Sorry it's been so long. Nothing bad has happened. Nothing ecstatically good either. Just life. School has been taking up a lot of my time (it's going well btw) and I've just been focusing more on my home and family in general. With one exception, which I will talk about on a different blog. Maybe. If I have time. It's nothing big. Just that I've finally decided to try going into freelance writing again. I'm really not sure how I'm going to do it. It's something I'm still working out.
I'm also wondering if I should start yet another blog and "retire" one of my other ones. I had a blog about homemaking, but I realized the other day that the kind of homemaking I do, and the current project we have going on food-wise, doesn't really fit that blog. It's more of a natural healing kind of food thing. And I think it might keep me motivated if I blog about our transition. Anyway, enough of that.
Updates.
Rachel seems to be doing okay with Deborah joining her for math. She's still not quite ready for reading yet, but soon. She's kind of hit a plateau, though I'm very happy with where we are right now. Yesterday, my youngest, who's ten months old, started fussing while I was exercising. I couldn't stop right then, but as I wound things down so I could take care of him, Rachel, who was very concerned about him crying, came over and started playing with him. To be as expressive as she was and as genuinely emotional as she was is amazing for someone in the spectrum. There was a time when all she would have done was commented on it, or maybe robotically go over and try playing with him without showing much, if any, concern.
Sarah has been doing really well with flexibility. I'd like to say this is due to some behavioral trick I've been doing, but I'm fully convinced now that it's diet. She hasn't had any white flour, or even whole wheat flour, in about two weeks. Everything, with only a couple of exceptions, has been sprouted and either used whole, blended, or dehydrated and then ground to make sprouted flour. As we dedicated ourselves to this, her behavior really improved.
That's another reason I'm thinking of doing this blog about our transition to a more raw-based diet (in our case, Dr. Christopher's mucusless diet). We see really good results when we stick with it, and we have enough information now that I think we could make the transition fun.
Oh, and the reason we've been focusing on sprouted grain flours and sprouted grains in general is because it increases nutritional content and reduces various inhibitors, not to mention reducing gluten. In fact, the main reason... well, that will take another paragraph.
New paragraph. The main reason we're doing this, unfortunately, has little to do with our two eldest. Becky, our third-born, has always had a sensitive stomach. We tried several factors but none of them seemed to fit what she was describing. sof for a long time we weren't sure if it was something in her diet or if the stress in her life manifests itself in her gut (like Mr. Vinca). We hesitated pinpointing wheat (the most likely culprit) because it has been a wonderful grain for our family and makes up the bulk of our food storage program because of its versatility. However, last month, we were able to use our grinder for all our flour needs.
That did it. Becky had a pretty bad reaction, though nothing that some herbs couldn't take care of (catnip and fennel in case anyone's curious).
So, a week ago, I decided to try an experiment. I lightly sprouted some wheat to make sprouted wheat flour leaving the extra as it was, and made bread out of the whole thing. Bread has been Becky's most loved food and the one that consistently left her in pain.
She had about half a loaf. No problems.
We've been sprouting all our grain ever since and she's been doing really well with it. She hasn't complained about an upset stomach for the past week or two. So, Sarah's improved behavior, Becky's improved digestion, not to mention Stevie's as well (he absolutely thrives on the sprouted grains), has convinced us that this is something we need to stick with in our family.
In fact, the only problem I can think of is that Becky is a real people-person: she hates knowing that her friends are eating something she can't eat. I figure pointing out her digestive upset afterward will probably be enough, but she's getting to the point where I can't monitor all the food that she eats. Now that we know the problem, she's going to have to make the decision herself if she wants the full benefits from it.
Just in case I don't get to creating that blog, here are the recipe books we've been using in our transition.
- Traci's Transformational Kitchen Recipe Collection by Traci Sellers. This is our top pick since it gives me a lot of inspiration and lots of comfort food recipes, including desserts. Plus, it's written with the idea of "transition" in mind, so it gives alternate directions at times for those who want a more traditional approach without abandoning the recipe (this is mostly true for the beans though she does this with some of the flour recipes as well).
- Introduction to Baking with Whole Grains by Sue Gregg. This is also a top pick since it discusses principles, using the recipes more as examples than a step-by-step-this-is-how-you-do-it-every-time recipe book. It covers everything from soaking grains in an acid base to sourdough to sprouted flours.
- Recipes for Longer Life by Ann Wigmore. This one is a difficult recipe book. The trouble with many of the recipes is that whoever wrote it assumed a level of knowledge about not just cooking but cooking with raw and fermented foods that I didn't have when I first picked it up. If you use this book, assume a steep learning curve since not all the information is given up front (especially the recipe for coconut oil... you'll need a heck of a lot more rejuvelac than the initial recipe makes). With a few exceptions, I never got a recipe right the first time with this book. In fact, I nearly got turned off of saurkraut because of this book. You may wonder why I'm adding it to this list. The reason? Once you "get" the recipes, they're wonderful. Her approach to raw foods, though not perfect, is truly excellent and I've found some real gems in this book. Plus, she has an excellent plan at the beginning for moving away from the traditional American diet to a more living-raw-kind of thing.
