is grass-fed though it is only offered as ground beef.  I didn't look too closely at the free range beef prices as I am mostly interested in the grass-fed option.  They sell this in 1 pound packages at $5.99 each.  Sure, this is more expensive than other options, but as long as I keep it to an occasional 'indulgence' and reasonable portion sizes, I should be fine with the expense.

I was also pleased to find that that have a decent selection of free range chicken, though I was a little less than pleased by the prices.  I am not used to chicken being more expensive than beef!  Sadly, the free range chicken will be more of an indulgence than beef due to the expense.  I will probably buy some once in a while.

One of the more pleasing discoveries was that Trader Joe's carries Ezekiel 4:9 bread and they sell it for $3.99 per loaf - that's $1.70 less than what It's Only Natural sells it for.  They have both the regular and the cinnamon raisin varieties, but they did not have any of the Genesis 1:29 bread.  I am not sure if this is simply an issue of it being out of stock or if they just don't carry it, but I am happy with the Ezekiel 4:9 bread.

Trader Joe's - at least our 'local' one - is not quite as complete as other grocery stores.  For instance, they do not have a full service deli.  As such, we will not be able to rely solely on Trader Joe's for all of our food needs.  Overall, though, we were quite happy with what we found.  It was interesting to discover that quite a few of the options were actually less expensive than what we normally buy.  I found frozen, organic raspberries like I buy at Stop & Shop to add to yogurt.  Trader Joe's had them for about $2.30 less for the same quantity.  I just wish that they were a lot closer - though 12 miles doesn't seem like a great distance, it is not terribly convenient.  We can easily go shopping after church on Sunday given that we are already nearby, but one thing that turned me off was that the store was really crowded.  I felt like I was in the way of other customers.  I have to admit, though, that even in the chaos the employees were very cheerful and helpful.