Why Eat Organic? Food Consciousness....

Over the years I have been one of those people who have insisted on sourcing and eating organic food as much as humanly possible. And my body has thanked me for it. I know it has made a difference in my health, my life and it a far better choice of food for my children. 

Yet....

Every now and then I see in the media (or mass-mis-information system) how there is either little difference between organic and non-organic foods, some study or piece of research will pronounce how little health benefits there are to be gained and any other negativity they can send forth.

So, why do I intuitively feel better mentally, physically and spiritually when I eat organic foods, grow my own as much as possible and enter the entire scene of rising food consciousness? Perhaps there are a few reasons and each of them very important.

One of the most important things I see in my own life, is how because I am seeking out organic vegetables and fruits I am far more involved in where my food comes from. I speak (in many instances) to those who grow it and I ask where it is from - choosing Irish grown when available.

It also means I frequent local farmers markets and some local farms who produce some vegetables of their own. Leading on from there, I then also require seeds compatible with my region (and also locally grown) for encouraging a few plants to come through the soil in my own garden.

Yet, this is not all - over these many years of eating only organic, natural and back garden sources of food - my palate has become far more discerning and sensitive. I remember a few years ago having wanted grapes so badly at Christmas time, being unable to find organic ones (it must have been one of those years) we ended up with 'ordinary' grapes from a supermarket.

Our tongues burned after eating one grape and they were quickly abandoned to the compost heap. At the time it left us wondering what we had been eating all those years which was now missing from our food - and how toxic was it!

This is just the tip of an iceberg for me here - I could go on about organic foods. Especially when it comes to re-esestablishing a connection with your food, spiritual and otherwise. There is just no comparison to eating foods produced with care and thought given to the soil, the local area, the plants themselves and most of all health benefits of the consumer.

This alone completes the cycle of sustainability - when we look after our environment, feed our bodies well, nourish our minds and spirits - they take care of us. 

April

It's a little snow day in West Cork! 

You Are the Key to Change....

Right about this time many people are either just beginning their New Years resolutions made about their health, eating and lifestyle or feeling ready to give up after only a few short days. It's a tough thing to do - especially if you have not done anything to work with your mind.

Including your mind in the process of any changes you make ensures a higher degree of success. Once I started to figure that out for myself, my own life changed in many positive and eventful ways. But, it also meant one of the biggest things in my current life.....

I had to start accepting responsibility for what I was doing, what I was eating, how I was choosing to live and then work at making changes accordingly. It also meant I had to be big enough to let things, people, relationships and negative patterns go when necessary.

I guess the most important thing I would say to anyone who has made a positive change in the New Year and who is wavering or to someone who is about to embark on a new path - do not give up easily. There will be times when you feel down, deprived, moody (and whatever else) - however, most of this will be coming from a fractured mind...

Your mind has been overly influenced by years of toxins, rubbish food, machine made meals, chemical water, antibiotics, medication and whateverelse they can throw at us. We have been breathing it in, eating it, drinking it, walking in it and bathing in it.

Now, it is going to take some time to break through these chains that bind and tether your mind to the mass consciousness (I call it the over mind) and hold you in this negative pattern of eating, thinking and believing. 

Don't be easily pushed down. Do not give up without a fight. Press on - the only thing you have to lose is - fear of change. You have absolutely everything to gain.

You are the key....

April

There is a rainbow - always!

A Little Horse Sense....But in a Burger?

Well - this is an interesting development - horse and pork found in with the beef burgers...and God knows what else. It's funny, I stopped eating these things many years ago for these very reasons. However, since I left the meat industry it was supposed to have changed for the better.

So, this can be put down to something quite simple really - you cannot trust the food (nothing prepared especially) or the water (who knows what is in that!) and we all really should be growing, raising and preparing as much of our own foods as possible.

A few days ago I wrote an article called 'Cheap Food for Slaves' - this situation is exactly what I was referring to. Us poor working slobs, those at the lower end of the food chain - can eat what is left over after the cream has been picked clean.

This situation doesn't have to exist at all. If we trust ourselves, take the time and make any effort at all, we can eat like kings and queens each and every day. How? Well, set yourself up with a few seeds, get a few pots or some land, if you have a garden perhaps some ducks, a goose, some turkeys or a goat.

Or, share with a family member, a neighbor and so forth. Next, buy your fruit and vegetables local, in season, organic if you can and at your farmers market. When apples are a good price buy enough to make extra pots of jam (canning is so easy!). 

The only difficult part of any of this is getting over the resistance (it's a mindset) and some strange belief that food comes from a shop and not from our own hands. Another obstacle is this food won't taste as nice or it's too much trouble.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, it's so easy to make and can (in jars) jam that I am doing it nearly every other week with left over fruit. My left over veggies? Before they go off I make a big pot of stew and store any extras in the freezer.

All it takes is a little determination and you will exit the food grid that has been feeding us lies, rubbish and anything, but what it says on the label, apparently.

April

Lemon & Butter Scones - delightful with a cup of herbal tea...

Goat and Root Vegetable Stew....An Adventure in Cooking!

Off on another tangent today --- I am cooking goat meat! I never would have thought about eating goat, actually come to think of it, I must have tasted kid when I lived in Toronto years ago, however, I certainly haven't gone looking for it since then.

Until I had an opportunity to get some, that it and so this is it - I personally won't get to taste it today because I am still on my Master Cleanse, but I will put some in the freezer for when I am done. It smells and looks very interesting so far...

Apparently goat meat tastes a lot like a cross between lamb and beef, but is very lean, and not gamey like lamb can sometimes be. It is also considered a low in fat meat which will not raise cholesterol (not an issue here but..) or give any of the other nasty side effects.

There are so many ways to cook goat meat too - when I did a little bit of research I came across tons of recipes, ideas on how others eat it and was surprised so many people out there ARE eating it. Actually, it is considered the most widely consumed meat in the world.

I think it's only in these western countries where people are stuck on beef and chicken or chicken and beef! 

To cook the goat meat I decided to do another crock pot meal to be on the safe side as I have never cooked this before. But even as I was putting it into the pan to brown, it seemed so much like lamb I probably could have done anything with it.

I browned the floured stew meat in a little olive oil, onion and garlic and then added it to 2 cups of boiling water along with several cups of chopped root vegetables. Today I had a huge celeriac to use up so that is what makes up the bulk of the stew.

Next I placed in generous teaspoons of cumin, ground coriander, turmeric, a little cinnamon, bay leaves, thyme, sea salt and pepper and the juice of a lime. After it had been cooking on high for about an hour I turned it down to a low heat setting - and it has been stewing away now for several hours. 

So far the meat looks tender, the stew smells great and I can't wait to taste some once this cleanse is done...very interesting day altogether! 

April

Looks and smells divine!

Guinea Fowl - Crock Pot Recipe

Today I have been cooking a guinea fowl in the crock pot - mainly to see how it turns out but also in the hope of creating a new dish for us to all try. Although it is years since I have cooked one - it all comes back fairly quickly!

A guinea fowl is not like a chicken in that it is closer to it's wild cousins, has a completely different attitude and outlook on life and it's actually a useful animal. I remember them on the farm years ago, where they would behave like watch dogs alerting us to any foxes or strange goings-on.

Because they are very lean they also make a great addition to your Pagan Diet as well as give some other flavours and tastes in meals where you might have used chicken. Although the meat is mostly darker than domestic birds, it is far tastier.

I decided to cook this guinea fowl in the slow cooker in order to get the best flavour but also to ensure it wasn't tough in any way. I started out my adventure with 1 tablespoon of butter melting on the wood stove, then stirred in 1 tablespoon of spelt flour.

Next I added 1/4 cup of water to the butter mixture and kept stirring until it was all uniform looking. I placed this aside and prepared the bird for the crock pot. To do this I just washed and salted it inside and out and placed it on the bottom of the pot in 1 cup of boiling water.

Then I added the butter mixture and 1/4 cup of olive oil over top of the bird. Next I sprinkled 1 teaspoon each of dried sage and thyme and a few grains of ground black pepper. The slow cooker was on a high heat setting - this was left for the next 2 hours or so and then turned down to low.

Every hour I carefully basted the entire bird inside and out with the liquid in the bottom of the cooker and left it to simmer for another 3 hours. Once the meat was falling off the bones (each bird might be different depending on age and size) I turned it off to let it cool.

Now, there is lovely cooked guinea fowl meat for sandwiches, casserole, soup or stew or for just picking! My taste testers loved it added in to their chilli....

April

Guinea Fowl roasting in the crock pot

Venison Cassoulet

I might as well refer to this dish as accidental Venison Cassoulet, because I never intended to make a cassoulet when the day started. However, I did have a bowl of beans soaked and ready to cook, some veggies that needed to be used and most of the meat in the house right now is wild game...

So, at the beginning of my day, I wanted to make a favourite around here - baked beans. I started out making a veggie sauce in the slow cooker while I cooked the haricot beans in some seaweed. My bean sauce is night shade free - as these interfere with spirituality and contain toxins.

However, I still make a great tasting sauce using a base of beet root, carrots, sweet potatoes, herbs (and a few others on this particular day that needed to be used up!). Once the sauce was made, and the beans were cooked I combined these into crock pots and slow roasted them in the oven with a little cloves and bay leaves. 

The beans came out smelling and looking great - the kids ate them, the dogs and cat had some - but there was still a crock pot left over! I was cooking a venison roast for another as yet undetermined dish and had the bright idea of just cutting up this nicely done piece of meat (it was slow roasted with shallots, garlic, leeks, onion, broccoli and honey mustard marinade) and adding it to the beans.

Once I put the now several large pieces of meat and vegetables into the pot of beans and sauce - it closely resembled and smelled very much like a wild game cassoulet... which is a very hearty meal for this time of year.

This is a dish I will definitely be making again and can't wait to try it when I finish my cleanse...

April

Crock Pot of Baked beans

'Cheap Food For Slaves'

These weeks and days post New Years are usually the time of new beginnings and change - well perhaps none need to be more understood and changed then the food we  are buying and eating. I have long wondered about the specific reasons behind all of this rubbish foods....

And then I watched Mutiny on the Bounty. One of the lines in the opening credits tells about the history of the ship and why she was traveling to the South Seas. The actual words used were to find 'cheap food for slaves' - and it almost knocked me down.

This is exactly the same situation we are dealing with at the moment!! We are expected to go out into the world and follow someone else's dreams (or work as slaves) while being fed food that is little better then garbage.

The worst possible combination of ingredients which when combined are so toxic as to create new compounds inside the body. At the moment with this exposure to nearly everything from GMO monster foods, an obscene amount of additives, preservatives, fillers and colourants - we are being poisoned from the inside out!

Yet, they keep cranking it out (and I know because I studied at some of the places where this stuff is developed) and placing it on shelves. Then we go into their humungous stores and are actually led to believe we have choice...

There is NO choice. Anything processed, manufactured, denatured from the way it was intended to be eaten is no longer food. And what is far worse about this entire situation is that it does significant harm to our bodies (not to mention the mind and spirit).

Or in other words - cheap food for slaves....

It is long past the time to make the changes to the food you put into your body - start with choosing organic, unprocessed and take it from there. Use good, real food to lift you up and take back your dreams...

April

Sunrise this morning....