Embracing Sausage & Hot Dogs

Hot dogs and sausages are foods we are often told to avoid. The scraps of meat, organs, and fat of animals are ground, spiced, and formed into sausages and dogs.

But what if we looked at these meat options from a different perspective?

Traditionally, people used all of the animal:

• muscle meat

• organs (eaten whole or ground into sausage)

• make bone broth for soup and then grind the bones into powder to fertilize the fields

• use the hides for tanning leather, etc.

Why are we grossed out by the thought of eating the organ, as the whole organ, or ground into sausage meat? The nutrients needed to form these organs are exactly what you get when you eat them. For example: eating heart nourishes your heart.

The key to embracing ground up meats, hot dogs and sausages of many kinds, is to embrace products made from animals that are organically and pasture raised. This means the animals are

• allowed to eat their natural diet,

• supplemented with organic feed only and preferable of their natural food preferences,

• not given hormones, steroids, and/or antibiotics, and

• the final meat products are an all natural preparation meaning no fake stuff in the actual meat products you will eat (preservatives, stabilizers, artificial colors & flavors, etc.)

Ask your local Coop, natural food store, and supermarkets to stock food fit to eat.

Find your local farmers who raise animals on pasture, animals who roam freely and happily in their grassy, wild plant fields. Tlhe link back there, and this one, will connect you to our local food guide published yearly by Gardenshare.

Eating local food:

• is more nourishing to your body cells and to the Earth, less miles to your plate and food maintains freshness and nutrients

• saves petro chemicals to move food about the Earth, the more miles your food is trucked… the more gas / diesel that is sucked up and burned

• supports local farm families and this is HUGE for local food security

• local farm families put that money back into their farm and your local community

• you create a community of farm happy people: both the farmers and the other farm customers

• gives you better control of the choice of best farming practices, your vote by purchasing local-organic-pasture raised food encourages more farmers to transition to Earth friendly & sustainable farming practices

• brainstorm on more ideas of why local farm products are better for you, the farmers, local communities, and the Earth

What we feed ourselves creates or destroys health. What we feed animals creates or destroys their health.

When we eat animal products that come from healthy animals, our body’s health is nourished.

When we eat products that come from unhealthy animals, our body’s health is degenerated.

Simple & Sensible Reasons To Take Magnesium

A week or so ago I sent a newsletter (not a blog post) titled #1 Supplement I Recommend about the magnificent mineral magnesium. Below I will quickly list and explain, in simplest terms, some of the benefits of taking magnesium: meaning the ill health symptoms you experience from your magnesium insufficiency will buzz off and leave you alone when you actually have enough magnesium in your system for your body cells to use.

1. Constipation: having an uptight and anxious colon is not pleasant, take some magnesium citrate and relax the colon for happy pooping daily (yes, I said daily. Anything less is constipation).
2. Migraines, headaches: again, tension from tight body tissues, lacking magnesium in the cells, can leave you prone to headaches.
3. Anxiety: magnesium helps you relax and release tension and anxiety.
4. Gut health: this is a catch 22 as you need strong acid to break down magnesium out of your food and yet adequate body supply of magnesium builds strong stomach acid (trust me, this is a good thing. You want strong stomach acids... get rid of those acid blocking drugs, just saying people. Rx drugs are not body healing).
5. Vitamin D levels: magnesium works with Vitamin D. Deficient in Vit D? Help your body work properly with some magnesium.
6. Calcium and mineral absorption: calcium alone will not build strong bones. The just take calcium supplements mentality leaves your bones lacking in so much more. Your bones need magnesium... and many other minerals, vitamins, and micro/macro nutrients. Calcium is not the bone issue cure all. Magnesium sufficiency promotes the deposit of calcium in your bones. Magnesium insufficiency or deficiency deposits calcium into your soft tissues. This spells: Plaque in arteries (50% calcium, only 3% cholesterol), kidney stones...
7. Magnesium is needed for DNA repair... you want this!
8. Magnesium insufficiency and deficiency contribute to hyperinsulinemia... can you say diabetes?
9. Got high blood pressure? Maybe you are insufficient in magnesium. Constricted, tight, anxious blood vessels make it hard for your heart to pump blood through them. Think about a garden hose that has been stepped on or kinked.
10. Magnesium calms muscles and nerves preventing cramps, excitability, and irritability in both your muscles and nervous system. Got that urge to snap when stressed out about work, teenagers, stupid driving maneuvers? Soothe yourself with some magnesium.
11. Prevent sleep disturbances by keeping your body relaxed.
12. Prevent depression as magnesium sufficiency is required for adequate neurotransmitters. Healthy levels of neurotransmitters keep the brain, nervous system, moods, etc. fring happily & healthfully.
13. Coffee drinker? Soda? Body stores of magnesium are depleted by coffee, alcohol, phosphates, (e.g. in dark sodas) and by calcium only supplements. We are meant to eat whole foods and use supplements that are balanced, not single constituent minerals. No food is made up of just calcium without other nutrients. Real food is a balanced package of nutrition.
14. Inflammation is a marker for disease. Magnesium is an anti-inflammatory agent. Relax, release, soothe yourself! 
15. Got hideous menstrual cramps?  Ease the uterine tension and anxiety with some magnesium. Depending on whether your are constipated or have diarrhea pre-menstrually or at the start of your period... see below to pick your magnesium wisely.

In the last century, the magnesium content of food decreased by approximately 50% as a consequence of food processing, loss of top soil, and loss of minerals in soil. If we are no longer getting healthy doses of magnesium in our food, we do need to supplement. Yes, this means single constituent magnesium supplementation because... there are exceptions to every rule!

Questions? Post in the comments below & I'll do my best to help you out.

Or their is always email: pyoumell@paulayoumellrn.com

USE Magnesium Citrate if you tend towards constipation (At least one healthy bowel movement daily should be a happening event with your body).

Available at Nature's Storehouse in Canton, NY

USE Magnesium glycinate if constipation is not your issue.

Need a blend of mag citrate & mag glycinate? This combo will provide just a little assistance with constipation but not a full on intestinal dynamite system?

Available at the Potsdam Food Coop.

Examining Fertility

No, no, this article has nothing to do with sex, reproductive issues, and human fertility (well, not human egg and sperm fertility, per se).

Fertile fields at Birdsfoot Farm, Canton, NY

What are these two farmers sitting and squatting on?

Come on, guess....

It is soil.  Fertile soil makes the world go round. Dirt is one of the earth's most precious resources, period.

How so you ask?

Read on my friend!

Fertile soil grows food that is intact, whole. I am always talking about how important it is to eat a 100% whole food diet. That whole food diet starts in whole soil; soil that is rich in nutrients and life, loamy, and fertile.

The fertility of the soil is the fertility of your body... and not just your reproductive fertility. Your body cells reproduce every day. Cellular health in reproducing vibrant, new cells is dependent on what feeds the parent cell. Read on for some soil and cell enhancing wisdom.

Soil is one of the foundations of all food, life, on this earth.

Healthy Soil = Healthy Food!

Soil + Sun + Water (and a seed or two!) = Food / Life!

Gratitude to: http://www.lappolis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Sun-Soil-Water.jpg

When we pay attention to soil, maybe that plot of garden where we grow herbs or veggies, we see a microcosm that is teeming with life.  Healthy soil is a living, breathing, dynamic organism: sand, silt, clay, air, water, minerals and organic matter crawling with earthworms, moles, grubs, centipedes, millipedes, snails, slugs, beetles, ants, fungi, insect larvae, bacteria, mushrooms, and many other organisms and micro-organisms. The sum of the whole, all parts working in synergy, is a well-orchestrated symphony. Nature is truly poetry in motion and that very poetry is what contributes to the heath and wholesomeness of the food you eat.

Your food is only as healthy as the soil it grows in. Your animal based foods? Only as healthy as the soil supporting the plants that the animals are free-range grazing on.

Farmers who understand and live / work in harmony with this soil symphony are amazing people contributing to your whole health.

I have always loved dirt: playing in it, smelling it (dirt in your yard smells different than dirt in the woods...), smelling dirt after a warm summer rain. You know... when you go outside and all you smell is that damp, musky, wet dirt smell? That is a smell that always makes me smile.

Learn more about the dirt that grows your food.

Know your soil.

Know your farmer.

How does your farmer(s) interact with the soil they grow food in and on? Do they compost, rotate crops and animal in the fields, use cover crops to feed the soil... what are the soil nourishing habits your farmer uses to grow your food?

Rich soil, teeming with life and inorganic matter, grows food rich in vitamins, minerals, phyto-nutrients, and anti-oxidants. Get into your dirt. Study the dirt that supports your health and life! Find a farmer who makes soil care a top priority. (Consumer demand for good farmers, real farmers, will create better food, better soil, and a better world!) Thank your farmer for caring for the soil.

Please, share your dirt loving stories below!

Looking for some interesting reading on Dirt?  This is one of my favorite books. I read it when it first was published and it is a book I keep in my "loved" book collection.

The below kid's book on dirt was one of my favorites to read to my kids. Not sure they were so enamored with the life in our soil but I was!

Please Remove Shoes & Negative Attitudes

I painted this door sign years ago. I have glued and removed it from a couple of front doors. I was inspired to create it because of a bumper sticker: "Mean People Suck." I also related that sentiment to negative people and their energy.

This past Saturday I watched the documentary film Symphony of the Soil. I was reminded of the beautiful method of how soil rebuilds itself when we care for it in natural ways, recreating nature's gardening methods.

Another message that was clear to me: how farming with chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides is much like fraternizing with negative people - soil / soul sucking!

These chemical means of farming literally suck the life out of the soil. Chemicals slowly and insidiously kill off the soil microbes, fungi, earth worms, and various other life forms that are essential to healthy soil and life on this planet. Chemically farmed soil becomes dry, pale, lifeless, and infertile. Food grown in this soil is nutrient deficient like the very soil it was grown in. 

Negative people and negative energy (i.e. watching, listening, or reading the news) do the same to us. These things slowly and insidiously suck the life from our body, mind, and soul. Negative energy in our life is a real force that leeches the nutrients from our every body cell just as chemical farming leeches nutrients from the soil.

Chemical farming is a stress to the soil, to all biological life, and to this planet.  (All are one and the same.)

Negative people and negative energy stress our physical body, our emotional/mental being, and our soul. Negative energy activates the stress response. This response eats up nutrients from our body cells. This is one reason why stressed people get sickly looking (pale like the stressed soil), age faster, and contract more acute illnesses (colds, the flu, etc.) and go on to develop more chronic lifestyle diseases than relaxed, peaceful people.

Touch each other's lives, and your own, gently!  Northern Sun T-Shirt!

POSITIVE Action to take:

Surround yourself with warm, loving, positive energetic people

AND

Be a warm, loving, positive energy person!

See and inspire the good in everyone, including you!

Whole food RECIPE:  Tourlou Greek Mix-Mix (made with local ingredients!)

This is positively delicious!

• 5-6 medium ripe tomatoes (Richard Paolillo's & Vanessa Bittner's Old Market Farm)
• 1 medium eggplant (Kent Family Growers)
• 2 medium red potatoes (Keim Amish Farmer)
• 1 large red pepper (Keim)
• 1 large red onion (Birdsfoot Farm)
• 4-5 good size cloves of garlic (Birdsfoot Farm)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 cup olive oil (I used 1/4 cup olive oil and 1/4 cup of Kriemhild Dairy's pasture raised butter)
• dash of nutmeg and thyme, I am a heavy handed dasher! I would say a good full tsp. of thyme and slightly less than a tsp. of nutmeg
• unrefined sea salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste after cooking

The finished Tourlou, Mix-Mix, with chickpeas. 

1. Cut veggies into bite size chunks and mix together well (except garlic)
2. Spread out in the bottom of two 8 x 13 baking pans
3. add oil, butter, bay leaves, nutmeg, and thyme and mix together
4. Bake at 350 F for 1 hour, set timer for every 20 minutes and mix-mix away adding water to not "fry" the veggies! This makes for a juicy creamy mix-mix!
5. If veggies not tender enough after 1 hour, give them a few minutes more
6. When finished cooking add the garlic via garlic pressing into the mix of veggies
7. Serve and add salt / pepper to taste
8. Serve with chick peas added to the mix or chunks of chicken
9. A side of whole grain pita bread, warm of course, is nice
10. Perhaps a 'lil Greek goat's milk feta too!

Hints:

• This dish can be eaten hot or cooled. Traditional Greek serving is when cooled allowing the flavors to meld. 
• I have used zucchini, yellow squash, buttercup & butternut squash, sweet potatoes... The eggplant, tomatoes, and onion are required... after that, add veggies to your delight. The more you make, meaning the fuller the baking dishes are, use more tomatoes to add to the creamy goodness.
• Another serving suggestion: To get a raw veggie salad in with this yummy dish serve with a Fall cabbage-root veggie slaw OR  sauerkraut.

Enjoy!

What Does Your Farmer Feed Their Cows, Chickens, Pigs, Goats, Vegetables, Fruits...?

I am certain you have heard this before: You are what you eat!

Let's take a closer look at the meaning of the words.

What we take in for food is what directly feeds our body cells to be healthy or not. Eat real food and you create, regenerate, healthy cells. Eat junk (junk should not be called food) and you create un-healthy cells... degenerative cells.

Animals are the same. If they are being fed the dregs; the left-over, crap food from the cafeteria waste bins that is the fuel their bodies use to create new body cells.

Farmers have been known to gather up waste food from restaurant and cafeteria's left-overs to feed to their chickens and pigs. If there is refined junk "food" in that waste bag, well, guess what is fueling the regeneration of the animal's cells. That's correct, junk!  An animal's meat, eggs, and dairy will only be as healthy as the animal, as healthy as that animal's body cells. Feed the animals junk, you get junk cell regeneration and therefor junk food products from that animal. (This means that the animal's meat, eggs, and dairy products are less than vibrantly healthy. These products will only be as healthy as the animal that makes them.) Eating that meat, eggs, and dairy that is less than healthy? Guess what, it is junk to your body cells. What goes around comes around and you are what you eat! The animals are what they eat as well.

My humble garden spot where things literally grow outside the box!

Vegetarian or vegan? The plants you are eating are not immune to this equation of:

Whole foods eaten = whole body cells regenerated

VS.

Junk food eaten  = junk body cells degenerated

Do you know what your farmer is feeding the vegetable, fruit, grain, nut, and seed plants you are eating or eating from?

Earth Bound Organics photo

Feed those plants (i.e. this includes feeding the soil around the plants as well) good compost, cover crops, organic fertilizers, etc. and the plant's cells are being fed well. Plant cell regeneration will be healthy. Feed the plants and soil synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, etc. and your plant cells will suffer, degenerate.

Healthy plant cells feed your body for positive cell regeneration.

Unhealthy plant cells feed your body for degenerative cell replacement.

By the way, your compost pile is also in need of good food. Feed your compost well as it is what will feed your garden. If you do not eat refined, processed food "products," do not dump them into your compost pile. What goes in the compost goes into the garden, goes into your produce, and goes into your body. 

Be conscious of the food you feed yourself. Get to know your farmers and be conscious of the food being fed to your produce, your "eggs," your meat and dairy. It all truly matters!

You are what you eat!

Cooking and Eating at Home IS the Life for ME!!

Try to sing that title to the tune of: "Farm Living is the Life for Me....!"

I confess, I do not like to eat out. The idea of eating out is fabulous: someone else doing the shopping, cooking, and washing the dishes AND I get someone to serve up the food to me!

Who can say no to that?

This writing idea came to me as I was driving my kids to school. It started off as 4 simple reasons to eat at home. And then... my mind wandered...

11 Reasons Why I Prefer to Cook and Eat at Home:

1.  I truly love to cook, to stretch my kitchen artist's muscles and create fun and tasty food with what I have on hand.

Ethiopian carrots and Brussels Sprouts: First cook up a pot of red lentils (keep them firm, not mushy), then saute' up some onions, carrot coins, and Brussels sprouts in butter.  Add in some mild curry powder to the veggies, mix in the cooked lentils, and toss with some cashews. Yummy, easy, seasonal dinner! Serve with a side of whole grain pita bread, warmed and slathered with butter, and a dish of local yogurt.

2.  I like knowing my body cells, and my kid's body cells, are being nourished with real food. I like knowing my food is being made with high quality ingredients.

3.  The vegetables and fruits I cook with... I know:

• who grew them: the Martins, the Kents, Dulli and her crew at Birdsfoot Farm, John Dewar (the local Doc gone veggie farmer)... and so many more chemical free, northern NY growers,
• where the farmer lives and grows food (no, I do not stalk my famers!) but I like to see the land, know the soil my food was grown in... that kind of picky stuff,
• how they grow the food (chemical free).

4.  The animal products I use I like to know:

• see the above farmer information and
• that the meat, eggs, milk, and dairy products came from animals that are pasture raised... out there eating grass and all the plant life that they like to eat and is their natural diet.

OK, so these goats ARE wandering in the snow... but, they are free wandering, pasture raised goats when the snow melts!

5.  Whole grains: when I cook at home I know the bread, pasta, noodles, pie crust, cake, cookies or any food made out of flour is 100% whole grains. Whole foods nourish our body cells for health and healing. Refined foods deplete our body cells and set our bodies up for chronic, degenerative diseases. I have yet to find a restaurant that serves 100% whole grain foods with pasta dishes, bread for sandwiches, buns for burgers and such, bread that is served at the beginning of a meal, etc.

6.  The minimal amount of sugar being used in my kitchen is not refined, white, cell destroying sugar. I cook with the highest quality of cell nourishing ingredients in all my food prep and cooking.

7. I know my food is not being nuked in a microwave. Microwave cooking is best avoided in a whole health lifestyle. To learn more about microwave's impact on your food and health, click here.

8.  I know my food is seasonal and local allowing my body to follow the natural rhythms of the seasons and nature. My food is living and growing in the same climate I live in and that is just good vibrational energy!

9.  I use oils that contribute to my vibrant health and avoid cheap vegetable oils such as soy and canola. I use high quality olive oil for making salad dressing. Most food establishments do not invest in high quality oils.

10. I do not have to go anywhere. Home is where the heart is and my heart is happy at home!

11.  I can dress up, or down, in any clothes I want. PJs at the dinner table? Sure, why not!  

Reminds me of an early morning breakfast when I was 20 at McDonald's in Canton. (Yes, I had a rocky start to independent, whole food eating lifestyle. My Mom did not bring me up on McDonald's food!)  A high school girl friend and I went to breakfast in our long, flannel night gowns. Made sense to us, it was breakfast and we were in our PJs. Apparently the manager was not on board with our logic!  We were asked to leave and not so politely either!

Love yourself and everyone you feed with real food!

Like my blog posts? Share with like minded family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, people you pass on the streets... The healthier and happier we are, the better world we will have!

My boys baking at home. We prefer home made, whole food birthday cakes over bakery made, refined food cakes!

PS The Radiantly YOU Telesummit has been a hit! Only 2 days left to listen, BUT...To purchase, and listen to these fabulous women healer's recorded words of wisdom,  over and over and forever, for only $9, click on the buy now button below!

Enjoy! You will be eternally grateful for these healing words of wisdom!