Our Family's "Food Manifesto"

Since the joining together of our two lives as one, Jonathan and I have found ourselves increasingly burdened to deepen our understanding of food and its impact on human health. To some degree, we had each been interested in health before, but in the last 19 months as we have wrestled through health challenges that our family faces and as we have sought to better determine the values that direct the way we farm, Jonathan has come to the point where he believes that a large part of the dominion work God has given him is not just to grow food, but to help others pursue wise stewardship of the health that God has given them. Of course, any time you get involved in reformation work, it must begin at home. As a result, we sat down and wrote out a basic guideline explaining our understanding of food and it's impact on the body based on the study we have done. My next goal is to start mapping out the baby steps we plan on taking to help us reach our goal.

I wanted to share with you what we've written. A lot of these principles are based on the work of Weston A. Price, Mary Enig, and Sally Fallon.

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As Christians we are called to be wise stewards of the bodies and resources God has given us.

In respect to diet this means seeking to nourish our family's health using foods in their most nutrious and natural state, as directed by wisdom.

Basic Standards and Guidelines

• Dairy - Enjoy raw (milk, butter, cheese, etc) and fermented (yogurt, kefir, cream, etc). Avoid pasturized, homoginized and low-fat. Pasturization kills beneficial bacteria; homoginization exposes fats to rancidity and oxidation. Low-fat usually contains powdered milk as a thickener; powdered milk is processed using high heat and high pressure, conditions leading the the development of free radicals which damage DNA/RNA.
• Animal Protein - Grassfed, free-range, pastured (some grain feed is fine). Avoid heavily grainfed, confined animals as these often have E.coli issues, Omega 6/3 imbalances and transfats. Use fats from pastured animals (duck, goose, chicken, lard and beef tallow) for high temperature cooking as they are saturated fats which remain stable at high temperatures.
• Grains - Whole form and properly soaked (to help break down phytic acid). Avoid refined grains as these have been stripped of their nutrients and "fortified" with synthetics whose safety has not been proven.
• Oils - Use expeller-pressed, unrefined oils (such as olive and coconut) as this method of extraction protects them from rancidity. Avoid oils processed at hight temperatures and pressures (i.e. canola oil, etc). Avoid dhydrogenated fats (shortening and margarine).
• Sweets - Enjoy fruits in moderation. Stick to minimally processed/refined sugars (such a raw honey, rapidura/sucanant, maple syrup). Consume only minimal amounts of fruit juice. Avoid refined sugars (white and brown, corn syrup).
• Preservatives/Preservation - Use preservation methods that protect the food's nutrients (such as lacto-fermentation, some canning, freezing, dehydrating and cold storage). Avoid foods preserved with nitrites and nitrates (such as commercial lunch meat) as they have been linked to cancer of the esophagus, stomach, large intestine, bladder and lungs.

As in everything there are/will be some inconsistencies and practical restraints in application (such as budget!).

Organization and the (infamous) ToDo List

The “ToDo List” and I tend to be the best of friends and worst of enemies. Since I am not the task driven, Type A personality, well organized kind of person I need a list to keep me focused and organized. Being the artistically-organized-wanna-be that I am I tried putting together a “Housekeeping Notes” journal but, while it may be useful to some people, I tend to hardly look at it, there's too many dividers and various notes that I find overwhelming. I've tried make notes on scrap pieces of paper, but those seem to either get lost or I forget to throw them away when I am done which leaves me with useless, messy paper piles - particularly on my night stand.

Enter the "1 Subject, 70 Sheets, College Ruled Notebook"! It fit well within my budget (a whole .50 cents!) and my personality. I just make up my daily todo list, which I don't lose since it's bigger and heavier than a single piece of paper and then I get to it. I don't have dividers for the books I want to read, projects I hope to accomplish, company I need to have over, menu planning, etc. because although those are good, I tend to get lost in so many categories. I am better off just looking at my bookshelf for something to read, looking around my house for my never ending list of projects, flipping through the church directory or walking around the 'neighborhood' for people to have over. The one category that I do have a separate paper for is menu planning. While I am still working on learning exactly how to menu plan successfully I am convinced that it is a worthwhile skill and that it will (eventually) save me time and money. 

How do/does you/your family stay organized?

If you are the "keeper of your home" what does this look like for you?

If you are a daughter, how does your mother do it? How would you theoretically like to implement the principle of organization in your own home some day?  

How Many Ways Can You Cook a Potato?

Spring seems to fnally have arrived! Although I guess were supposed to have some cooler weather the beginning of next week it's still warmer than winter, the sun stays up longer in the evenings, the birds are singing merrily and we've begun to transition to our outside work. Thursday, after supper, Jon and I went out and dug some spots for flower beds, gave them a good layer of goat manure, replaced the dirt and happily admired our work and the beautiful sunset. Friday, Jonathan set out for the field with a plastic lifter for the black plastic "mulch" we use to help keep weeds down. I brough him lunch around 12 and then spent some time working with him. By the time he was home for supper he was covered head to foot with a good layer of dirt-but he was one happy man to be labouring outdoors again :-)

What does all this have to do with cooking potatoes? Not much, actually this post has precious little to do with actually 'cooking potatoes' but rather it concerns something I have been seeking to better understand and apply: living frugally.

My dad often stressed to me the importance of realizing that my financial standard of living would probably change when I married. After all, by the time I married, Dad had been in the work force for 30 years whereas my husband had only been working full time for 2 years. Because I was aware of this ahead of time and because I hadn't really developed any bad spending habits I thought I was well prepared for living on a tight budget. In many ways I was, but I still spent a lot of time pondering the question, "How do I wisely manage the resources God has given us?" I borrowed books from friends and family, racked my brain for lessons I had learned from my mom, tried to learn from the stories Jon told me about his mother making do when he was growing up, and chatted with my man about what was important to him in regards to finances, as well as begging the Lord for wisdom on how to make due with what we had while wondering what I was going to do about clothing as the pregnancy progressed. Often my reading proved to be frustrating as there was all kinds of recommendations on how to save money that I already knew/practiced : Don't go out to eat often-not a problem, we have been out to eat four times in 7 months of marriage and I've gotten 1 coffee, and frankly, neither of us were dying to eat out anyway. Shop at thrift stores - already doing that and I grocery shop at a major discount food store. Hang  your laundry to dry in order to save on your electric bill - electric is included in our rent and I hang my clothes anyway. And so on and so forth. In the end I came to the following conclusion: while it is important to learn self-control in spending, wisdom in purchases, how to live with less, etc I am convinced that one of the main elements of frugal living is trust.

Trust God. Believe that He is faithful to His promise to provide for our needs (Matt. 6:25-32) And secondly, obey. He tells us to "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness;" and then promises that, "all these things will be added unto (us)" Matt. 6:33. So, I sat down and made a list of all the things that God has provided for us and frankly I was blown away by how much He has not only met our needs but gone even beyond that. He has truly taken care of us. In my journal I made a note: "practical application #1: Seek first the kingdom and trust in God's provision". I truly believe that even if you are very careful tracking your money and you are discerning with your purchases, if you aren't trusting God for His provision of your needs, you're going to be miserable always worrying about how you are going to make it work tomorrow or next month.

So, why does the title include potatoes? If you really want to know, it's because one of our staples right now is potatoes and as you can probably imagine, I am trying to be creative with how many different ways I can serve potatoes and still have an appetizing dish :-)