So….you want to lose weight? Well…you’ve got to change your mind first!

Over these years (and years) of thinking about weight issues, studying nutrition, food, body image and diets….I have met many people who are unhappy with their weight. And I was often amongst them.

Then, I changed my lifestyle and my diet…a few years later I started incorporating fasting into my regimen as well and the rest is history. Or is it?

Since then I have found my biggest struggle is still with these patterns, habits and tendencies – that all exist in my mind! Our minds really are the majority when it comes to overcoming any negative patterns in an effort to create new ones.

Of course, as a Clinical Nutritionist, I also know that each cell in my body contributes to my overall mind (mood, emotions, intuition, thoughts etc.). Everything works together inside and outside – with each system and function forwarding something towards the whole being….

My gut is as much involved with creating my thoughts as my brain is. And this includes what I think about my body, my food – and especially 'what I am thinking (about my body/food) when I am eating it'.

Fasting has allowed me to explore my mind (through my body) in a new and realistic way. By going into these new places and spaces, I have found and made the deeper connections to weight, body image, eating and food.

If I have found out anything over these past few years….it’s this; to lose weight permanently, you have to re-build your mind from the inside out. This entails diet changes (food, fast and feast), exercise, emotional work (getting at the patterns) and for me, making the important spiritual connections with the food I eat.

Not one part of this is complicated, in fact having food days, fasting days and feast days has made my life so much simpler and easy to manage. It also allows me to have control over my mind (approach to food) in a new way.

Changing your mind about food involves eating the foods that assist in this process as well….we need to choose (and make) food that not only nourish our bodies, but also help to reset our body metabolism.

I have found many of these to be fermented foods as well as quality proteins…and for me, my diet consists of homemade, home grown, free range, wild harvested and organic produce as much as possible.

You are so much more then what you eat….you are the energy of the food you eat. Change that energy to something better (raise the vibration) and you do the same with your body and your mind.

April

 

A Heavenly Treat....Homemade Apple & Cinnamon Goats Yogurt

I tried my hand at making my own yogurt this past week and it turned out fairly well….of course it’s goats yogurt, which I think is superior in both taste and nutrition – and it’s so easy to work with.

To be honest with you, we spent so many years as vegans and vegetarians, that even now with our own goats I often forget about milk and we almost never eat yogurt…

I make a little cheese each week with our milk and the rest is used for dandelion coffee at the weekends. That’s about it for the milk – of course the children have about a tablespoon in their porridge in the morning.

However, whenever I read up on the fine art of cheese making I always came across advice and recipes for yogurt….

So, I thought I might as well learn how to do this as well! What I did though to make the first batch easier and to try to learn how our milk would respond to a yogurt culture – is buy a goats yogurt and use this to ‘seed’ another batch using our own milk.

First of all, I am using raw milk which has it’s own bacteria and life process taking place. I have found I am learning more about how our milk responds to being processed into cheese every time I make it….(the cultures and rennet).

And I only have small amounts of milk to play with each day, so I have to pay careful attention to what I am doing if I want to learn anything here. LOL

I used about a litre of milk, which I warmed to room temperature. Then taking 1 generous tablespoon of the purchased yogurt, I stirred a little into some of my milk. This was then poured into entire jar and shaken very well.

I didn’t want to sit around and stir, heat or otherwise stand over a pot ‘cooking’ something that, to me, should be a natural process. Yet, I knew the milk now needed heat in order to curdle into yogurt (grow the mesophilic bacteria).

So, to provide a relatively steady supply of gentle heat, I placed the jar into a small bowl and filled the bowl with hot water. This was replaced every few hours and the jar contents were swirled around or gently agitated.

It was starting to thicken after a few hours…then it was left overnight (in the oven to act as an insulator) while the next morning another bowl of hot water was filled.

Pretty soon I had yogurt. No real fuss. Nothing fancy and virtually no equipment was needed. When I think about it….this is gentle food at it’s finest. Homemade yogurt is a little thinner then the shop bought stuff….but the taste is very nice!

For our yogurt treat, I stewed apples and cinnamon and mixed this into the yogurt….heavenly!

April

Apple & Cinnamon Goats Yogurt

Down a New Road....Still Wild Foraging Food

I haven’t really been cooking much of anything (new that is) these days…I’ve been very busy with the garden and farm work….all of these animals need tending as well as planting and weeding to be done.

Most evenings I have been exhausted and kept thinking I am too tired to write…but here I am, today making some more cheese for the weekend, with a pot of goat stew in the slow cooker and have made 6 jars of jam with all the dried berries left over from the winter.

That’s on top of the farm work LOL! And I think I am not doing much of anything….

One update I wanted to make is how after nearly 3 weeks we still haven’t bought any vegetables other then 2 bags of onions and a few carrots. Not so long ago this would have been unheard of for me….I would never have thought I could get by with just the greens growing around me.

But, I am and we are! I have made soups, stews, pesto, stir-fries, casseroles and what ever I can think of using just the wild greens in the fields and things that are growing in my own garden.

And we have more then enough to eat. Of course I combine these with fish, meat, beans, lentils, couscous and rice to create a different dish for every meal. They are all quite versatile and I know we are getting an abundance of vitamins and minerals like nothing else.

I actually think it has taken me this long to notice how I am feeling on this diet of mainly greens from the fields and our own milk, eggs, meat, cheese, garden greens, herbs and so forth. To say I am more in tune would be an understatement….

Its as if I am in charge. I can feel my gut changing, my outlook and thinking is less clouded. I actually feel more like myself right now then ever before in my entire life on this planet.

I know it’s because my food is nearly fully ‘mine’ – produced or made or grown or harvested by me. When I started this experiment over a year ago (make every effort to no longer buy finished products of ANYTHING) I knew I would feel better.

But right now, I guess I had no idea how much better and what other changes this line of thinking would bring…I can look back now and see how my new lifestyle in terms of eating has taken me down quite different paths then what I had been expecting.

Stay tuned, this is only going to get more interesting!

April

Duck and Guinea Fowl Eggs

Lessons in Cheese Making....Let Nature Get Involved

Sometimes we don’t plan on creating a masterpiece…it just appears out of nowhere, as if the conditions are ripe for it. This word (masterpiece) is not used lightly either….I am seriously pleased with myself!

During the past week I had saved up my 3 liters of milk from our goats with the grand plan to make some cheese for the weekend. One morning I proceeded to take it out of the fridge and then forgot all about it until late that night….

Because I was going to make cheese with it, I just left it out and thought I would get it sorted the next morning. It’s been busy this past week or so with the garden, goats and market - and you know how time just slips by.

So, the next morning, I got the milk into a pot and inoculated it with the bacteria (once it was at the right temperature) and then waited and waited and waited…until another 24 hours had passed and nothing.

The milk did not curdle into curds and whey. But by this time it was starting to thicken and go a bit sour….so I thought, oh well….just throw some rennet in there and hope for the best?

That is exactly what I did. Only I added such a tiny amount of rennet (because less is always more for me!) it might or might not work to separate the milk into curds and whey…..

After about 5 or 6 hours I checked the pot and I had a nicely formed thickish yogurt like curd. I had read somewhere that this might make a nice cheese…so I scooped it out and let the whey drain off for a few more hours.

Even as I was scooping it out – I was thinking how I liked the texture of this and it smelled wonderful! I let the liquid whey drain out for the next few hours or so and then placed the cheese into a dish, salted it and as an after thought, added some cranberries….

24 hours later, we tasted it – the best cheese I have made so far! It has a lovely texture, wonderful flavour and is better then anything I have ever bought from a shop.

Lesson for me here….let nature get involved….don’t push things because we are running short on time or want to hurry things along. The milk had already grown it’s own bacterial culture, adding the few grains of rennet just gave it a little boost and voila –

Beautiful cheese!!

April

Homemade Chevre on wholegrain toast....Yumm!

Feeling Stuck? Fasting to get moving again....

The best way to get things moving in your life – body, mind and spirit – is to get them moving in your body. Of course one of the most efficient ways to do that is to fast….

Just ask me, I have done so many over the years and it really works.

One of the questions I get asked a lot is – what exactly is a fast and what do I eat/drink/take/do while I am fasting? You would think the answer to that is quite simple – and it is in a way.

However…it all depends on what kind of a fast you want to do and that depends on what you would like to accomplish during your time spent detoxing and cleansing.

In one way, they all accomplish the same or similar thing…a fast of any sort will move you to new ground. And for me, the most important thing about movement is to also find myself on higher ground.

Right now I am fasting…I will do a few days on only water and some herbal teas (which is basically water with nature thrown in). But, in the past I have done juice fasts, Master Cleanses, herbal tea fasts, liquid only fasts, ….you name it, I have done it.

I guess I have progressed over the years to wanting something really simple and clear when I am fasting. So, for me – water is it. Can’t get any clearer, simpler or easier then that.

The purpose of my fasting is to clear out the debris – to continue the process of unblocking, unlocking and restructuring my energy field. Which in turn transforms my body, mind and ultimately my life.

If you haven’t yet done a fast…start out slowly – try 12 hours on herbal teas, water or light juices (homemade of course!). I guarantee you will feel better, more in control, grounded and almost certainly less stuck or blocked.

Go ahead, start a fast today and see where it takes you.

April

WIld Garlic & Guinea Fowl Soup....Taste of Spring!

I am trying to think of how I am feeling right now after nearly an entire week of only eating greens from the hedgerows, the back fields, the forest floor and my little garden….

Most of what we have eaten are wild garlic (it’s in season right now) dandelion, nettle and the few little shoots coming up in the garden early in spring. We are getting some kale, sprouting broccoli, lots of fresh herbs such as parsley and lovage as well as some spring onion and a few small leeks.

Overall it is a very green diet! It compliments meat and fish wonderfully though and hardly even needs any other 'tastes' to go along with it. And of course, I am still wondering about all of this eating seasonally…

The starchy vegetables such as carrots, turnip, sweet potatoes and pumpkins are not available this time of year (unless forced to grow in hot houses) and from other places on the planet….so perhaps we might enjoy them later in the year.

Keeping this in mind (eating seasonally) maybe our guts do far better during the spring eating mainly greens as our main type of vegetable and less (or none) of the winter vegetables.

I know I certainly feel lighter in myself.

What is more though, is that I also feel as if I am far more in touch with the earth and her specific energy. What has changed or altered for me a little more is that I simply want to be outside….and it’s as if I am exploring the surroundings for the first time.

Again and again....with each year that passes I am learning or understanding nature more deeply. 

Today I made a Wild Garlic & Guinea Fowl stew….I placed an entire guinea fowl in the slow cooker with some lard from goat meat and water…then added in about 3 cups of chopped wild garlic, sage, salt and pepper.

This was on low for several hours until the meat was falling off the bones and very tender. I removed the meat from the bones and put it all back into the pot. But then added some brown lentils, nettle and a few dandelion leaves….oh and an onion!

This all cooked together for another half an hour…it is so simple – pure flavour and delicious! 

April

Wild Garlic & Guinea Fowl Stew

Wild Harvest - Wild Nutrition

I am in the middle of my holiday weekend – foraging for all our vegetables and I have noticed something quite interesting already….I just wanted to write this down as I am feeling/going through it (if you know what I mean!).

Some of you might be able to relate to this – or perhaps even all of you, so here goes…you know how after you eat a meal (even a big, satisfying one) and then you just want something sweet to go along with that?

Sometimes that need to have something sweet to top things off, so to speak, can drive you crazy – it did me. And it wasn’t necessarily something big…just a date or a fig (I have long since given up sugar and chocolate) but the ‘need’ to have it was there.

Well…I have noticed this before, but thought it was merely a coincidence but now I am certain it is not; When I eat a meal with lots of wild harvested vegetables such as today…the cravings for something sweet vanish.

It was a few hours later after my breakfast, of our own goose eggs, our own cheese, with our own milk, wild harvested nettle, dandelion and wild garlic – all made into a lovely omlette – that I realized I craved nothing….

For hours and hours afterwards I felt pleasantly ‘satisfied’ is the only word I can use here. And it was a marked difference to how I normally feel after eating any meal. Actually I did not even think about food for a few hours (and that in itself is strange for me!).

Of course, I have been mulling this over in my mind to see what my intuition would say about it and relate how I am feeling to my body, my digestion and the food I have been eating. There are quite a few interesting threads to follow here and I plan on looking at them all. But in the meantime....

This might have something to do with the amount of nutrients (would be very high) contained in the wild harvested vegetables….perhaps throughout the many generations of cultivation we have not done ourselves any favours with regards to retaining the plants as nature intended….

It has certainly given me food for thought and my weekend is not over yet! LOL

To keep some of the spring wild garlic for longer periods of time...I gathered about 500g of wild garlic, washed and chopped it into a food processor. Then added in about 500ml olive oil and 1 tablespoon sea salt. This was blended for a few minutes to mix thoroughly and then poured into sterilized Kilner jars.

I topped up each jar with a layer of oil and am hoping to use it over the coming months for just about everything! LOL

April

Wild Garlic in olive oil - ready for the winter months...

Spirit Of Nature – Wild Food Foraging

This spring (and most springs) I do my best to use the local, fresh wild foods growing around me – it’s one of the main reasons I choose to live in the country. There is an abundance of clean water as well as lots to harvest at any time of the year.

This weekend is the May Day holiday – for me it has been celebrated already with a fire ceremony on Wednesday – but the weekend will be nice too. The way I am choosing to honour the spirit of this month of Bealtaine this year is to….

Bring more of the Spirit of Nature back into our bodies – and I plan on doing this by completely wild foraging our greens for the next few days. I actually have next to no vegetables in the house right now and will not be buying anything…..

They are over-rated anyway!!! LOL But, I am quite serious here….

So….as you may have guessed, I have been foraging quite a bit already this spring. Finding nearly anything and everything that is edible around me (nettle, dandelion, wild garlic, sorrel) – both in my garden as well as growing wild.

I am now hoping to take this a little bit further afield so to speak – and see what else I can find close by that will fit nicely with our meat or fish over these coming days.

Basically the challenge is to find enough greens (wild) to accompany meals for 4 people, 2 dogs and one ‘I’ll try anything once’ (just once) cat. The rest of the animals are already great at foraging out in the back garden…

Besides, the birds do it – and they manage. You can even raise a fully grown horse on grass and pasture…so at the very least, we should be able to find enough for a few days to supplement our meals, and make a tasty diversion!

Either way… eating like this has got me thinking (once again!) about this entire vegetable growing/eating, get your 5-a-day mentality. If we were eating wild harvest, even some of the time – you don’t need 5-a-day….

These plants are so rich and abundant in minerals, vitamins, phytonutrients, energy and spirit – we hardly need anything else. It’s no wonder we are all so depleted – eating vegetables and fruits grown in hot houses, under plastic, and devoid of nature is not, well, natural.

Our guts are not designed for that kind of lifeless food (it’s not really living is it?) and our tissues are waiting in hope for something real, natural and wild. This leaves a whole lot to consider with regards to this supermarket lifestyle we are encouraged to follow…

April

Does she look like she is smiling to you?? Me too!!

All We Need Is....Bread!

I haven’t been doing much in the way of cooking these days…I’ve been baking bread. A little bit obsessive I know – but with good reason I might add – I have been perfecting my wild yeast culture as well as my sourdough culture…

And it is pretty well – perfect! I just love the taste of the bread but more then that I really like the ‘feel’ of it when I am working with it – kneading it, the pulling and stretching as well as the mixing.

It just doesn’t compare to how bread feels when I have used commercial yeast. This feeling is the first thing I noticed about the dough when I first mixed it – it just felt so different in my hands.

Wild yeast gives the bread a softness and a lightness not found anywhere else and I just know it must also impart far more flavour (it tastes so good!) and along with that the vitamins and minerals that come from fermented grains.

This week I have been playing around with the culture – using different types of flours as well as varying the length of time I have let the dough rise (and rise again). Mostly I have treated it a bit like a sourdough giving it lots of time to develop.

As of right now I have 3 different breads on the go – one in the oven while the other two are at different stages of fermentation. Each one is completely unique in it’s flavour and texture when done but so delicious.

Who’d of thought that bread could be this easy to make, yeast this easy to grow and the taste so superior? And I couldn’t be happier! LOL

 April