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Good for You-Naturally!™ nutrition help and recipes, and outside links. See Good for You-Naturally!™ section of my website for more info and resources.

Breaking the Fast

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You may have never thought of it in this way, but we fast everyday  – from the time we go to sleep each night until the time we wake up each morning. Some may fast longer, by not eating a "mid-night snack" or perhaps skipping break-fast. But everyone of us fasts for at least a few hours each day.

Our bodies use this time to "clean house". They expend the energy, that we aren’t having to devote to other activities, to clean as much junk and waste out as possible. While you are sleeping, your body is busy sweeping and de-junking the "house" you live in. In the morning it’ll be ready for all that "trash" to be taken out.

The best way you can do that is with pure water. If we don’t get the pure water in to flush the "trash" out, and we shift gears using our energies to go about our daily business, all that trash will just get scattered about the house again – I mean reabsorbed into our body’s cells. 

In this month’s Me and My House musings newsletter I expanded on this need for drinking plenty of pure water further, but here I want to talk about what we can do to break our fast, to help our body continue this process.

The best way we can continue to transport the "old piled up junk" out of our bodies, (after we’ve drank at least one big glass of water, preferably with fresh lemon juice in it,) while still providing nourishment and energy that we need for the day, is to eat (or drink!) fresh fruit. Fresh fruits are very cleansing, and will help that process of cleaning our bodies.

In Good for You – Naturally! we recommend fresh fruit all morning, and possibly even into lunch – nothing but fresh fruit. Your first fresh fruit of the day can ideally come in the form of fresh, raw fruit juice, that is juice that you have extracted from fresh, whole, raw fruits. This will provide many nutrients that your body needs in a concentrated form, and help your body continue to "clean house", as well as provide energy to get you going for the day, and not start using your energy for the day in digesting food.

This is the best break-fast you can have.

Try it! Your body will LOVE it!

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Lisa’s Homemade Tomato Soup

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This recipe fits under the “comfort foods” category. It isn’t a living food, It isn’t a junk food. It’s just part of the 15-25% cooked, wholefoods category that can be included, if we are relatively healthy, for our “comfort” if we so desire. It’s a Soup again. We serve this with a large raw veggie tray, and usually a few homemade or whole wheat Good for You ingredients graham crackers.

Anyhow, here’s our recipe:

1 qt. tomato juice (if using canned, make sure there are no other ingredients.)

Heat 3 cups, reserve 1 cup in a shaker.

In the shaker add with the 1 cup tomato juice, and shake well:

1/4 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 c. honey
1/2 t. salt

When tomato juice in the pan comes to a boil, whisk in the contents of the shaker. Cook over medium heat until thickened, stirring often.

Optional: Stir in 1 Tbl. real butter.

Serve.

If you have 48 oz. canned tomato juice, just increase the other ingredient by half. (3/8 c. flour and honey, 3/4 t. salt, 1.5 Tbl. butter)

Enjoy!

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A BarleyLife Weekend

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My mom and I spent the weekend chatting nutrition and drinking green barley juice. It was a good weekend. The weekend began at dd’s. We chatted a bit of nutrition too. But it really all began for me almost a week before.

It happened early last week. The counter and sink were covered with that green, staining fine powder. Mr. 3yo dumped the last 10 or more servings of my BarleyLife. No chance to salvage. Counter was damp, as well as sink, making a couple of really big globs of green barley paste. It is a good thing the countertop is already green, and sink is stainless steel. But it was hard not to cry as it washed down the drain. I could have had a sink full of juice. I hate good food to go to waste (like the 10+ pounds of brown rice that had to be thrown away last month because it had bugs.)

I haven’t been drinking BarleyLife all that often lately. We’ve been doing really good making fresh juice daily, so I’ve only made the BarleyLife occasionally. Evidently I’ve been making it enough though that Mr. 3yo decided that day he could make his own. I knew we were heading out of town this weekend, and didn’t plan to take the juicer since I figured I had enough BarleyLife left to cover it. –Until Mr. 3yo. Oh well, we could take the juicer.

I ordered more BarleyLife, expecting it to be here when we got back. It actually arrived before we left. I went ahead and got Just Carrots and RediBeets too, (powdered carrot and beet juices,) even though I don’t use them as much. Then I hid them all from Mr. 3yo and told him mommy would make it when he wants some.

I placed a Wholefood Farmacy order too. The convenience would have been nice for the trip. But that order arrived late Friday afternoon – after we left early Friday afternoon. So instead, the children loaded the cooler with dried apples, apricots, and dates, raw almonds, cashews, pecans, and filberts, grapes and bananas. I packed a couple gallons distilled water. I figured there wasn’t any chance of a blizzard, but if there was, we’d be ready to be stranded!

Here’s this car packed with all the nutrition we need for a great weekend – and what do we do? Head to Chuck E Cheese’s. Who gets these ideas – or was it the kids? The pop was no temptation (not even at my daughter’s later when she offered Cherry 7-Up, my only real pop temptation). But I succumbed to pizza after my salad. Oh well, we had a great time visiting with dd and family.

The next day we went to my mom’s and she was happy to chat nutrition. She’s been taking liquid chlorophyll for a few months at the recommendation of my sister. (Her Dr. had put her on iron for low blood levels and she immediately quit it after my sister talked to her.) She just had her blood recheck, and her levels were back up and pronounced OK. Praise to God for His natural foods ways.

She also told me she wasn’t drinking her BarleyMax. She was excited to have it, and the Hallelujah Acres resources, but just couldn’t get into drinking the BarleyMax. I had her try the BarleyLife. She liked it better. She also tried the beet juice powder in her BarleyMax and said that would do the trick for her. She could drink it that way and would order some beet juice powder. I had also suggested stevia powder, but she hadn’t bought any of that yet, and I didn’t have any with me.

It was an encouragement to me to be in a situation where I could encourage my mom. Mom doesn’t make all healthy choices (but — neither do I – the pizza – oh, and the cherry cheesecake dd made for other dd’s 16th birthday while we were there, and the …) But mom is open and interested to learn. I was encouraged that she has my sister looking for a good used juicer for her.

I’m also glad she grabbed the onion. Mom always has plenty of onions. I was glad I’d stopped for some raw honey and some lemons at the store. I’m also glad (and hope she is too) that she learned my adaptation to grandma’s recipe.

Mostly I’m glad for a chance to sit down and chat with my mom – and with my grown dd. Chatting nutrition was just a bonus for my soul. And doing it over a glass of BarleyLife a bonus for my body.

Cough Syrup?

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I just heard the latest. “They” are now saying, “Don’t give your children cough syrup.” Hmm, haven’t I been saying such things for years? But I’m sure my reasonings are not the same as theirs, nor my solutions.

Oct. 11, ’07 – “the voluntary withdrawal of oral infant cough and cold medications from store shelves.” Oct. 18-19, ’07 – An advisory committee “voted to recommend to FDA that cough and cold active ingredients should no longer be available for use in children under six-years-old.”

Anyhow, the news didn’t affect me in the least. I haven’t bought or given my children OTC cough syrup for decades. But I thought if any of you did, you might want to know my grandma’s recipe. She wasn’t a big herbalist or anything, so there’s nothing unusual in this recipe. It’s easy enough for anyone to get the ingredients and anyone to make.

My mom was raised on it herself, and used it for her 7 children. She found it especially helpful for my older sister who has bad asthma that the doctors didn’t diagnose right away back then. And I’ve used for our 10 children when we’ve needed it.

It’s onion syrup, and it does a great job of cutting through the phlem and soothing the cough. This weekend, after a night at Chuck E Cheese’s while we are on the road, a couple of my children started coughing at grandma’s house. She pulled out the onion and started chopping. Here’s how.

Slice one large onion into a stainless steel sauce pan. Cover with raw honey – a cup or more. Put the lid on the pan and heat on a very low burner. Stir occasionally. How long? Hmm, good qustion. Until it’s done? The honey will turn to the thin liquid. The onions will get limp and transparent – and the fragrance will fill the house. I figure the aroma begins the healing benefits before you even consume the syrup. Anyhow, a couple hours maybe? Maybe less, maybe more. Let it cool enough to take. Take a couple tablespoons full. You can keep it in a sealed container – glass jar with lid or Tupperware. If you won’t use it all up right away, you can store it in the refrigerator as is, or you can strain the onions out an keep in the cupboard for a while. Especially if you refrigerate, reheat gently, until a warm thin syrup, before taking each time. You may be able to heat it enough just by putting the container in hot water. If you don’t refrigerate and don’t have time to rewarm it each time, just use as is.

At home I generally will add fresh lemon juice too, either to the batch after it is cooled or just to the individual dose. When we aren’t able to cook the onion syrup, or if we’re dealing with a sore throat and not cough, we just mix raw honey and fresh lemon juice. If even that can’t be done, if we’re somewhere else, I just take a spoonful of honey and add a drop or two of therapeutic-grade Lemon Essential Oil.

I hope you find these beneficial real foods helpful when your family needs a health boost.

A Pop a Day?

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OK, that may be soda for you non-midwesterners – or is it "soft drink". Well, if you don’t know it yet, soft drinks aren’t soft on your body.

"Drinking just one soft drink a day — whether diet or regular — may boost your risk of getting heart disease, a new study shows. That is because a soda habit increases the risk of developing a condition called metabolic syndrome, according to the new research, and that in turn boosts the chance of getting both heart disease and diabetes. "Even one soda per day increases your risk of developing metabolic syndrome by about 50 percent," says Ramachandran Vasan, MD, professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and the senior author of the study, published in the July 31 issue of the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation." source

New! Improved! Really?

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I believe that the way God designed the foods He gave to man to nourish his body is perfect. I don’t believe man can improve in any way on it.

I don’t believe that "nutritional products" are what man needs to be healthy. I don’t like gimmicks that try to promote processed/ adulterated foods or non-foods as healthy.  I don’t think good nutrition is based on strange or special, secret foods. And I also don’t believe that eating what’s Good for You needs to be expensive. Good for You – Naturally! is a far cry from buying your potato chips and microwave dinners at the health food store.

Good for You – Naturally! is whole foods nutrition based on G.O.D., God’s Original Diet (as opposed to S.A.D., Standard American Diet.) Good for You – Naturally! is an eating lifestyle based on raw fruits, raw vegetables, raw nuts and raw seeds – and plenty of pure water. We, like most people, add to this (as God Himself did), but this is the foundation for eating Good for You – Naturally!

~~~~ So why am about to recommend a food "product"? Because most people don’t believe anything can be convenient or easy without coming in a bag or a can – or is that plastic tub now? And many people are willing to pay for convenience. Well, many people don’t realize that they are paying for convenience, they just don’t know their is another way – that really isn’t inconvenient either. And there is a food that doesn’t violate any of the Good for You – Naturally! principles, yet is totally convenient.

It most likely will not be for all of you – all the time. But it most certainly will be for some of you – all the time, for some of you – some of the time — perhaps for some of you –  none of the time.

Stay tuned for our announcement.

Lisa’s Simple Potato Soup

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I promised a Corn Chowder recipe about a month ago – ouch! – but I still haven’t found where the children hid the recipe card so here’s Potato Soup instead, for now. This can be made on the stove or in a crock pot.

Simmer in water to cover until soft:

3-4# diced potatoes
2-4 stalks chopped celery
1/2 diced onion
(optional: 2-4 Tb. “BacUn’s” dried bacon bit substitute)

If needed, drain off any excess water, so it just barely covers the vegetables.

Blend, until fairly smooth, 1-2 c. of the cooked potatoes/ vegetable mix with:

2 c. not milk (homemade Almond Milk)
1/2 stick butter

Return blended mixture to the pot. Reheat if necessary.

New Year – New You

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Greetings from Me and My House,

Perhaps you are one who wants to take a faster journey. You don’t want to just add something good to your eating habits right now. You want to get off the junk – NOW. You’re tired of the way you feel and perhaps look, and are ready to go all the way to get the junk out of your house and out of your body.

It’s not too hard to get it out of the house, just throw it out – all of it. Don’t think about the money you are throwing away. It is more harmful in your body than in the trash. If it isn’t yours to throw away (perhaps your dear spouse isn’t ready for this journey to good health), perhaps you can relegate a certain shelf (preferably up high and out of the way) as their “junk shelf” and keep all items “off limits” to the rest of the family shut away up there.

As I mentioned in our Transitioning post, going cold turkey does give you faster benefits, and sometimes this is needed to keep you going. One of the not so pleasant initial benefits for some though is going through the physical effects of getting the junk out of the body, detoxing.

I’ve transferred 3 articles on detoxing from my old list over here. They can be read at:
Ditching the Junk and Detoxing – 4/28/02
Detoxing 2 – While Pregnant? – 5/3/02
Detoxing 3 – Going all the Way – 5/7/02

Would you like to know more about transitioning to Good for You-Naturally!™ for Life! Check out our Online Courses to enroll in our FREE Preview course or see if we have a full Good for You-Naturally!™ for Life! course and community currently being offered. Also click on over to read our Good for You-Naturally!™ section of our website.

For Me and My House,
At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa

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Good for You-Naturally! ~ Transitioning

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Greetings from Me and My House,

Welcome to 2007! Did you set a goal of eating more healthily this year? For the next 7 weeks I will (Lord willing) give you 7 steps to take on this journey to a Good for You-Naturally! Lifestyle of Eating.

How many times have you set this goal before, only to fall down and give up? Good for You-Naturally! is a Lifestyle of Eating not a diet. It is not something you “go on” for a while, then go back to your “normal” ways of eating. You never stay healthy or keep the weight off when you yo-yo back and forth between ways of eating. Aren’t you sick and tired of being sick and tired – and overweight?

Good for You-Naturally! is a lifestyle change that will take time to become habit. It is about developing good habits of making the best choice available at the time. This is not the Garden of Eden, and we don’t always have the perfect, purest choice available at all times. But here in America, we most always have some choice. Make the best available choice. And when you don’t, then next time do. Work at it. Make it a habit.

Going “cold turkey” really produces the best benefits. You really notice that the change was worth it, right away. But for those of you that want to slowly wean off your old ways, I present these 7 weekly steps.

WEEK 1
This week your goal is to add more living food to your way of eating. Begin by adding a big fresh vegetable salad to your lunch and or supper every day. Eat it before the rest of your meal (or you’ll be tempted to not finish it.)

Your best choices will be to use a dark green lettuce as your base, such as Romaine (not iceberg) and add a good variety of other vegetables to it, especially much cruciferous ones such as, broccoli and cauliflower, carrots, tomatoes, radishes, green pepper, etc. Get as many of the vegetables as possible organic. Romaine lettuce and carrots are both pretty readily available and not overly expensive. Vary your ingredients each day/meal.

For those of you wanting to go all the way, including vegetables with the highest nutritional benefits, you will want to include at least 1 cup of raw power vegetables each day, particularly cruciferous vegetables, those known to have anti-cancer and other health benefits. These are Arugula, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Watercress, Bok Choy, Turnip Greens, Mustard Greens, and Collard Greens, Mizuna, Tatsoi, Rutabaga, Napa or Chinese Cabbage, Daikon, Horseradish, Radishes, Turnips, Kohlrabi, and Kale. Some of these I’ve not ever seen or tried, (and I don’t even know if all of them are eaten raw) but there is enough variety there for everyone to include raw cruciferous vegetables daily. (I found out over 25 years ago that turnips and kohlrabi are delicious raw. I’d never heard of turnips eaten uncooked before that, and had never even tasted kohlrabi.) If you don’t include a cup everyday, try to get at least 3 cups a week, either 1 cup every other day, or 1/2 cup per day.

In addition to cruciferous vegetables, dark green and bright orange ones generally have the most nutritional value. Avocados, though really a fruit, are excellent nutritionally also.

Is this already a part of your way of eating? You can begin adding Sprouts to your salads at each meal. Growing them is cheap and easy. Get our Gardening for Wimps guide for all the help you’ll need to get started.

Would you like to know more about transitioning to Good for You-Naturally!™ for Life! and our 7 steps for getting there? Enroll in our full Good for You-Naturally!™ for Life! course and community. Check it out at our Online Courses. We also offer a 2 week, FREE Preview course that is available anytime. Also click on over to read our Good for You-Naturally!™ section of our website.

For Me & My House,
At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa

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Detoxing 3 – Going All the Way

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Greetings from Me and My House,

A list member wrote that they were “taking the plunge” and asked for more info on fasting to detox.

Congratulations!!!! YES, shoot for 3 days! Obviously, we can’t totally detox in that time, but it gets us off to a start and the key is to not go back to the junk afterward.

The time it takes to detox depends on what you’ve been eating wrong (and toxins exposed to), how long you’ve been eating and exposed to those toxins, and your own personal constitution (make up) – AND that you don’t keep adding to the problem (eating/ exposure to more junk/ toxins). For most who have lived on a SAD diet their whole lives, it will take a long time to undo. Dr. Joel says at least 1 year of right eating to counteract every 7 years of wrong. Obviously, fasting and juicing help cut that time down – AND every 3-day fast we can go on – inbetween eating right, – the quicker our body will respond.

If you are able, get Barley Green [links updated: now Barley Life – if you have trouble with the link, click here, and then in the table of contents on AIM Juice Powders], since you don’t have a juicer(and aren’t planning to get one at this point?). Also a good help in cleansing the system is “Herbal Fiberblend” – from the same company that makes the BG. BUT don’t wait until you can get these things to start. I’m just saying if you want to do a complete detox and cleanse, they would be very helpful, especially if you aren’t able to do the fresh juices.

I’ll also suggest, if you’re serious about complete detoxing, that you consider fasting 1 day a week. It’s a discipline I’ve not been able to uphold all the time – with pregnancy and nursing – but it has great benefits.

A couple of years ago, we had many in our church that went on a 40 days fast.
Some went the whole time, or nearly so on lemon water only.
Others added BG/ fresh juices.
Some used the Herbal Fiberblend and saw GREAT RESULTS, complete cleansing, healing of various ailments of the body, and feeling better than they ever had in their lives.
The fast was for spiritual reasons, but they reaped many physical benefits.

GRANTED, I am talking WHOLE HEARTED FASTING here.
Don’t let this scare you off.
I’m just giving some examples for further fasting.

START WHERE YOU ARE TODAY!!
If you go 3 days GREAT! If you start with ONE DAY, that’s a start. Go for 2 next time, 3 the next, etc. YES, anything is better than SAD. Start where you can. Take as big of steps as YOU think you can right now, and just keep heading in the right direction. And when you slip up, turn around and start again!

One more comment on water fasting for those that are extremely toxic, this may happen in SOME PEOPLE. By cutting out ALL intake (except water) your body may begin to throw off toxins rapidly, and you may FEEL it. You will be going through withdrawal. You may have headaches or jitters, etc. – such as you normally get if you “don’t have your morning coffee” or whatever. Giving into the withdrawal will stop these symptoms, but won’t help you any. IF your detox is progressing too fast (on a water fast) for you to deal with the symptoms, drink some fresh juices or Barley Green, to slow down the detox process and provide nutrients. These “symptoms” are usually worst on the 2nd and 3rd day of a fast, but deep seated toxins may show up later in an extended fast.

The info I have on fasting is in books/ on tapes I have, mostly, from Dr. Joel Robbins. I really don’t know of any internet info (Christian perspective, detoxing) except this one – http://www.billbright.com/7steps/index.html

Bill Bright’s 7 steps to fasting is on the internet. It has some good tips, but is more for extended fasting, and spiritual reason, although it gives physical info too.

I’ll be praying for you, and will check in through email and write when I can, but no guarentees. I’m about 1 week past my EDC (estimated due date) so anytime now I’ll be off the computer for a few days, and enjoying our new baby.

For more information on Barley Green and Herbal Fiberblend – AND to order them direct to YOU – check our website resources and click on AIM Juice Powders in the table of contents.

At Jesus’ feet,
Lisa
Me and My House