Food odds and ends, plus applesauce

Because we're planning to move next May, Shane and I decided that it was finally time to knuckle down and actually eat everything in our freezer. We've never done this before. We've said we wanted to, but then let other things and meals get in the way. Neither of us is terribly fond of fish and that is a majority of what's in the freezer. But now, neither of us wants to even think about moving frozen food. So it's either eat it, or give it away next May.
This past spring, Northwest Edible Life did an "eat from your pantry" challenge. I sort of followed it. At least, it got me thinking more about what we had which needed to get eaten up before summer's glut began. But there's no way we have enough in the house to not go grocery shopping at least occasionally, so I didn't feel really hardcore about this.
This time, things are different. It's not just, "Oh, yeah, I'll make sure we eat that sometime this week." I am planning every meal based on what we've already got in the house. Breakfasts, lunches, dinners...everything has at least one pantry and/or freezer item in it. It's been rather incredible how quickly we've eaten our way through some things. Our chest freezer is already looking a little sparse, which is fabulous! I really think we can make it this time, as long as we keep our motivation up.
I've made cherry scones for breakfasts (using up the last jar of cherries I canned two years ago) and will make applesauce muffins when they're all gone, using the applesauce which, again, has been sitting in our cupboard for several years. I burned it a little when I made it, and it tastes burnt, but not in muffins! I've also used it to make this apple-cranberry baked oatmeal, which uses both the applesauce and some of the last of our cranberries.
Lunches have been dinner leftovers (as usual) and dinners have been surprisingly well-rounded, tasty, and diverse. We're still buying vegetables from the store, which helps, but even the meat portion of the meal has been different every night, despite the fact that we've mostly just eaten fish and moose. But we made pesto salmon which was a huge hit with everyone, including the tiny human. (The recipe is: smear leftover pesto on a salmon fillet and bake until done.) We made curried halibut (it sucked, but only because the fillet was so old...leftovers went to the dog and we scrounged other leftovers and freezer items for lunch), moose roast, chili with moose, and a couple of vegetarian soups. Even those used pantry/freezer items, like tomatoes that I canned this year and celery from the freezer, my homegrown carrots and peas. Soon we'll be making Alaskan pie, clam chowder (we have clams in the freezer), lasagna (with ground moose meat), and of course more salmon. (Tonight: rosemary garlic salmon. Next time: teriyaki salmon with sriracha sauce.)
It's incredible to me how quickly we get through food now simply because we've added one very small person to our house. I swear, she eats half her body weight every single day! I love that she enjoys food, though. She's so far from being a picky eater that she actually loves strong flavors! Curry, chili, pesto...she even loved potato leek soup, so much so that she would ignore the banana pieces in front of her to lean over, mouth open, asking for more soup. She likes cabbage and turnips and carrots and she vastly prefers wild blueberries, which are far more flavorful and a bit tart. But she chews on rhubarb stalks from the garden, so I guess I don't have to worry about her disliking tart or sour things!
Still, though, she is a baby, and she is human. She loves sweet things as much as anybody. She's gotten very small amounts of sugary items (like a bite or two) but for the most part her sweetness comes from fruit. One of the easiest things to make for her, when we're all out of other ideas or foods she can eat (she still doesn't have teeth, at 10 months, so we're stuck feeding her soft foods), is to give her "oatmeal". I bought steel cut oats in bulk and ground them up in the blender so that it's more like oat powder. Into this we mash fruit, or blend it up to mix in, and sometimes add a bit of spice. Her favorites have been blueberries (with nutmeg, if we feel like it), bananas (with cinnamon), plums. And, applesauce.
As I said above, the last batch of applesauce I made for canning, I burned. No matter which pot I used, it always ended up burned. So now I only make applesauce in the CrockPot. I suppose it ends up being a little bit more like unspiced apple butter that way. But, it's delicious. Applesauce is inherently less nutritious than eating whole apples, because a lot of the nutrition is in the skins. But, it's still fruit and until she grows some teeth, applesauce it is. To make applesauce, peel and core a bunch of apples. Put the flesh of the apples in the CrockPot and turn it on low for a few hours. That's it! Cook it down until it becomes the consistency of, you know, applesauce. If you've got a particularly hard bunch of apples you might add a tiny bit of water or cider. But I love using apples which have gone mealy, and they provide plenty of liquid.
For extra frugal points, you can save the skins and cores and make a second batch of applesauce. Once the first batch is out, put the cores and skins into the pot and cook them until everything is breaking apart and mushy. The reason you don't want to do this with the regular flesh is because you'll have to strain out the seeds, stems, and whatever parts of the skins don't break down. It's so much easier when there's a bit less sauce to strain. Once it's cooked, push it through a fine mesh strainer with a wooden spoon, periodically emptying out the mashed up fruit which won't fit through. It's a bit of work, but not too much, and it's totally worth it. I cut all of my apples off the core anyway, so I just save them all in a bag in the freezer until I have enough to be worth saucing. Pear cores and peels can also be added, if you have any.
Some people add sugar to applesauce, but why bother? It's plenty sweet, as long as you use some sweet varieties of apples. You can add cinnamon to the applesauce if you like, although I tend to do that when I'm using it instead. If you want to add other spices, cloves and nutmeg can make an interesting combination, but that also makes it more like spiced apple butter than a true applesauce.
This year, I'm not going to bother canning the applesauce. My MIL gave me a silicone muffin pan which she hated, and which is perfect for freezing into 1/3 cup amounts, which Shane and I have taken to calling pucks. As in, "How many broth pucks should I add?" We've got peach pucks (that is so fun to say) from peaches which almost went bad, broth pucks, and now applesauce pucks. We'll eat through them, just as we're eating through the other stored and frozen foods. And with them, we'll get a little taste of summer or autumn during the long, harsh winter.

Overnight oatmeal with applesauce and cinnamon:

2/3 cup rolled oats*
1 cup homemade applesauce**
1/4 tsp cinnamon, or a little more to taste

Store in a small mason jar in the fridge overnight and pull out for breakfast. Do yourself a favor and warm it up in the microwave before eating. It is so delicious on a cold autumn morning.

*I originally tried this with steel cut oats. Don't. Even blasting in the microwave doesn't soften the oats at all. Stick to rolled oats for this.
**I'm sure you could do this with store-bought applesauce as well, but I haven't tried that so no guarantees. If you do try it, just make sure that the applesauce is rather runny since it's the liquid part which softens and gets absorbed by the oats.

Meal planning when you just don't have time

I'm all about doing things the easy way these days. At least, I still want to do so much stuff, but I just don't have time. For some crazy reason, my baby actually wants me to pay attention to her and play with her. I love that ...most of the time. When we have 2 weeks of laundry piled up, crazy amounts of dishes we haven't gotten around to cleaning, a cat box that needs cleaning, a dog who's pawing at my leg to get my attention, a husband I feel like I haven't had any truly good time with lately, and a need once in a while for a little "me time" (it's important), I kinda wish I had a baby who would play by herself once in a while. It's a joke that's not really a joke in our house that Miss B won't let Mom get anything done. We've tested this. When I'm home, she has tolerance for about one chore each night. Some days, only half a chore. Ask me how many times I've finished making dinner while juggling her. Go on, ask. The answer is, pretty much any time I've made dinner since the day she was born.
The other night I made dinner and, later, committed the cardinal sin of cleaning the cat box after she'd gone to bed. She woke up and immediately began screaming because, as Shane put it, "Mom wasn't within arm's reach." She's getting a little better now because she actually likes tummy time--she's somewhat mobile (enough to grab a toy that's over there but not yet to actually crawl or move more than a foot or two) so that's helping. God help us when she does start crawling because she's never going to be still and I know already she's going to want me to watch her wherever she goes.
You're wondering why I don't do all of this when she naps. Ha! Hahahahaha!!! At the Easter potluck we went to there was another family with an 11 week old. The mom complained that their little girl had "only" taken a 2 hour nap that afternoon. I told her, if my child sleeps for more than 45 minutes I end up checking every 10 to make sure she's still breathing. It happens so rarely that she sleeps longer than half an hour. Last night, ten minutes. She took a freaking ten minute nap. >( So when I'm home and she does nap, believe me I am running around like a madwoman trying to get everything accomplished. Somehow, it's never done. I've started calling my family when I'm walking Dog and Baby (still in the carrier on my chest) because that's the only time I tend to have peace and quiet. I tried talking to one of my brothers when she was awake and about 5 minutes into the conversation he told me, "You have a very loud daughter." Yes, yes I do.
I don't feel that all of this is an excuse to fall behind in certain areas of life, however. Like meal planning and cooking. Not even Baby + finals week (next week) is an excuse to fall behind on that. We're relying slightly more on convenience items (as in, I bought rather than making the graham crackers for Shane's birthday pie crust) but for the most part we're keeping on keeping on in terms of cooking whatever we can. So how do I streamline the process? That part, it turns out, is easy.

1. I was once told that to be a home cook you should either have a lot of recipes in your repertoire or just a few. Why? Because that makes it so much easier to meal plan without having much food waste. If you have only a few meals, you'll use the same ingredients over and over again so that they don't go bad. If you have lots of meals, you'll have plenty of recipes with which to use up the foods you buy. I am a "lots of meals" kind of person. The meals we love and make "often" don't usually get made more than once in a month. In fact, if we do plan for a meal to be repeated in less than four weeks it feels like we're having it a lot.
This system gives me lots and lots of meals to choose from, and lots of ingredients to play with. So I know if I want to make one of these three dishes, I should choose one of the others as well so that I can use up the monterey jack cheese. (Usually the sausage & pasta meal with one of the soups so that we don't have too much soup in one week.) If I have leftover ham, as we recently did, oh look! Super easy to make this ham and white bean soup. And, easy enough that the baby let me do everything but cut up the ham before I had to recruit Shane's help. (Rare. Very rare.)
The other night we had no time to go to the store, but not much food that seemed to go together. Chicken? Grapes? Mayonaise? Almond slices? However, because I had so many recipes in my head it was easy to pull one out and make a delicious dinner that didn't feel hurried or scraped together. (It was curried chicken salad--I added some dried cranberries too, to good effect.) And because I utilized things that were about to go bad (chicken we'd thawed for another meal the night before, grapes that would have been thrown out otherwise) we both reduced our food waste and helped keep our food budget in line.
2. Use that freezer! Shane and I are really, really bad about freezer cooking. Some people are awesome at it, but we aren't. However, while we don't necessarily freeze extra meals all the time, we do freeze parts of meals. For instance, tonight we'll be pulling out some homemade freezer biscuits. When we want some and I have time, I make a fresh batch and just rotate those into the bottom of my big bag of biscuits in the freezer. That way when I don't have time to make more (like tonight) we always have them on hand. They're super easy to pull out of the freezer to bulk up a meal. Tonight we're having bratwursts (in the freezer since our big Costco trip last summer), sweet potatoes, green beans, and biscuits. It'll be a ridiculously simple meal to throw together, but hearty, filling, and yummy.
We did manage to put one lifesaver into the freezer. I accidentally made way, way more filling for burritos than I intended to (mostly, it was the beans and rice I made too much of) so Shane and I spent a hurried half hour assembly lining them, wrapping them in foil, and tossing them into a bag in the freezer. This has been super helpful a few times when the question came up, "What are we going to do for lunch then?" Grab a burrito, as it turns out.
3. Crockpot. I can't say enough good things about our Crockpot. We use it so often, and it always comes in handy. When I know we're going to have a big, crazy week I plan meals that can go into the Crockpot really fast. Not ones that are fussy (they're out there) and require putting in different ingredients at different times. No, I love the ones where you dump everything in and turn it on. I usually do all the prep the night before so that in the morning I can just pull the crock out of the fridge, put it in the heater, and turn it on. So simple.
This is also how we utilize dried beans so much. I soak them overnight in the crock of the crockpot (in the fridge) and in the morning I refresh the water, put the crock in the pot and set it to low. By the time I come home in the evening the beans are soft and ready to go into whatever dish I've planned. I've never had luck just letting a soup with beans in it simmer for hours on end. They always end up somewhat crunchy and unsatisfying.
4. Have the ingredients for a few quick meals on hand at all times. These are mine: chili, pasta primavera, chicken soup, lo mein, chicken fried rice. If it turns out that we didn't plan enough meals and leftovers for a particular week, or if we don't have time or even inclination to go to the store, I can pull out a meal that's easy to make. When we all came down with some awful cold earlier in the year, it was so nice to have the ingredients for chicken soup on hand. I use my mother's recipe, which I could make blindfolded in an unfamiliar kitchen, so it was a cinch to make it even when I didn't feel well. And it really does make you feel better.
5. Plan the easy meals. Seriously. Shane is swamped this week getting ready for finals next week, Miss B has been needier than usual (perhaps another growth spurt? a tooth getting ready to pop out?) and I've been a little anemic yet again (grr!) so I've been drained and tired. Neither of us really wants to cook. So our meal plan has been: salmon (from the freezer) and veggies (also from the freezer) one night; brats, veggies, and biscuits as stated above; BLTs; fajitas; pasta primavera. Super easy and quick meals so that we can feel slightly less overwhelmed. :)
6. Make extra. Sometimes, lots of extra. For lunches, routinely, we do leftovers. It's not really much extra work (maybe a bit of extra vegetable cutting?) to make enough to have leftovers the next day, and when we're putting the meal away we just pack lunch portions for ourselves.
If we know we'll have one or two nights that are super busy, we'll cook one giant meal (red beans and rice, a big soup + bread, or two-three main dishes such as chicken fried rice, egg drop soup, and stir fry) and coast on the leftovers for several days. This has seen us through finals weeks, through Hell Week when I'm doing a FLOT musical, and through the first few weeks after our parents went home after we had Miss B.

By the way, all of this works just as well for breakfasts. Between biking to work and breastfeeding, I need a filling breakfast every morning. But, it also has to be fast. I already put up my blueberry oatmeal banana bread recipe, but I mix it in with other things. When I lack time, oatmeal is always a good choice. But I measure it out and get my toppings ready the night before so that in the morning I can just add water and pop it in the microwave to cook while I feed the pets and change a diaper. When it's not my night to cook dinner and we're out of breakfast food, I'll run around making something easy and quick, like the banana bread. If I have a little more time (like, say, weekends) I'll make something more involved, such as pancakes (which can be refrigerated or frozen for quick weekday breakfasts) or muffins (can also be frozen). This has removed most of the stress from weekday mornings, and I always know that I've got a healthy breakfast waiting for me, a lunch packed up and ready in the fridge.
You'd think that planning this would take time, but it doesn't. In my spare moments--walking to the bathroom at work, during my bike ride home--I'll figure out what I want to and what we should eat in the coming week. Later, I'll ask Shane's input. (It usually goes, "What do you want to cook and eat this week?" "I dunno, you pick.") What do we still have in the fridge that needs to get used and eaten? What do we have in the freezer that we should eat? Ideally, the meals I come up with utilize at least one of those components. When I actually sit down to write out the grocery list, it takes less than 10 minutes. All of this has helped to keep our grocery budget in line and to keep our sanity, even though we've added a tiny human to our household. It means we don't waste time every night trying to figure out what to eat, or getting takeout because "there's no food in the house".

Blueberry Oatmeal Banana Bread

This has become my new favorite breakfast. I really don't like bananas. In fact, they're one of the few foods I'll say that I pretty much hate, with the caveat unless they're in something. Then, the other flavors tend to mask at least most of the banana flavor and I can stand them.
You can imagine Shane's surprise, last time we were at the store together, when I put two big bunches of bananas into our cart. "Miss I-Hate-Bananas, you're picking up bananas?" Yep. Because this is seriously the best breakfast.

Blueberry Oatmeal Banana Bread

(adapted from this recipe)

3 very ripe bananas, mashed to oblivion
1 large egg
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, or honey (both work well)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 generous cup oats
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4-1/2 tsp nutmeg (optional, but delicious)
Frozen blueberries, preferably wild, until you think "that's blue enough", about 1 cup

Preheat oven to 350. Mash the bananas, then mix in the wet ingredients, then the dry ingredients into the wet, then finally the blueberries (gently) into everything else. Bake in a greased loaf pan for 1 hour.

In the mornings I cut generous slices, slather them with butter, and microwave them for 30-45 seconds to make the butter melt. It's heavenly, and actually not too bad for you.


Update: Since originally writing this post, I've messed around a little more and made a lactation-friendly version to help support breastfeeding moms like me. Or just, you know, to add a bit more healthful stuff in if you like. So for this, you'll want to add 1 Tbsp nutritional yeast and 1 Tbsp flax, plus either an extra 1/2 a banana or 1/4 cup milk.
I have also reduced the amount of sugar or honey to 1/4 cup and didn't notice a difference in sweetness.

Pumping

This is actually a post I told myself I wasn't going to write. There are so. many. freaking. mommyblogs that talk about pumping, and breastfeeding in general. And it's great! I love that so much of this information is available now.
BUT, even with the prevalence of blogs talking about pumping, some of the information which helped me the most still took me a while to find. I've made no secret of the fact that Baby and I had a rough start to breastfeeding, and it made me very nervous to only be pumping during the weekdays, since that can decrease supply. But things are going really well so far, especially after I did some research, not only online but also asking people I know and love for their advice. One of my cousins pumped so much extra milk that she literally donated gallons of breastmilk to her local breastmilk bank (seriously, she posted pics to Facebook that made me envious), not just once but several times.
So, after all of my research and asking, here's what's helped me the most and a few facts which might be hard to find.
First, there's the amount you pump at a given time. So many of the blogs with posts about pumping show pictures with two VERY full bottles. Like, 5 ounces in each. Or more. This can make the rest of us feel a little inadequate in our pumping. However, most of these women are pumping full time. If you start off with only pumping (and there are a variety of reasons why women need to do this) then your body will begin to respond to the pump as if it's your child and you'll get a lot more from the pump at any given time. For the rest of us, our bodies don't like the pump as much because they know what it's like to have a baby suckling, and the pump is just second best. It is perfectly normal to only get a few ounces each time you pump. On a really good day, and if I've had to push off pumping for a little while so that my boobs feel like they're going to burst, I can get a bit over four ounces. (I would show a picture here, but my iPod died so I don't have a camera handy.) I think the most I ever pumped at one time was about 5 ounces, total. And this is fine! Don't expect to fill up both bottles each time. I aim for eight ounces each workday, and just cheer for myself if I happen to get more.
It is perfectly normal to get more milk from one boob than from the other. Again, you'll see all kinds of pictures online of perfectly even bottles completely full of breastmilk. Again, these tend to be from full-time pumping moms. For the rest of us, baby drank from one boob after the other, and and boob #2 might not have filled up as much in the intervening time. Or one side just plain doesn't respond to the pump as well. One of my boobs literally squirts milk for the pump, and the other tends to have more of a slow dripping leak for the pump. THIS IS NORMAL.
You might not leak at all. I saw so many things about how you NEED to get breastpads so that leaking doesn't seep through your shirt. This has never really come true for me. I've had noticeable leakage a grand total of four times, and each of those times I was at home, feeding my baby on the other side. Even for women who start off leaking, this sometimes stops after baby and body adjust to each other. Leaking doesn't necessarily mean you're a super breastmilk making machine, and not leaking doesn't necessarily mean that you're not making enough milk. Don't worry.
If you're breastfeeding the rest of the time, you might produce less at the end of the week than you did at the beginning. That's ok, if you breastfeed all weekend (even better if you can fit in a pumping session or two) then it'll be sky-high again on Monday. I tend to get 9 1/2 ounces on Monday, and by Friday I'm a bit under 8 ounces total. Sometimes even down around 6 ounces. It all works out, though, and if I can pump a bit over the weekend I can leave 8 fresh ounces in the fridge for Monday.
Big boobs do not necessarily mean big nipples, and small boobs don't necessarily mean small nipples, and the flanges that come with the pump usually fit a little less than half of all women. If you have an improperly fitted flange, you'll regret it. I ended up buying new flanges after Christmas because I'd end up sore after using the pump. Turns out, I'm in the small group of women who actually needed smaller flanges. Since my boobs are normally an overly-large D, and I don't even know what monstrous size they are now (I've been using sizeless bras), that was a bit of a surprise. But pumping is no longer in the least painful and I get a lot more than I was, so I've clearly found the right size for me.
Move the flanges around while you're pumping. My cousin mentioned that no one had told her this the first time around, but having the flanges always in the same places, putting pressure on the same spots, can set you up for mastitis. Ew.
While pumping, many people say to massage the breasts. In my mind, this implies lots of movement, which doesn't work for me. What I do is, after milk stops freely running out, run my thumbs down from the direction of my armpits and wait until I see milk coming out again. (It usually doesn't take long the first time.) I stop there and just hold pressure on that spot until the milk stops flowing. I keep doing this from various directions (working down the sides of my boobs, back up toward my armpits, a little bit on the insides and undersides of my boobs, then back up to my armpits again, etc.) and it's made a noticeable difference. Once I get all the milk I can this way, I move on to....
Hand expression. You'll probably need to do some hand-expression after pumping. I thought it was just me who still felt pretty full after pumping, but I'm not alone. Most women can get quite a bit more from hand expression. (I generally get at least half an ounce, and could get more if not for the time involved.) And if you're feeling like it's painfully slow to hand express milk, don't worry. You get much faster. (If you don't know how to hand express, there are lots of videos on Youtube.) I've found that the best way to do it is actually to switch off between breasts. I do two, er, squeezes on one side, then two on the other, etc. For some reason, having a bit of a rest in between makes everything so much easier.
Getting enough sleep is also crucial. If you're tired, your body is going to prioritize taking care of you. So get enough sleep. With Baby Girl, now that I'm working she wakes me up a bit more often to eat because she doesn't eat as much during the day as she would if I was home. On weekends, when she has free access to me all day, I get woken up once. During the week, it's usually two times, but sometimes even four wake-up calls. So we start getting ready for bed by about 9:30 so that I can get enough sleep, and so that she's not a tired mess when I hand her off to Shane the next morning.
A lot has been written about what you should eat and avoid while breastfeeding and/or pumping. Oats are great, yes. I realize there's no scientific proof that it works, but it does seem to help me. I mean, I ate oatmeal the day my milk finally came in (a few hours later), and this isn't proof but...yeah, I'm a believer.
But the one thing that I didn't really see mentioned in all those lists of what to eat is just an incredibly simple rule: eat a high protein diet. Milk is made of three basic components: water, fat, and protein. Of course it's got all the other good minerals and vitamins and whatnot that your baby needs in it, but the bulk of it is composed of those three things. Everyone emphasizes drinking lots of water, and unless you're under-weight your body has plenty of fat to provide, but I was puzzled for a long time as to why I still wasn't producing much milk even while drinking what felt like gallons. We tend more toward a plant-based diet in our household, with not much meat. So I finally found the advice to eat a bit more protein and HOLY BREASTMILK, BATMAN! Since upping my protein (a little bit more meat and cheese, some cow's milk for me at least most days, and lots of nuts and beans) I haven't had a single day where my supply was inadequate for Baby Girl. Damn, that feels good. I just wish I'd been told about this earlier; it would have made life so much easier.
I said above that I aim for 8 ounces each day, but if I don't get it all I don't stress and here's why: Baby Girl prefers mom over bottle. I wouldn't say that she's "rejected" the bottle, as some people say is a possibility, but she's not a huge fan of it. I freaked out the first week I was gone because on Wednesday I got a call from my mom around noon saying, "She's eaten everything you left in the fridge. Now what?" That was TWELVE OUNCES! That week she ended up drinking everything I produced plus three of the packs from my precious freezer supply. Turns out, she was starting a growth spurt. (I don't have a giant baby, but by the next week she'd grown out of several outfits which had fit her perfectly just a few days before.) For about a week and a half most of my thoughts centered around how to increase my supply (which is where most of my research came from) and what I would do if I just couldn't produce enough for her. Well, my worry was a bit needless because after the growth spurt she's settled into a routine of drinking about 1 1/2 bottles (about 6 ounces) while I'm gone during the day. Since I feed her right before I leave and as soon as I get home, this is working well for us. By the end of the week there's a surplus of milk in the fridge and some of it gets frozen for future growth spurts. Baby Girl spends a good portion of the evening eating and eating and eating, so I know she's getting enough food, and now I don't have to worry about producing enough.
I hope this helps other moms like me, who might have a rough start and who can get discouraged about breastfeeding, especially after returning to work. You're not a failure and you can produce enough food for your baby. It just takes a bit of research to find what works best for you.

Stress and relief

I am back at work. Dammit. As of Monday, I'm now a working mother. Well, I guess I was always a working mother, since I didn't give up my job, but now I'm actually doing the working part. And it sucks. My job is predictably boring, and I would much rather be at home with my baby. It's hard, sometimes, not to be resentful about the stupid lack of maternity (and paternity) leave we have in this country. Yes, I could have taken 18 weeks. But how many people can really afford to take 18 unpaid weeks? Add in the fact that I'm the family breadwinner and 10 weeks was all I could manage. (I was paid for almost all of that time, thanks to the combination of sick leave, annual leave, and holidays.) Yes, Shane's working but one very part-time student job (I think about 10 hours each week?) and one even more part-time weekend job (4-6 hours) do not bring in much money. In fact, all of that should just about cover what we pay for his student loans each month. (Which is, admittedly, more than the minimum.)
I did, in the last few weeks, ask if I could come back part-time at first. This was partly because I realized how hard it was going to be to leave her for 9 hours each day (including my 1ish hour walking commute) and partly because we found out that the person we intended to ask about babysitting three days a week was out of the country for 6 weeks. Eek!
Unfortunately, the powers that be at work denied my request for part-time. And they gave me half a week of notice to get my shit together and find a babysitter. !!!! So we did the only logical thing and called for grandparent help. Shane's mom, who would be the more logical choice since she's usually closer, is in Hawaii visiting her aunt right now. So we called my mom (who recently discovered that she has a ton of airline miles from her days traveling for work) and made arrangements for her to come up. That left Monday as the only day we needed to find a sitter for, but luckily a friend of ours has recently found a job but hadn't yet started work, so she was available. Phew! It's been a mad scramble and changing of all kinds of plans, but at least I know that Baby Girl is in good hands for my first week of work. My mom keeps saying that Baby Girl reminds her so much of my oldest brother, who was also a high needs baby. (She fits 8 of 12 features on this list, and a couple of them I don't think she fits *yet*, like "hyperactive"--she still loves being held all of the time if possible, but when we do lay her down for play time she's rarely still. People remarked at one month old how well she could already hold her head up and now at two months she already loves to stand, with the person holding her mostly acting as a support so that she doesn't tip sideways. However, the very first thing on the list? Intense? Yes, that is exactly the word I would use to describe my child.) My mom said that, when she's older, she'll be so easy because she'll be a self-motivator and will easily entertain herself. Also, "any other kids you have will seem ridiculously easy after her." When I joked, "Unless the next one is the same way!" my mom pointed out that, even then, we'll have experience with a high needs baby and know exactly what to do.
Thankfully, she's regulating herself into a bit of a routine, so life is easier now than it was in the first month. Naptime is basically non-existent--she catnaps unless she's being held. Even then, she doesn't usually sleep all that long. My mom got her to sleep for an hour and a half in her cradle yesterday but "it took some doing, and some tears". She was relieved to know that it wasn't just her having trouble getting a nap out of Baby Girl. I confessed that Baby Girl sleeps with us most nights (a little nervous, since my mom had a younger brother who died of SIDS and I worried she'd freak out about the slightly increased risk--which apparently is only risky if the parents are smokers and/or abuse alcohol and drugs, none of which we do, obviously). My mom nodded, saying, "Yeah, that's what we had to do with your brother, too." But nights are easy that way. She tends to sleep a ten hour night and, unless she's going through a growth spurt (like right now) she only wakes up once in that time to eat. I actually have to poke her awake sometimes because my boobs are full and I really need to feed something.
Breastfeeding also finally turned from something that was wonderful but still a bit fragile into an easy thing. Thanks, in part, to the pump I not only produced enough for her but also a bit extra to store in the freezer for my return to work. I had 8 bags of 3-5 ounces stashed in the freezer, two fresh in the fridge for my first day of work, and 2 bags of 1 ounce (in case she needs more after a meal, or to tide her over until I get home at the end of a work day). Considering how long it took to get my milk supply up, I'm incredibly proud of that. It was a little overshadowed when my friend said that she had over 20 bags in her freezer, despite how much her son eats (he's gained 8 pounds in 3 months!), but this is also her second baby and she said it was so, so much easier for her this time around.
My new work routine is this: wake up at 6:30 and get ready for work. Sometimes Baby Girl wakes up then, and sometimes not. Regardless, I make sure she wakes up so that I can feed her. Most mornings she goes right back to sleep and I have her snuggle up with Shane, who will hand her off to my mom when he needs to leave. At work, I pump twice during the day, on my breaks. That's been enough so far, with feeding her before I leave and then again as soon as I get home. I haven't been able to pump in the evenings so far (not only is she growing, but I think she's missed me during the day and wants to be close to me) but on weekends I'll continue to fit in a pumping session or two and continue adding to my stockpile. Since breastmilk loses a little of its nutrients in the freezer, what I've pumped on Fridays will stay fresh in the fridge for Monday's workday feedings.
My pumping area at work is a space that's mostly used as a supply closet. I brought in a sheet to cover the doorway and made a sign, brought one of the extra chairs in, and voila! There is a dedicated lactation room on campus, but I'd have to go to another building and it would be a pain in the ass. So I talked to my coworkers and everyone agreed that this will work well. Since I'm just pumping on my breaks, this is close enough that I'm not going too far over my 15 minutes (and I think I'm the only one in the office who watches the clock anyway). It's a bit dim, but I can relax back there, oddly, and I generally end up standing, which I find more relaxing than sitting. The only awkward part is having to carry the milk through the public part of the library back to my office (and the fridge) but I'm as discreet as possible so I don't think anyone else notices. My coworkers are all cool about the breastmilk in the fridge too. I may be biased, but I think it helps that it's an office of exclusively women.
Finally, I'm trying to lose some weight and get back in shape. I was worried at first that it would affect my milk supply if I cut calories, but things are going so well that it should be fine. Especially since I'm not doing anything extreme. Three days a week I'm going for a short run (20-30 minutes) with the dog (who has calmed down a lot, but still gets jealous of the baby and I want my old lady dog to know I still love her!). Another 2 days per week I'm trying to do some yoga or other exercises in the house. It's helpful that Baby Girl enjoys sitting in her bouncy seat watching us exercise. She kicks and smiles and I coo at her as I'm getting into downward dog or whatever. It's great, and relaxing which is exactly what I need.
I'm very conflicted about my postpartum figure. On the one hand, I am awesome! I made a human being! If I have a few stretch marks, a shiny new scar, and some loose skin around my tummy, that is a small price to pay for the amazing little person I birthed. On the other hand, I do want to be healthy so exercise and a good weight are important. Not only that, but my husband is important as well, and what he thinks of me. I sent him a link about what new dads should know about new moms, and the appearance aspects of it really resonate with me. He didn't seem to get it. I was getting dressed for my run last night and he poked my belly, laughing a bit. I said, "Thanks, because I really don't feel ugly enough." He answered, "Well, you're doing something about it." I don't think he realized quite how hurtful his words were. This wasn't exactly the "you're still beautiful" I was hoping for. But, I know he meant it as, "you're unhappy now but you're doing something about it and that's awesome and I want to support you no matter what!" But it didn't sound that way. This is one of the problems of an English major marrying a non-English major. I can pick out all of the nuances in language, which Shane doesn't think are that important. So where I hear "yeah, you're pretty unattractive after having our kid and I'm looking forward to you getting into better shape again", he doesn't mean it that way. And I know it, but the phrasing still hurts because, in my head, what I hear isn't his intent.
When I mentioned last week that I was going to get serious about losing some weight now (and I don't just mean the few pounds leftover from being pregnant and from my enforced inactivity during the cold weather, but back down to the weight I was at just after high school, so another 8-ish pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight) Shane asked, "So, how can I support you in this without sounding like a dick?" I told him honestly that I didn't know, I just thought it was important to tell someone else so that I was held accountable. But he's back into an exercise routine as well, now that the holidays are over and my brothers (who visited for a little over a week) are gone. We've been making sure to stock the house with healthy snacks. My "treat" the past few days has been these "German chocolate energy bites", which taste decadent but are really good for you. I've been eating a lot of oats, making overnight oatmeal as a snack (oats are a galactogogue, so they support breastfeeding--important as I start pumping more, since that can decrease supply--AND they're high in iron, which will help me get out of the anemic range quickly) and I made baked oatmeal (with wild cranberries that I picked last summer) for breakfast for the week. I've also been making sure that I get some nuts (usually walnuts but sometimes almonds) every day, and I'm trying to drink one glass of organic whole milk every day. This weekend I'll probably try to make some boiled eggs to have as another snack, since I've noticed that my milk supply is higher when I've been eating a lot of protein. Plus, eggs are delicious, help with building muscle (important as I start exercising regularly again) and they're overall a really healthy food.
As far as how I'm planning to lose weight, I do terribly with diets. Just really awful. For one thing, most of them advocate cutting out at least some of the foods that I love and I can't do that. And I hate counting calories or weighing my food to make sure my portions are all correct, etc. We eat a really healthful diet, but most of the time I eat in such a way that it maintains my weight. So to lose weight, I'm simply going to bed a teensy bit hungry. Not starving, not really truly hungry, but just a bit peckish. Feeling like I could have another small snack and just not having it. I don't feel deprived this way and I'm still getting enough calories to (hopefully) keep my breastmilk supply up. (I'll reassess as time goes on and I've been at work for more than a week.)
I really didn't intend to make most of this post about baby-related stuff, but it's hard not to when most of my thoughts each day revolve around Baby Girl and what's best for her. So,

Weighty issues

I went to a burlesque show last night, which I keep thinking of with mixed feelings. I had fun, it was very fun and funny, full of bad sexual puns and silly little skits. However, I also realize that it was quite bad. I mean, it was a Fairbanks burlesque show. It's not like there are tons of resources going into things like this around here. (I'm sure regular strip clubs here make bank, but while burlesque involves stripping it's more along peep-show lines, more artsy.) I have friends in Seattle who are involved in burlesque shows and all I could think was that they'd be weeping if they saw this.
The props were terrible. One of the two men had a fake mustache which kept falling off. At first I thought that it was supposed to add to the comedy, but when it kept happening I realized that, no, it was just bad.
The dancing...oh my word, the dancing. There were four women actually on stage, and only one of them was what you'd call thin. And she was awful. She couldn't dance worth anything. I wanted to shout, "Move your hips! No, not jerky motions, flowing! Like you're in water, dammit!" Instead of a sultry finger flowing up her body and then slowly pointing it upwards, she'd stab her finger into the air like she was trying to rip the ceiling.
The other three had varying levels of skill but only one of them was truly entertaining to watch. One of the women doesn't seem to have an expression other than scowling, so while she would otherwise be very pretty her expression was rather off-putting. The largest gal's "sultry expression" looked more vacant and dimwitted than anything else. I could see that part of it was because she was concentrating so hard, but I thought she would have done a much better job had she simply smiled. (I saw her later and she does have quite a nice smile. It was warm and friendly and she's very pretty when she smiles.)
Of course, it naturally got me thinking about weight as well. The only person involved with the show whom I would say was in shape was one of the men. Despite this, I don't want to make it seem like the weight of anyone on-stage was either off-putting or that I'm critiquing them for it. I just want to point it out because it got me thinking about weight in our society. You see, my friends who do burlesque in Seattle are all quite thin. It's expected that if you're going to be showing off your body, you should be in shape. Right? One of my friends, before she got back into doing burlesque, lost nearly 20 pounds. I saw her last summer and then again at Christmas and there was a marked difference. When I mentioned, at Christmas, how great she looked (she was all dressed up for New Year's and really did look gorgeous) she mentioned her weight loss. At the time I said something along the lines of, "Wow, good for you!" because that's the expected response. But I wasn't happy with myself for it.
Should we really congratulate each other on weight loss? I know that we put a lot of emphasis on weight. A lower weight does tend to correlate with a healthier person. I know that weight also isn't everything, though. When people mention weight loss I tend to be happy for them because, for the most part (at least among my friends) it means that they've been exercising more and eating better. And that is fantastic, I want to encourage that. I like my friends, I want them to live long and healthy lives! But I don't necessarily want to encourage the idea that weight loss is everything. I know plenty of people who are skinny but probably rather unhealthy, given what they eat and their amount of exercise. (I knew a guy several years ago, a senior at the U, who had never eaten a cherry, blueberry, or raspberry. He subsisted mostly on pb&j sandwiches and macaroni and cheese--it's what he'd eaten his entire life and he saw no need to change, or to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. I made him try a cherry.) Conversely, I know people who are overweight who eat well and run marathons. Weight is not necessarily a symbol of how well you take care of yourself.
Of course, those marathon runners who are overweight do tend to be outliers. Most of the people I know who are obese are in that category for a reason and I don't want to downplay that either. I get a bit googly-eyed when I hear about how much soda most people drink, or when I realize just how many times certain friends and acquaintances get fast food each week. Or the fact that some people don't exercise, ever.
So here's my conundrum. What do you say to someone who's lost weight if you don't want to be seen as congratulating them on the weight loss itself, but on the healthy habits they've developed? In what way can we have a conversation about weight and health which doesn't shame those who are overweight but otherwise healthy? That's a conversation I'd like to have, and one which I think is necessary for our national dialogue. As it stands, there are sweeping generalities about who is healthy and who is not, and it mostly ignores those who don't fit the generalities. Then people are offended and nothing productive occurs.
In this day and age, how do we address matters of weight without placing judgments on the wrong people?

Chocolate cravings and lady problems

For various reasons not at all related to making babies, I stopped taking birth control in the autumn. Shane and I have agreed that this has been a very good decision. The problems I'd been noticing in myself went away almost immediately and I even lost almost ten pounds in the first two months after I stopped taking it. Just that, and the relief of knowing that the weight I've gained over the past several years wasn't actually because of me (stupid pills), has made me feel more confident about myself.
Now that I've returned to normal hormonal functioning, it's also been fun for me to notice all of the differences in myself each month. Scientifically, I knew that changes in women's hormones lead to certain notable things. For instance, when a woman is ovulating she's more likely to be attracted to a strongly masculine face or a more "manly" man, whereas at non-ovulating times women are more likely to choose sensitive, more effeminate-featured men. (Hello, Orlando Bloom!) I'm lucky because when I look at Shane I see both the boy I met and the man I married, so I get the best of both worlds. :) But even watching movies, I've noticed changes in what actors I find attractive depending on where I'm at in my cycle.
There are other things, of course. While the pill helps some women regulate their mood swings, it seemed to make mine worse. Shane says that I seem more in control and "less crazy" before my period now. On the other hand, I now get zits around my period like I'm in high school again. No fun! And I seem to get cramps no matter what. But I'm still having fun observing these changes in myself. Science!
The one thing I completely forgot about, but probably should have expected, is a serious craving for chocolate. Not sweets in general, just chocolate. Last week I was raiding the cabinets searching for any sort of chocolate to the point that Shane noticed and gave me one of his "holy crap you're a little nuts right now" looks. Disaster averted: we had both hot chocolate and some leftover Christmas candy in the house. :) I'm also using the cravings as an excuse for why I bought chocolate ice cream and $23 worth of bulk-bin chocolate chips on Saturday. It's a good reason, right?
But I don't want to be eating crap every time my period rolls around. If for no other reason, it's not exactly going to make that time any more pleasant if I'm feeling bad about my eating habits in addition to everything else that happens. So I'm trying to find better ways of controlling the need for chocolate and I think I've found the perfect solution: oatmeal. Hear me out! Oatmeal is my go-to winter breakfast because it's easy and hot and healthy and I can change it up every day. I've made PB&J oatmeal (not bad, actually), oatmeal full of nuts, seeds, and dried fruit, oatmeal with fresh fruit. I've used brown sugar, honey, and maple syrup as the sweetener. (Not all at once!) I've put in nutmeg and cinnamon to change the flavor. It's totally versatile! One of my favorites for the past couple of weeks has been chai oatmeal.
Well, now I know I can add a little bit of chocolate too. The heat from freshly cooked oatmeal melts the chocolate perfectly and everything you put in the oatmeal becomes covered in the gooey sweetness. It's perfection and it clears up any chocolate cravings I might be having without falling off the healthy eating bandwagon. I didn't add any other sweetener, since the chocolate is sweet enough. And when I can, I find dark chocolate chips which helps to make it slightly less sweet and just a bit healthier than it would be with milk chocolate chips.


Black Forest Oatmeal:
About a serving and a half of oatmeal
Enough water to cook the oatmeal (I cook it in the microwave, on high for three minutes)
A cup of pitted, frozen cherries (thawed overnight in the fridge) or 1/2 cup of dried cherries
1/4 cup of walnuts or pecans
1/4 cup (or slightly less) of dark chocolate chips

Cook the oatmeal. When it's still very hot, mix in the chocolate chips, then the walnuts and cherries. Consume and be happy.

Chocolate Coconut Oatmeal:
Cooked oatmeal
About 1/4 cup of chocolate chips
About 1/4 cup of unsweetened coconut shavings
1/4 cup of any type of preferred nuts (I love hazelnuts in this one)
Optional: a dash of cinnamon

Mix in the chocolate first so that it's all melty and covers the oatmeal, then mix in the other ingredients. Consume, and pat yourself on the back for choosing something healthier than a Pop Tart for breakfast.

Gimme some sugar

Actually, don't. I've been trying to stop eating so much of it. That goes for honey and maple syrup, too, all sweeteners really. All my life I've had a major sweet tooth and though I've pretty much always known that it's bad for me I've sort of shrugged my shoulders and said, "Oh well! Gotta have some vices." The fact that I don't generally make sweet treats anymore, and have entirely stopped buying them, made me feel more virtuous than it should.
Just lately, though, I've been realizing how much extra sugar I really eat and almost all of it goes into my tea. I justified it to myself because, on a per-cup basis it really wasn't all that much. About half a teaspoon for a large cup. Not bad, right? Except that I drink anywhere from 3-5 cups of tea each day. That ends up being a lot of unnecessary sugar. It only dawned on me when I realized how often I was needing to refill my little container of sugar for work.
So not only is it bad for me but it's costing me a lot of money. I buy the fancy organic cane sugar from the bulk section and it's quite pricey. Less expensive than if I was buying one of the name-brand bags, but still expensive. So by cutting out sugar I'm helping my health and my wallet. It still took me a few weeks to talk myself into it, because I don't like giving up my sugar addiction. Am I going to turn into one of those annoyingly virtuous and self-righteous people who says things like, "Oh, no. I don't eat that," in a tone which implies, "Your food is garbage." I admit that I can be kind of a food snob, but I try to only judge myself. I'm not the food police, your food choices are your own.
Without sugar, in the past tea has just seemed so bitter and blah, and I can't give up my tea! I could probably do without the caffeine (in fact, today I'm drinking red or rooibos tea, which is naturally caffeine free), but the warmth on cold days is pretty necessary. My boss simply microwaves a mug of water but I hate drinking plain hot water and anything else hot I could think of to drink has lots of sugar anyway. So plain tea it is.
Well, I took the leap last week and stopped putting sugar in all but my last cup of tea each day. It's turned out to be way easier than I expected. Even the first day when I put sugar in that last cup of tea it seemed far too sweet. By the time the weekend rolled around I was ready to stop putting sugar in my tea at all. Even milk as a sweetener seemed extraneous. So I've started drinking my tea black and enjoying it as much as ever.
I have some rather large cavities in my back teeth, which have been filled, but were a direct result of my sugar addiction. (And years of having no insurance during my early 20s.) They were starting to hurt sometimes and without the added sugar in my tea they've stopped aching. If I needed no other motivation that would be it. I'd really rather not end up as a toothless old woman. According to my dentist, sipping sugary drinks all day is the absolute worst thing you can do for your teeth. (I'm assuming that she means, besides being a meth addict. Have you seen their teeth?!) Getting a direct result from cutting back on my sugar intake is lovely.
In my morning oatmeal I've been putting in about 1/2 a teaspoon of maple syrup to sweeten it just a touch, rather than the tablespoon or so of brown sugar that I used to put in it. And I've been trying to limit myself to only one sweet treat per day. It hasn't been easy, and I've totally failed some days. My little brother made cookies this past weekend (oatmeal raisin, one of my favorite kinds!) and at the potluck between the Saturday shows for everyone in "The Wizard of Oz" I might have had four-ish cookies. For the most part, however, I don't find myself missing the sugar all that much. Certainly not as much as I thought I would. It makes me feel good, like this will be a lasting change.
Now I can see just how long it takes me before I need to fill up my sugar container at home. I'm betting not until Christmas. What do you think?

Food porn on Pinterest

I admit, I'm rather addicted to Pinterest. It's the perfect time-waster when I have nothing else to do at work, or if I just need a quick mental break.
One of my favorite categories, of course, is the food. (And the gardening, and the crafts, and the random beautiful pictures, and the humor....) I think that's the category where I have the most pins, which is rather impressive because of how many ridiculous recipes there are on Pinterest. I think somewhere along the line the diet advice to "eat foods with fewer ingredients" got a bit skewed. I see recipes all the time which are labeled, "Only five ingredients!" and such. But the ingredients tend to be: crescent rolls, Italian seasoning, ranch seasoning, Cool Whip, boxed cake mixes, and on like that. So it's very difficult to wade through all of these things to find real food recipes. I've discarded countless Crockpot recipes because they rely on something from a box or package which I'm trying to get rid of. Or it's just a plain Meat recipe and I prefer more nuanced (read: veggie-centric) recipes.
I am glad for many of the recipes that I have found. Other than the salad, the things I made for our anniversary were recipes I found via Pinterest. I tested out and loved a homemade hamburger buns recipe, and I have many other recipes which I'm really, really looking forward to trying out. (Crockpot vegetarian curry!) But it is a bit discouraging to see how many recipes I won't be making because they use crappy ingredients. Do you really need to use crescent rolls in everything, people?
If Pinterest gets more people excited about cooking at home for their families that's great. But if all they're going to be cooking is crap, then it's a mixed good. You really have to be picky about what you choose. And yes, some of those crap "food" recipes do look amazing. But knowing about all the chemicals and non-food items in them keeps me from making them. If you look carefully, there are plenty of real, whole food recipes to be found.

What makes a healthy diet?

Am I the only one who's getting disgusted with nutritional advice? Sometimes I feel as if I'm the only one who's made the connection between the advent of nutrition science and the fact that we've only gotten fatter and sicker since scientists started telling people how to eat. Not that I want to bash science, or scientists, but I think that we don't have nearly a complete picture of what makes and keeps us healthy and trying to give nutritional advice based on science, which is necessarily reductionist in nature, is both absurd and harmful. The fact that people simply are not educated in science as well as they should be adds to the problem.
Add in the number of myths that are still circulating and our system of divining what's healthiest for us is perfectly designed to confuse, rather than educate and enlighten. Take eggs, for instance. It used to be gospel that eggs were bad for you because they'd raise your cholesterol. People said this simply because egg yolks have cholesterol in them. But you know what? There is not one scrap of scientific evidence that eggs actually increase your blood cholesterol. That didn't stop companies from jumping into the market (there's always a new market for "healthy" processed foods that replace "bad" natural foods when science says something is bad for us) with egg substitutes. I still read plenty of articles from nutritionists about eating only egg whites and I want to slap my forehead. People have been eating whole eggs for thousands of years and how many of them died from eating eggs? (Remember, it's only been a very recent phenomena in human history that we've died from diet-related diseases.)
I laugh at the ads I've seen for food products that tout their supposed healthiness. Margarine sold with omega-3 fortification, almond or soy milk with B12 fortification for vegans and vegetarians, "pro-biotic" yogurt, "Vitamin Water", sugar-bomb children's cereals shouting about the vitamins they've been fortified with, things proclaiming how healthy they are because they're no fat, low fat, or low in calories, low in sugar. "Lite" foods crack me up--they've started using fake words to market their fake foods.
None of those things makes a food inherently good. Adding into our diets one thing that's healthy doesn't negate all of the crap we feed ourselves with. The reason all these foods need to be fortified, or to have things added into them, is because they're inherently unhealthy. They have no nutritional value beyond what's been artificially put into them. Scary thought, right? Think of how many truly empty calories you've eaten in your life. Blech. Thinking of my own diet from childhood up until the past couple of years, it was really terrible.
The best diet advice that I know of is simply this: eat foods that don't need to be fortified, choose the least packaged foods (they tend to be less processed), go organic when possible, and stuff as many fruits and vegetables in yourself as you possibly can. When I see that something has been fortified, I drop the box and run for the produce aisle. (Ok, maybe I'm not quite that dramatic.) Whole fruits and vegetables don't need to be fortified because they have everything you need already in them. As long as you're not eating just one type of fruit or vegetable, you'll get the full range of nutrients you need to be healthy. It's simple, really.
There's been a lot of news over the last few years about lawmakers trying to ban people on food stamps from buying unhealthy foods like chips and soda. Yes, I can agree that chips and soda, and processed cookies, are bad for people. Do I think food stamps should be spent on them? Not really. But I also don't think that anyone should really be spending money on those items. Eating crap food is not, as so many would love to believe, simply done by poor people and I feel that this is just one more way to stigmatize being poor. It feels not so much like an effort to make poor people healthier so much as it is something new to show them, "You're poor and that makes you not as good as the rest of us, so we can take away your choices and rights." Not cool.
It also gets back to the realm of who decides what constitutes "healthy". Food corporations? Science? The government? They've clearly already done a great job with that. Hearing from other people about supplemental programs, it's crazy what's considered "good" and what's "bad". Someone who used WIC when she had young children said that sugary juice and Life cereal were on the ok to buy list, while fruit wasn't. I can't be the only one who wants to ask those in charge of WIC, "WTF?"
I don't need science to tell me what foods are healthy. The ones humans have been eating for all of history, up until the 20th century, are the ones I'd prefer to stick to. I'm very thankful that science can tell us why something is good for us, but I'm going to leave my decisions about what to eat to centuries of human knowledge.

Dear Vegans,

First of all, I'd like to say that I really don't find anything wrong with someone choosing to eat a vegan diet. I think some of the logic is flawed, but if you choose to eat vegan than it really doesn't matter to me.
Which is why I can't understand the fact that vegans seem to be trying to persuade the rest of the world to eat vegan. It's like there's a Church of Veganism and everyone who belongs to it is as evangelical as any uber-conservative Christian church. I almost expect to open my door one day to see vegan missionaries, hoping desperately to convince me that butter and honey are evil. Like any good religion, there is no black and white in the world of veganism. (If there are shades of gray then perhaps, just perhaps, everything you've built your religion on is false....) You either are or you aren't vegan--no one is ever "kinda" vegan--and if you aren't, you're a horrible animal-hater who likes the torture of animals. In the world of veganism, there is no room for a person who eats ethically raised and slaughtered animals, and who gives thanks for sacrifice the animal has made.
I'm not trying to convince anyone that they should give up veganism, just that it would be nice if you all stopped rabidly trying to convince me that your way of life is the "right" one, or that we all must become vegans to save the world. It's never going to happen. You need to make room in your idea of the "perfect" world that people all have different nutritional needs, and that not everyone shares your opinion. I tried being vegetarian for a while. It didn't work for me, health-wise, and it didn't work for my lifestyle. I was anemic and sick all the time, and it put a burden on the rest of my family. It even limited choices as far as hanging out with friends. And this was just vegetarianism, not veganism.
You try to say that everyone can and should be vegan, but that's just not true. I've even read a number of articles in which people lie about what it takes to be vegan. The honest truth is, it's a lot of work. And you need to take supplements to be truly healthy and get all of the vitamins you need. (Hello, B vitamins!) If we all turned vegan tomorrow, there would be a huge problem of what to do with all those farm animals. They're not going to disappear, and after millenia of agriculture, in which we bred for characteristics we wanted and bred the wildness out of them, they're as suited to suddenly being free as they're suited to the industrial cages in which they can't turn around. Which is to say, not at all.
I promise, I will not try to convince you that meat is best. I really do think that most people in this country need to eat less meat and fish. I think that when we do eat it, we need to make sure that it's as ethical as possible. I agree that factory farming animals is sick, wrong, and unhealthy. But that doesn't mean the solution is to go so far to the other direction that all meat and dairy becomes evil, or that eaters of meat are the handmaidens of the devil.
I'm just as thankful for the animals that have died so that I can eat and live as I'm thankful for the plants that have died for that same purpose. Because something, whether plant or animal, is going to have to die for me to eat. If you really believe that all living creatures matter, then why do plants not matter? I believe it was Goethe who said, "In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it." The plants I eat are just as integral a part of the planet and the ecosystem as the animals. Should I be less grateful for their sacrifice on my behalf simply because we don't see them as intelligent the way animals are? I lovingly tend my garden. I know how much work and sweat I've put into it, and how much more work the plants themselves do. It's just as merciless and heartless of me to rip out my broccoli before it can flower and seed as it is to hunt or otherwise harvest an animal.
Please, stop telling me that I'm a "killer", or that I don't appreciate and love animals, because I do. I love them no less than I love the plants I grow. And this love, while you might have a hard time understanding it, is so much deeper than you give me credit for. I don't mean that I "love" animals in the same way I'd say, "Ooh, love those shoes!" There are many types of love in the world. I can love an animal and still eat it, and the eating only makes me more appreciative of everything the animal is and has done.
You can certainly talk about the yummy thing you ate (such as this delicious looking recipe--I'm totally trying it next time Shane's out of town!). But please, please don't try to convert me to the Fundamentalist Church of Veganism. Most of you just sound so preachy, high-handed, and self-righteous that it's more than a little off-putting. In fact, it's downright offensive a lot of the time. Vegans, you're not better people than the rest of us are. And if you really don't think that you are, then you might want to change your tone because that's the way you sound. Honestly, when you sound that way I'll just tune you out and that does neither of us any good. I don't preach at vegetarians about how they should start eating meat. (My comments on this blog about eating meat are focused on finding better sources, not at convincing anyone they should eat meat.) Please return the courtesy and stop telling me how I should eat and live my life.

Thanks.



*In case you're wondering, this post was prompted by the absolutely INSANE number of articles I've seen in the past six months about how eating meat is "wrong" and in which vegans try to convince the rest of the world that all meat and dairy is evil. The comments sections of those articles often read like people are taking sides in a Holy War. In fact, the comments (on both sides) are at least as crazy as the idea that we all need to go vegan. Some of the pro-meat side talk as if someone's trying to deny them the right to breathe. On the other hand, the vegan side mentions things like how I should also start feeding my pets vegetarian or vegan diets, which is so outside the realm of sane that I don't know what to do with it. DOGS AND CATS ARE CARNIVORES, IDIOTS. I used to laugh at this "Futurama" clip, but now it just makes me wince because I've realized that there actually are people out there who think this way.
However you choose to eat, please just do a little research about it. That's all I ask. Most of us realize that our health is intrinsically tied to what we eat and want to find the best for ourselves. So experiment, and read. If you find that veganism becomes you, fantastic. Just don't try to convince me that I should do it too. The arguments against veganism are at least as strong as those for, and in some cases better. Many of the studies vegans quote actually talk about eating *less* meat, not none. And not one reputable study I've ever found has said that products such as dairy and honey are categorically bad for your health.
So please, read the other side and get their opinion too. Clearly, I've read a lot of articles written by vegans and vegetarians, even though I'm a meat eater. I will concede that they often have good points. What I take exception to is the fundamentalism within the vegan culture.

Veggie scraps into stock

First of all, if you don't know the difference between stock and broth, go here. Now that you know there is a difference, ignore it. They're made the same way, so I will use them interchangeably. I don't think it really matters.
No matter how well you use your fabulous, organic, local vegetables, you will probably (inevitably) end up with some scraps. Now, these are fabulous to put into your compost or worm bin. But what does a smart environmentalist and foodie do? Save them and turn them into stock or broth. Seriously. The ends of carrots and parsnips that you won't put in your soup or stew, the ends of onions that you've cut up (take the skin off, but there's usually some viable onion under there), the hard core of cabbage, broccoli stems, the ends of celery, whatever. If it's a flavorful vegetable, throw it in there. Leafy greens are not a good option (they fall apart too easily), nor are potatoes (not flavorful enough). It's got to be something solid, which is why bright root vegetables work so well. Broccoli stems, too. I had some that I didn't want to use in broccoli-cheddar soup, because they were too woody. But that made them perfect for the stock.
I mentioned once before that Shane and I made chicken stock a while back, but it all got thrown out because we just never thought to use it. I'm trying to change that. Vegetable stock is even easier than a meat stock or broth, and just as tasty and nutritious.
When I say easy, I really do mean easy. I've had a bag full of scraps in the fridge for a few weeks now. Thanks to the freshness of the ingredients and the type (lots of winter/cold-hardy/root vegetables) they've been fine for a long period of time, long enough for me to collect a bunch of them. (Some people put them in the freezer if they know it'll take a while to build up enough.) The other night, I felt I had enough and that they would lose flavor/nutrients if I waited any longer, so I turned them into stock. How? Well. Here you go

Vegetable Stock:
-Vegetable scraps
-Water

Fill a pot with water, toss in the scraps, and cover. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for about an hour. I had it simmering while I did my workout. When you think it's gotten all of the nutrients out, strain it. The liquid should be either yellowish or greenish, depending on what you've used, and smell really decadent. That's it. Seriously. It's that easy. The scraps can go out to the compost, and the broth can either be frozen (some people use ice cube trays to make it super easy, then transfer the frozen cubes to either bags or jars for long-term storage) or into something delicious like this recipe. (It is so on my list of food to make soon!) If you're not going to freeze it, my suggestion would be to use meat stock or broth within a few days, and within a week for straight vegetable broth. I'm not a microbiologist or food safety expert, though, so those are just my estimates.
Meat stock is similar, except that you have meat bones in there as well as the vegetables. You can, of course, make broth or stock out of the good parts of meat and vegetables, but why waste them when using your leftovers and scraps makes them so tasty anyway? Stock was originally created as a way to get the most out of food, and it's no less necessary now than it used to be. If you roast a whole chicken, remove as much meat as possible, then save the carcass and turn it into a lovely broth. Don't worry that it won't taste "meaty" enough without the meat--the marrow will get boiled out and add flavor. Beef bones are another common item for stock, and I suppose we could use moose bones to make broth, but we tend to give them to the dog. She loves digging the marrow out of a nice big moose bone, and they can later be filled with things like peanut butter. Actually, that's her favorite toy. She doesn't play with us much, but give her some food to gnaw on and she's the happiest creature in the house. Since it's both frugal and a good use of something which would be wasted otherwise, Shane and I love it too.
Even when you think you're not wasting food, you probably are. Finding new ways to make the most out of what you have is the essence of frugality. When you can create something that's both good for you and for the environment out of that "waste", even better.

Fighting off colds

My household is trying very hard not to succumb to colds right now. I did sort of give in on Monday and took the day off from work. Not so much because I was feeling truly awful, but I was exhausted (more than even a super busy weekend would account for) and my throat was a bit sore. But by Tuesday I was feeling better so it was back to work.
On Wednesday, however, when I got home Shane was still in bed. Not sleeping, just lying there watching a tv show on his newly returned laptop. He said he hadn't gotten out of bed all day except to go to the bathroom. This might not seem worrisome in some people, but Shane is rarely sick. When he is sick, he's almost never this ill. When I got the flu on our honeymoon and had about two full weeks of feeling miserable, he had about two days of not feeling so great. Since he's a grumpy jerk when he's really ill, I appreciate his active immune system. :) Since I was home, he did get out of bed, but only to go sit in the dining room while I figured out what to make for dinner.
Toward the end of the evening last night, my throat was starting to feel sore again. I absolutely cannot be sick right now, with too much going on both at work and with musical stuff. (My boss is out of the office for two days, so I have to be there to open. Then, I have two extra Symphony rehearsals, a "Music Man" rehearsal on Sunday, which I need to leave halfway through to go straight to the Symphony concert. It's going to be packed, crazy, and I cannot even describe how hard it is to play well when you're ill.)
So what am I doing to ward off a cold? Lots of things. First, I exercised last night. This sounds counter-intuitive, and it would have been so easy to skip because "I'm not feeling well", but studies have shown that people who exercise regularly have better immune systems and recover faster when they do get sick. The key is to exercise moderately, because a strenuous workout can actually decrease your immune system and put more stress on your body. (Don't go run a marathon when you're sick.) So while I didn't push myself to exhaustion, I definitely did get in a good workout, enough to break a sweat.
The secondary effect of the workout is that I ended up drinking a lot of water. I tend to drink more in the morning, and my water consumption tapers off toward the end of the day. A good workout in the evening prompts me to drink a lot of water.
I went to bed a little earlier last night. Not much, just about half an hour earlier. But it helps. Even though my nose is a little stuffier, and my throat is a little more sore than yesterday, I feel more rested than I should. A good night's sleep has made all the difference between being miserable and being well enough.
I made a smoothie for myself for breakfast. I love smoothies. But my smoothie consumption has decreased as winter goes on, partly because we're out of our saved frozen fruit and need to buy it (in its plastic packaging) and partly because I find myself wanting a hot breakfast when it's so cold out. Right now, however, upping my intake of fruits and veggies is more important, and a smoothie is a super easy way of doing that.

Smoothie:
-1 handful of spinach
-Frozen fruits of your choice (I used strawberries, cherries, and blackberries this morning) measuring about 2-3 cups
-Honey and spices (optional)--sometimes a bit of honey to sweeten can be nice, but we don't have honey right now. Cinnamon can give the smoothie the illusion of being sweeter than it is, and depending on your fruit and tastes a hint of nutmeg or ginger can also work really well.
-Half of an avocado (optional--doesn't add much flavor, but makes the texture smoother and more silky)
-Plain yogurt or milk.

Since blenders don't work so well with frozen fruit, I get the fruits in there the night before and leave it in the fridge to thaw out. In the morning I simply add whatever other ingredients I want and blend it up.
The yogurt in a smoothie like this can especially help your immune system. Not only does it have the good bacteria that your gut needs, but it has protein.
Which is the last thing you should do. Increasing your intake of protein actually helps to boost your immune system when you're ill. (This is one of those handy things I learned in my nutrition class.) For dinner tonight, I've got the Crockpot cooking red beans and rice for us. The rice and the beans combine to make a complete protein, and it has a bit of meat in it as well. Just to make sure it's totally nutritious (and because we're out of white rice, ;) we're using brown rice. I'm trying a new thing today: soaking it. I've heard lots of things about soaking grains and how good it can be for you. I don't know whether that's true or not, I'm just doing it to try to get a better texture. The only reason we usually use white rice is simply because it doesn't end up as hard. Brown rice, in my experience, tends to be a little crunchy and hard, even after being cooked. Perhaps soaking the rice will make it softer.
I'm loving the recipe my friend sent to us. It's cheap, it's very nutritious, and it's easy. All of those things make it perfect for when you're not feeling well.