The Uselessness of Knowing Too Much

 

I like to think of myself as cutting edge when it comes to health and caring for others and myself. The alternative to being fit as a fiddle is kind of, well…. scarry. If I don’t exercise, eat right and have an optimistic outlook, I could become old before my years, ample beyond my current pant size and lose some of my mind from lack of oxygen. Deep breath, breathe.

 

So staying current sometimes means going back to basics. My personal journey to health was begun by a health breakdown. After a lot of misdiagnoses, the practitioners arrived at Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. I  did all the “right things” like change my lifestyle from eating and exercise to slowing down and maybe for the first time, having a somewhat rational life in terms of the time I spent at working versus resting and enjoying life - which some folks like to call balance.

I made some inroads to be sure - by upgrading eating, exercise and RnR would help anyone. But I arrived at a plateau and remained there for a decade before someone said, chicken soup. I had to hear that message a few times before it began to truly sink in. All the years of accumulated knowledge in how to diet and exercise were fighting against a mental redaction of information and potentially deemed useless. I had spent years accumulating - and putting into place - knowledge that would supposedly heal me and now all that knowledge was being threatened by - chicken soup.

 

Yes, it is true what Gran’ma use to say when you had the proverbial flu du jour, “here’s some homemade chicken soup, now eat it up cuz it will cure what ails you!”  Ok, I really didn’t believe it then either, but I ate it and I did feel better but I thought it was just because it was Gran’ma lovin’ on me. The basics.

 

Later in life, I was talking to a nutritional coach and she got me started on - you guessed it, chicken soup. The real, old-fashioned, bone-broth-type chicken soup - the kind our foremothers generations ago would make and teach the next generation how to do it. I was to keep in mind that, back in the day, these ladies of the basics cooked and had their families eat everything - nothing was wasted.

 

Last Thanksgiving, we were invited to a holiday meal. The male host helped the the female in presentation so you gotta give him credit. Finally, one guest asked, “May I have some dark meat?” since none had been laid out. The male host, looked dumbfounded asked, “Which part is that?” If that wasn’t amusing in itself, towards the end of the evening, the male host was helping the female clean up - more credit given. He took half the bird, mostly the dark meat, and along with it, tossed the entire carcass in the trash. To which half the female guests gasped.

 

Back to generations past - those ladies would have squeezed a week’s worth of meals or more out of that bird, using every iota. My point being, is that we live in a great, new generation full of wonderful new things and an overload of information - but we can’t entirely forget the past or how we got here. We also can’t believe everything out on the information highway. It is important to find that balance [take deep breath here, release]. Combine that balance with traditions and great memories; along with great, healthy foods that will supply our bodies with the nutrition we need to be vibrantly healthy.

 

To that end, I ventured into the world of bone-broth making. You can make it with poultry or meats but the main thing is to get all the nutrition out of something you can. Simplistically said, our real health, lies in our gut. If we have healthy guts, then the right nutrition is sent out to our brains, organs and the rest of our bodies and every body is happy.

 

I have found that it is real simple, and never too late, to start on the right path. Just begin where you are and start making teeny changes and add to your new repertoire each day. As an example, just start using the whole of poultry or meats. For bone-broth, just take the bone-in carcass of any poultry along with the organs or bone from the meat, sea salt and garlic pepper. Then pop in all in a large crock pot and fill with great quality water - not tap - and let it crock cook overnight. In the morning, you will find that most everything has softened. Some folks like to split the softened bones and scoop out the marrow to put in meat loafs but it can be used in the broth as well. Now you have the basis for all types of nutritional soups using your bone-broth. I bought a case of quart-sized (Mason, Ball or Kerr) jars, lids and rings; and after the broth was cooled, I filled to the shoulder, allowing room for expansion; and finally, froze them for when I need them later.There are a lot of variations on this theme so I will leave some links for you at the bottom of this article.

 

The next item to add to your healthy food list is Kombucha and other forms of probiotics like organic, fermented sauerkraut and beet kvass. If  you like to cook and enjoy the discovery process, it is very much less expensive and simple to make these yourself; but you can buy them at natural health food stores. Kombucha might be more of a new word in your healthy dictionary but it has been around for centuries. You can buy it in varied flavors at natural food markets but you can make it as well. More links will be provided for you for these wonderful whole foods.

 

Moving from ancient pasts to our foremothers and now to our future, I will be discussing in more detail, the sweet basic ways of a healthy life. But for now...

 

….breathe!

 

                                                                                            ~*~

You can get a supply list from the links below and then purchase on Amazon. Be sure to sign up for Amazon’s  “SMILE” program to donate a portion of your purchases to your Organization of choice.
 

Where to buy supplies: http://amazon.com/
How to make homemade Kombucha: http://www.kombuchakamp.com/
How to make homemade fermented or “cultured” foods like saurkraut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0C1cJ1yk4c

How to make Beet Kvass: http://aniafieldsphotoart.com/blog/beet-kvass-recipe/

More info on how to make bone broth for Gut health by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride and her landmark book, Gut & Psychology Syndrome (GAPS): http://www.gapsdiet.com/