NT April - Page 2

[Gale Force]

Originally Posted by Yooper

3. Again, asked before but am still undecided.....if you could not get raw dairy, would you still eat dairy (assuming you can get organic)?

Increasingly, no, but I have access. I have relied on pasteurized dairy in the past for cultured products and those products seemed to help with my yeast problems.

4. I have been working on my sourdough expertise. I finally made a couple of loaves that are edible. They are still pretty flat and VERY dense but at least they are not suitable for using as pavers liek the other ones I have made are. Since the dough is rising overnight, is that grain considered "soaked"?

Yes, traditional sourdough recipes break down the phytates. The bacteria in the starter works on the grains while it's rising. I make sweet breads using the same strategy -- let the batter stew with the starter (minus the baking soda) for six + hours, add soda, and bake. Actually we hardly ever eat these, so I am acting like I know what I am talking about, but that is what I do when I make breads like gingerbread or if I should ever make a pumpkin bread or such, I would do that.

5. What is "cream". So many recipes call for heavy cream. I do not see "cream" in the dairy case. If it is in so many recipes (and not just in the nT book) why can I not find it? I do not even see it in the regular grocery. I see "whipping cream". What is the difference? Am I looking in the wrong spot? Could I use a cultured product in it's place? Like yogurt or viila?

It's the whipping cream. I do substitute regular milk for cream when I'm out of cream. It's just less rich and a little more liquid.

6. What is the deal with sour cream? It is one of the things I loved to eat the most before I went vegan. But I do not see it discussed or used in the NT book. Is there a reason?

Good question. I haven't thought about sour cream in a long time. Sounds good.

8. Why CLO? I keep seeing it discussed here. Why do you use it?

The omega 3s in it are essential for your health. There are other sources as well, but CLO comes prepackaged with vit A and D as a bonus. Weston Price used it with his patients.

9. Oils. I still use olive oil for stir frying. I never go above medium heat. Am I still doing something bad to the oil by using it heated? Should I be using butter instead?

It really depends on how heat sensitive the oil is. What do you use?

[Gale Force]

Originally Posted by Yooper

Another Q

Where does tuna fit into a NT diet. It is the only fish I used to like. I am thinking fish would be a good intro into meats again. What should I be looking for?

The problem is the mercury content and then if it's canned, there's the metals in the can. Do you mean fresh tuna or canned? I always think of canned when I think of tuna and now I suddenly want a tuna sandwich. Look at what you are doing to me with your questions -- tuna, sour cream, whipped cream. It must be time to eat.

[Brisen]

Yooper --

I found reasonably-priced organic/grass fed meat "through the grapevine." Try asking at local health food stores -- my friend found one of her sources (now mine too) that way.

Cooking with dairy -- this depends. NT does have a pudding recipe in the back, that is cooked dairy, but she recommends using it only very occasionally. Cooking doesn't do as much damage as pasteurization. For adding cream/dairy to soups, the recommendation is to do it after the heat is turned off. Warming is OK. For a casserole, I would feel comfortable adding dairy if the recipe called for it, but I would experiment with cooking it at a lower temp for longer. You can also add cheese at the last minute to *just* melt it, not cook it.

We're not getting raw dairy at the moment, but I still keep store-bought milk in the house. The kids love it and hate coconut milk. I try to make most of their dairy consumption be in the form of yoghurt, though.

I *think* you can substitute whipping cream for cream, but check the label -- I have seen some with sweetener and thickener in it. Half and half would probably work for recipes that call for cream -- it is half cream and half milk, I think. Be careful, because cream is often ultra pasteurized. You could sub a cultured product -- in savory dishes, I often sub sour cream for cream. It's usually just to add thickness and richness.

Sour cream in NT -- I think she uses creme fraiche in place of sour cream. You could use sour cream instead, I think.

I use CLO because it is an excellent vitamin source. Both my and dh's heritage is northern european, and they relied heavily on fish. We don't eat so much fish and I think the CLO helps. We also live somewhat north ourselves (about the 45th parallel) and our vit D is limited, between about 8 months of winter it seems and covering up in the summer.

Oil -- I think as long as you don't heat it too much, heating olive oil is fine. Personally, I don't care for the taste of it cooked. I tend to use butter for frying -- nice because it keeps me from making things too hot -- or lard. Lard is nice because it is cheaper, and it is nicer for frying things that I want crisper because it will get hotter before it burns. I don't like it for eggs -- they come out crispy when I use lard. I also like it in some baking, except that when I melt it, it becomes quite hot, and if the batter has eggs, it will start to cook the eggs a bit! Maybe for stir fries you could also try coconut oil? It is saturated fat, so not so delicate, right?

[toraji]

re: oxtail
OMG, oxtail is AWESOME. It makes the nuttiest, richest stock. You can either make the oxtail barley soup from NT, or I make it Korean-style. Check this page out for pics/recipe (though I usually add more veggies in the soup like daikon radish, carrot, etc)
http://thedeliciouslife.blogspot.com...gom-tahng.html

-DH and DD get non-homog. organic milk that they turn into 24-hour yogurt, and organic butter. I am currently dairy free as it does bad things to my nose.

re: meat amounts
When I first converted, I only ate about 1/4 lb a day at the most and relied on bone broths more often. Then I started experimenting with amounts and found out that I felt better having more meat in my diet. Right now I'm fluctuating between 1-3 servings a day, though they are never big servings like a giant steak. Most of the time they are cut up small like in stir-fry. It is never the focus of the meal, more like a side dish along with copious amounts of vegetables. I always try to have some sort of animal protein with my meals as I am mostly grain-free, but sometimes this means eggs instead of meat.

I think it just depends on how well your body is absorbing nutrients, some people will require more meat than others. Also, I've heard from some nutritional practitioners that many ex-veg people have difficulty digesting meats when they first switch due to their bodies not producing enough HCl in their stomachs. They have made themselves hypochlorydric due to a lack of b-vitamins and zinc. So you can test yourself using the baking soda test I posted last month and/or supplementing with HCl/pepsin. Read about reversing hypochlorhydria here: http://www.drdebe.com/REVLWHCL.htm

-Stir-frying: I use lard, palm oil, coconut oil, and olive oil in that order of preference. Olive oil is so dang expensive that I like to keep it raw for salad dressings. The saturated fats are more heat-stable. Lard is my fat of choice right now (pastured of course).

[chasmyn]

Originally Posted by missi66

My sourdough recipe says if the bread goes out instead of up it needs more flour and more kneading.Something about better forming the gluten.

Thank you! I'll try that this time - I'm trying yet again - I have all these bags of flour, I'm bound to succeed eventually, right?:

[toraji]

re: cooking with dairy
I say if you're getting pasteurized, you're better off cooking the milk before consuming it. Pasteurization makes the proteins incompletely cooked (twisted) which are supposedly very difficult to digest. Once you fully cook it, then it becomes digestible. So we always boil our pasteurized non-homog. milk before turning it into yogurt.

When we had access to raw milk, we never cooked it. Only inoculated it with yogurt starter and fermented at 100 deg.

[Brisen]

jessica --
I remember reading in N&PD that Dr. Price said the equivalent of one egg of animal protein a day was sufficient. I don't know if he meant that was a safe minimum or what. We eat more meat in the winter and almost eliminate it in the summer (but still eat fish). In the winter, I tend to make one big meat meal a week -- a chicken, a beef roast, usually in the crock pot -- and stretch the leftovers through the week (meat and gravy on bread, soup, stew). Then we'll probably have fish once or twice a week, and I might do up one more small package of meat -- a pound of ground beef, a few lamb chops -- for another meal. This is for a family of two adults, and three kids (6, 4, 1.5). We also do eggs daily, as well as milk and cheese. Once I get a good source of liver, I'll be adding that in.

[Gale Force]

Originally Posted by jessicaSAR

However, I am struggling a little bit with proportions. I don't seem to have a good handle on how much meat to eat (I have been vegetarian for the last 16 years). It is my intuitive sense that traditional diets probably used meat much more sparingly than the SAD.

I'm going to throw out some shocking info on this. I don't know that it would apply to everyone, but I've dealt with multiple nutritional deficiencies. About two years ago my chiro told me I should be eating the protein equivalent of 4 eggs AND 2 lbs of meat EACH DAY. He recommended beef and lamb. (Under other circumstances he's recommended fish for pH, so again, it was for my case at the time). I reported that info to a very early version of the NT thread here and shocked people, including toraji if I remember correctly.

People asked later how it was going. I couldn't report because I couldn't seem to eat that much in a day, ever.

About two months ago my dad came over for burgers. I made up 3/4 pound burgers (1/2 lb is better I've discovered, but I was hungry at the time). We sat outside eating our giant burgers. I was still hungry. I got another burger, shocked the men around here. I ate the whole thing and felt greatly satisfied. Of course, that was not all that I ate that day, so I pretty much met the goal for the first time ever. Haven't done it since

So, I don't know the answer to the question. Perhaps follow your hunger?

[Brisen]

Originally Posted by toraji

re: cooking with dairy
I say if you're getting pasteurized, you're better off cooking the milk before consuming it. Pasteurization makes the proteins incompletely cooked (twisted) which are supposedly very difficult to digest. Once you fully cook it, then it becomes digestible.

Neat! We're just getting past. milk right now. Is this a good excuse to make cocoa?

And I thought that HCl test you posted in the last thread was neat too! I feel a homeschool science experiment coming up...

[Yooper]

Pastauraized milk......if used, it should probably be in the cultured form? If I am going to cook it, I am pretty much pastuarizing it anyway. The only thing I have tried thus far is adding cultured viila to soups just before serving, It is not really getting "cooked". If I use pastaurized and homogenized milk to make yogurt and viila, there is some good in it?

And on the olive oil. It is REALLY expensive. I use the cold expellar pressed, organic, EV type. But as far as anyone knows, heating it to medium should not be causing a problem but might be breaking down some of the beneficials? I will start using butter too although that is almost as expensive for me....and it is not even raw....grrrrrr......

And on the tuna....what about sealed packs rather than cans? Does all tuna have mercury? Our co-op does not have it in any form except cans and sealed foilish packs.

[Brisen]

Gale Force, I think I could eat that much meat. I love meat. I just wouldn't be able to afford it!

[provocativa]

Creme fraiche and piima cream are soured creams. very easy to make. heavy cream=whipping cream. delicious. I have never seen it with sweetener added, that must be regional. If you have a choice buy the higher fat content- 36% is gorgeous. Many forms of creamier dairy are 'subbable', depending on the desired result. Cooking makes some dairy proteins easier to digest- they scald milk in India, right? Really it depends on your family's digestion. With sauteeing, just worry about the smoke point. If it starts to smoke, beware of fire or burnt food. Some primitive diets had tons of meat, some little or none. I've been veg 2 different times, one time I went back to meat slowly and the other rapidly. As for fish, go to a fishmonger. You want anything wild caught that's lower on the food chain. Tuna is kinda in the middle- for the canned, light is ok, white is not. If your family has trouble excreting metals, then you need to worry more. There was an interesting article in the Economist about it being more dangerous not to eat fish with efa's than to deal with the toxins. Read the links on westonprice.org about CLO. We have the Carlson's- I bought it on recommendation of mama's here, now everyone says it has chemical vitamins. I'm finishing the bottle, I can't afford the other right now.
I have had no luck with the word of mouth on dairy or pastured meat. The WAP guy in my state doesn't write me back. I have asked at the farmer's market. We can't afford it without bulk buying. I'm going to keep asking, though. We eat meat once a day, at dinner, unless there are leftovers. I often feel like I need more, but I'm pg. I found farm eggs at my local greenhouse (go figure) for 1.50 a dozen, so I'm all about those right now.

[Gale Force]

Originally Posted by Brisen

Gale Force, I think I could eat that much meat. I love meat. I just wouldn't be able to afford it!

Oh good, I thought I was a freak, so at a minimum I have company.
We got a whole steer in the fall, so I am in beef heaven.

[Brisen]

Originally Posted by provocativa

There was an interesting article in the Economist about it being more dangerous not to eat fish with efa's than to deal with the toxins.

This is something I have been wondering about. It's pretty discouraging, though, when you're trying to figure out what the lesser of two evils is.

Was it the March NT thread where there was talk about chelating mercury? I'll go do a search before I start asking questions...

[Brisen]

Originally Posted by Gale Force

Oh good, I thought I was a freak, so at a minimum I have company.
We got a whole steer in the fall, so I am in beef heaven.

We accidentally got steaks with a beef order once (I usually sub for ground beef) and I decided to try cooking them rare. Of course, I *couldn't* share them with anyone, just in case I cooked them *too* rare, yk? There were two of them, largeish. I sat down and ate them both. We were moving recently and had to clear out our freezer -- we had quite a few lamb chops. I had two frying pans full of lamb chops for each meal for a few days. I also discovered that if you fry the lamb chops with a bit of worchestershire sauce and fry eggs in the pan after the chops are cooked, they are very tasty.

[Gale Force]

I'm serious. This thread is making me very hungry.

[toraji]

Originally Posted by Gale Force

I'm going to throw out some shocking info on this. I don't know that it would apply to everyone, but I've dealt with multiple nutritional deficiencies. About two years ago my chiro told me I should be eating the protein equivalent of 4 eggs AND 2 lbs of meat EACH DAY. He recommended beef and lamb. (Under other circumstances he's recommended fish for pH, so again, it was for my case at the time). I reported that info to a very early version of the NT thread here and shocked people, including toraji if I remember correctly.

Oh, I could probably do that now! Especially if I don't eat any grain at all.

Unfortunately my freezer is quite low right now, so we're in famine mode.

[Gale Force]

toraji,

I have a bad case of Online Dramatitis. Do you think it's related to my B deficiencies?

Amanda

[Brisen]

Gale Force, i just read that too

[Bearsmama]

Hi Mamas,
I'm intrigued by NT. And I just saw the NT cookbook in my neighbor's kitchen today. Can anyone provide a link, or NT in a nutshell for me? Sorry to bug into the discussion with the basic questions, but I'm very, very curious. Although we're a vegetarian household. Not sure where this fits. TIA for any additional info.