Pass on Supplements and Eat Real Food

marinated-heart

Let real food be your medicine and skip the supplements! It’s cheaper too!

Pass on the cost of supplementing with Coemzyme Q10, and eat beef heart!

I just made some marinated beef heart based on a recipe from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. It was delicious! I like heart with onions saut?ed in butter or pastured lard. I cook the onions first then quickly cook the heart, a little more than I would cook liver. The heart went nicely with garden fresh zucchini saut?ed in butter.

Marinated Heart
1/4c organic cider vinegar
1/4c organic extra-virgin olive oil
1tsp sea salt
1 bird’s eye chili pepper
1/2tsp organic whole cumin, ground
1 pastured beef heart

Carefully clean the heart and then cut it into four pieces. Remove any connective tissue and fat. (I gave the fat to the hens which are at their peak egg production. They need the fat more than I do!) Thinly slice the heart and marinate overnight.

marinated-heart-2

Organ meats are a superfood. Try to eat organ meats one or twice a week.

Here’s Chris Kesser on the nutrition in organ meats including heart. Here’s a Weston A Price Foundation article by Ron Schmid on dietary supplements. Here’s an old eatkamloops.org post called Supplement or Superfoods.

Perfect Pate

Even if you don’t like liver, give this recipe a chance. Try it just once, and see if you can learn to like this superfood. This recipe is based on Chicken Liver Pate from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. After chicken slaughtering day I make pate from all the fresh chicken livers. My husband loves eating pate on raw cheese. Who needs supplements when you can eat pate on raw cheese?!

1 pound pastured chicken livers
3T organic butter
1/2 pound organic mushrooms, finely chopped
1 small organic onion, finely chopped
1 organic clove garlic, minced
1/2tsp dried organic mustard seeds, finely ground
1/2tsp dried organic dill, finely ground
1/2tsp dried organic rosemary, finely ground
1/2 organic lemon, freshly juiced
2/3c dry white wine or vermouth (optional)
1/2c organic butter, cut into small cubes
sea salt to taste
Melt 3T butter in a cast iron pan. Add liver, onions, mushrooms and sea salt. Cook for 10 minutes until the livers are browned. Add wine, garlic, lemon juice, mustard seeds and herbs. Bring to a boil and reduce until liquid is gone. After the mixture has cooled, add the butter cubes, and puree in a food processor until smooth. (If you have raw butter available, use instead.) Test for taste and add more sea salt, if needed. Transfer to a glass container and refrigerate before serving.

Joel Salatin’s Vision of a Local Food System

dinner-in-yard

Joel Salatin believes that if we want to save the environment we need to rediscover our kitchens and learn how to cook. We will rediscover the joy of sharing meals with loved ones and value our world more. Photo courtesy of www.aholliday.com.

This last weekend I had the great pleasure of meeting Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm. He was speaking to a sold-out crowd hosted by the Cowichan Agricultural Society in Duncan, BC. Joel Salatin speaks passionately about family run, grass-based farming. In his own words, he is “in the redemption business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture.” The guiding principles behind “Polyface are:
TRANSPARENCY: Anyone is welcome to visit the farm anytime. No trade secrets, no locked doors, every corner is camera-accessible.
GRASS-BASED: Pastured livestock and poultry, moved frequently to new “salad bars,” offer landscape healing and nutritional superiority.
INDIVIDUALITY: Plants and animals should be provided a habitat that allows them to express their physiological distinctiveness.?Respecting and honoring the pigness of the pig is a foundation for societal health.
COMMUNITY: We do not ship food.?We should all seek food closer to home, in our foodshed, our own bioregion.?This means enjoying seasonality and reacquainting ourselves with our home kitchens.
NATURE’S TEMPLATE: Mimicking natural patterns on a commercial domestic scale insures moral and ethical boundaries to human cleverness.?Cows are herbivores, not omnivores;?that is why we’ve never fed them dead cows like the United States Department of Agriculture encouraged (the alleged cause of mad cows).
EARTHWORMS: We’re really in the earthworm enhancement business.?Stimulating soil biota is our first priority.?Soil health creates healthy food.”

My husband Shaen has read most of Joel Salatin’s books, so much of the information in the lecture wasn’t new to him. Near the end of the lecture, Shaen asked Joel Salatin if there was any big differences in his thinking now compared to when he wrote his books. Joel Salatin answered that in the past he believed thousands of farmers would communicate directly with customers. But most farmers find marketing and distribution very difficult and don’t like the work. Now he sees “clusters of farms” working with “local streams of marketing and distribution”. Joel talked about a six part system for a successful local food supply: producer, processor, accountant, marketer, distributor and customer. My husband and I looked at each other and wondered if there is a place for GO BOX Storage and eatkamloops.org in this new vision.

We realized we could become a local food distribution center for Kamloops. We could form a buyer’s group for Kamloops. We could increase the size of our orders and get better prices for everyone. We could run pocket markets or personal deliveries for a cost. If you do not know about pocket markets please read:?Pocket Market Toolkit.

It was exciting thinking that we could become part of a successful local food system which helps all of us get the best in local food at a reasonable price. If we could develop a successful local food system, Joel Salatin believes “we could give the big-box stores a run for their money.”

Update November 25, 2009: I contacted Sally Fallon and asked if she knew of anyone who could mentor me to start a buyer’s group for Kamloops. She suggested John Moody who started a buyer’s club called Whole Life Buying Club. Before a new member can join the Whole Life Buying Club, they recommend the new member watch The Story of Stuff. The Whole Life Buying Club follows a Food Philosophy which defines the type of products the buying club will bring in for members. John Moody has written an essay for the journal Wise Traditions called Building a Local Food Buying Club.

Updated December 23, 2009: I have just learned from Sandra Burkholder that Joel Salatin will be coming to Quesnel, BC on March 27, 2010. Joel Salatin will be speaking at the 2nd Annual Poultry and Rabbit Forum being put on by the Cariboo Central Interior Poultry Producers Association. Sandra Burkholder and her husband Chris Newton are building a earthship house in Darfield, BC. An earthship house is made from recycled materials and is designed to be completely self-sufficient housing system requiring no outside support. The earthship is the brain child of Mike Reynolds of Earthship Biotecture.

Updated February 28, 2010: I found a series about Polyface Farm on Watch.MeetTheFarmer.TV. You will get a personal tour of Polyface Farm with Joel Salatin. There is an incredible amount of information in this video series about his pasturing systems for the watchful viewer. He will go into the types of grasses and herbage plus the effect of mass group grazing and resting of the pasture. He goes in to some theory but most of the videos are very practice. If you are interested in the theory behind his practices please read his books for more information. Here is Part I, Part II and Part III.

[The road to] hell is paved with good intentions.
English Proverbs

Learning Home Cooking

omelette-cabbage

Food doesn't have to be complicated to be good. If you are new to cooking, start with breakfast. Eggs are a superfood. A simple omelette with sauted mushrooms and onions can be wonderful. Garnish with cilantro for a fresh taste. Have a salad in summer or cabbage in winter. Some people like eating their cabbage with kelp.

Home cooking is fast becoming a lost art. I have had a number of requests for good starter cookbooks. I would recommend:

Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon
Recipes and information about nourishing traditional food preparation methods.

Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection by Jessica Prentice
“Moon by moon” seasonal cookbook based on seasonal local foods.

The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer
This is a reprint of the original 1931 edition or get any copy between 1932 and 1979. Later editions start to go low fat and do not have much information about food storage and cuts of meat. I like the 1930s and 1940s editions best.

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee
Not a cookbook but full of information about the science of food and cooking.

Thompson Rivers University has a Culinary Arts Program and Retail Meats Processing Program. If you are looking for inspiration, The Culinary Arts Program runs a Cafeteria and Bistro. The Accodales Dining Room is run by Chef instructor Ron Rosentreter, and has won awards for their fine foods.

For online videos and courses, you might want to have a look at Rouxbe Online Cooking School. There are free videos that explain basic cooking techniques. You can get a membership and take courses. The website is supported by Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver.

omelette-chard

Omelettes are so flexible and can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Don't worry if the omelette doesn't come out perfectly. It will taste wonderful even if it is messy.

Updated November 23, 2009: I have just found a link to an online library of classic American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century. Feeding America is a good source for old-style recipes.

Updated June 22, 2010: We have been having a discussion about favorite cookbooks on the Weston A Price Leader’s Board. Two suggestions caught my attention. Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child was recommended by Suzanne Waldron of the WAPF Memphis Chapter. Here is a link to The Self-Sufficient Homestead: Surviving Civilization on the Homestead which has audio presentations and links to some early American cookbooks.

Sally Fallon on Raw Milk

One resource I am very happy to have access to is the Weston A Price Chapter Leaders bulletin board. This yahoo group is a way for WAPF Chapter Leaders all over the world to communicate with each other. The group keeps me up-to-date with new information and screens material through an incredible group of knowledgeable people. The hard part for me is choosing the best information to pass on.

This lecture is 1:15 minutes by Sally Fallon to the Northeast Organic Farming Association, Massachusetts Chapter. Please have patience with the poor audio quality. The content is excellent. Sally Fallon talks about the safety issues around raw milk. She talks passionately about the health of children and what we as parents can do to help ensure our children become healthy adults. She answers questions from the audience which I found very interesting.

I hope you enjoy Sally Fallon talking about Raw Milk to NOFA Massachusetts Chapter.