Looking for Peace

From over your shoulder...

Why does peace seem to be such a most elusive commodity these days? Has it always been there, just out of reach for most? I was struck by this as I walked around and noticed the word coming up over and over in the glittering house Christmas decorations all around us. 

It’s easy to confuse actions with feelings when you think about peace. It is an intangible quality after all. It’s written about frequently. It means something different to everyone searching for it. Yet instinctively they all know it must be worthwhile if only they could find it.

It’s vast. It’s out there somewhere.

Image via crazyhorseladycx

This holiday season

I’ve heard it described as “your” peace. Similar to “your” truth. So maybe these are individual things. Those of us who think in black-and-white terms, with little grey in between, will always believe in right versus wrong, and only one truth. That’s what makes people interesting.

This Christmas I had a hard time thinking about presents for loved ones and friends. Seems to me, we all have so much anyway. I continue to sort “stuff” since the epic move in May. My mind is scrambled. It definitely isn’t at peace. 

It will be so good once all the kitchen renovation is done, as I’ll really be able to get rid of all kinds of boxed mysteries that still lurk in the storage locker downstairs. It’s an exciting project, as the additional room will allow me to continue learning about podcasts that I’d love to do. Downside. It doesn’t encourage peace of mind.

Christmas Day this year, just a couple of days ago, gave me a precious gift. I had felt furious and belittled by a very close friend. My anger had lasted weeks. I’d resolved never to have any kind of relationship with said person again. I felt so hurt and angry that the easiest thing would seem to be just to cut off the friendship. But after years of great friendship, that prospect certainly didn’t give me peace of mind.

Then a Christmas miracle woke me early in the morning. It was the strangest thing. A feeling of warmth and contentment flooded me. There was no warning. It was just there. Something, someone had bestowed a gift to me. 

Image via Leolo212 of Pixabay

Hmmm...

I can’t say it was forgiveness. The feeling was so much more than that. It was just quiet joy, knowing I have so much in life. Most of all, that I’m blessed with a mostly fully functioning mind. (Forget the fact that I actually need my GPS to find my way around a shopping centre!)

It was as if my mind gently played all the things in my life that can be considered wonderful blessings. A new appreciation, a resurrection of contentment that washed away the sadness and anger that had taken over in the last while. Those emotions had vanished. Peace, and the urge to find even more of it, had suddenly taken its place.

The greatest truth in all of this was the perfect joy of finding “my” peace. It was the knowledge that now I’ve seen what it looks like I can turn to the feeling every time I need it to cope with sad and bad events in life. It is like actually being able to descend into a deep well of human kindness that makes you want to pass that feeling on.

This, in the midst of global wars, hatred, and complete disregard for fellow human beings. There are so many times when you just simply despair of any improvement in the world situation.

At the same time, it’s important to remember, so many others in the world are gradually starting to cause change. That you’re not just a voice in the wilderness. 

In the last gasp of 2023 Bogotá, Columbia has commenced escalating taxes on ultra-processed foods. Their government recognizes how this scourge is causing health mayhem in their people. Cancer, diabetes and other awful non-infectious diseases have been shown to increase as populations eat more and more junk food. 

Image via TheDigitalArtist of Pixabay

Looking forward

2024 will no doubt see much more in the way many governments add “fat taxes,” VAT tax and so forth. They are now becoming aware of how medical issues drain their coffers. Also how coffers can be easily filled with even small extra taxes on sugary drinks and processed foods. 

Remember, if you’re about to eat food from a package or a bag it is most likely an ultra-processed food. It’s always a good thing to try and visualize possible easy replacements.

The days are getting longer. Just by minuscule amounts. I cannot really feel the difference yet, but I know it’s happening. Similar to my feeling of peace. There is a slight feeling of satisfaction intermingled somehow. I’ve managed to survive another year. 

What will the next one bring? A ripple of excitement, of expectation, disturbs the flow of my thoughts. But that new discovery, the peace, remains undisturbed. I will turn to it, try to cling to it, no matter what the next year will bring.

Wow, we’re at the end of 2023. It’s been an event-filled time. Now on to another year ahead. My wish for you is that it will be the best it can possibly be for you–and, may the world find peace.

Christmas: Some hints for happiness

 

Image via neelam279 of Pixabay

How it feels depends on...

Christmas is an emotional time. Depending on what your childhood was like, your work situation, your health and that of your loved ones, it can be a real mixed bag this year. 

Finances seem to come heavily into it too. Enough? Too little? For what? This is a good time to face your reality, and set out to enjoy things, no matter what blocks seem to be in the way. You really don’t need to spend a lot for folks to like you.

Food is important too. Turkeys and ham dominate of course, and this is a time when you can either congratulate yourself on putting away a little in your budget for the past eleven months, or rack your brains to find alternatives. It is possible.

Thanks to our traumatic move this year we will be able to share our Christmas celebration with our family members, and it is such a special thought. The other good thing was that I’m completely unmotivated to feel pressure in gift-giving this year. The move saw to that!

Some things are treasured by family, no matter how humble. This is a good time to dig them out and look at them in the light of day. One of them in our family is the old button box. 

The family button box, about 60 years old now. Still a treasure of memories for a daughter, granddaughter and now great-granddaughter!

Images via VickiW

Then, this Christmas some carefully sorted bigger ones for my lovely little great-granddaughter. She’ll probably add them to the big box as she gets older and less likely to put them in her mouth.

All gift-giving was of “stuff” that someone else could use and enjoy. I have given some money to those who seemed to really need it, and for those who live out of Canada. Simply no point in paying huge postage bills, and adding to the landfills with wrapping. 

Fav dishes

Food now, that’s a whole different thing! 

Yes, my kitchen still begs to have the renovation begun, but I don’t think that will happen until the workmen have recovered from their Christmases, and the municipality experts have given our condo project their blessing.

But thanks to my beloved pressure cooker I will be contributing some rather nice-looking Brussels sprouts to our feast. I had prepared myself for a huge uptick in their price, but wow, the first thing I spied in the supermarket was a huge pile of them at a special, very low price.

Just in case you might like to try this fabulous way of preparing them, I’m sharing this old recipe with you! It does need a slow cooker/ crockpot, so I hope you have one.

                

Image via VickiW

For the twelve folks that I hope will enjoy this, I used the following...

First step ingredients

About 4 lbs Brussels sprouts, washed, bottom edge trimmed off, and cut in half.

½ cup pure maple syrup

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil 

1 tsp salt

About 1 tsp ground pepper

For later on

1 ½ cups cranberries

1 ½ cups feta cheese ( crumbled and divided)

(Oh dear! Forgot to include the feta in the above ingredients pic! Must have been thinking of my son-in-law, who hates it!)

The first step ingredients are all going into the slow cooker, with the lid on.  My slow cooker cycle is on my pressure cooker. Now they’re just going to cook slowly for about 2 ½ hours. You’ll find they still need more cooking until they are tender, so please test them by poking a sharp knife or a skewer into them.

After this first time, the sprouts need a gentle stir with a metal spoon.

At the same time, you’re going to put the cranberries into the mixture, and if you wish you can also add half the crumbled feta cheese. 

Continue cooking until your test poke shows the sprouts are tender all the way through. 

When you want to serve, add the reserved feta crumbled on top. This dish is best served warm, but it is easy to reheat, either in the microwave or on the stovetop.

I believe you’ll have great enjoyment from your company with this simple dish. 

To all my dear friends and readers throughout the world - please know how much you are appreciated! 

Image via VickiW

Until next time...

May you have the best possible Christmas, wherever you are. My heart aches for those of you who experience less fortune at this time. My biggest gifts this year have been to food banks.

Want your receipt?

 Image via SutoriMedia of  Pixabay

Christmas is approaching rapidly. Traditionally it’s a time to celebrate family get-togethers, harmony,  peace and joy. These days it seems more a global mess of wars mixed with natural disasters.

Inequality rules. The “haves” really have too much of the good stuff. The “have nots” struggle to find good food, shelter that is affordable, with any degree of permanency about it. 

All those wonderful things...

Christmas is a time for eating good food, gift-giving and being kind to neighbours.

That’s a pretty tall order for so many of our fellow inhabitants of today. 

Was there really a time when most people could actually afford to enjoy those traditions? 

Image via Jill Wellington of Pixabay

Off to the shops!

I seem to go grocery shopping a lot these days. Theoretically, that’s not considered to be a good thing. Most folks believe buying larger amounts of good deals is the way to go. I do seek those special offers of course. But with limited space, I have to be careful about amounts of food to be stored. My best achievement is actually cooking enough to last a couple of days. 

I have lots of practice too, with standing in checkout lines. I’ve never used these automated ones. Just seems that those grocery store owners with billions of profit dollars should be employing people, not machines to do away with humans. 

The bright spot about this though, is according to news reports, this week entire chains are now getting rid of the machines, not because of my thoughts on this, but because the machines allow savvy shoppers to steal from them. 

It seems most customers use credit or debit cards to pay. See, that’s one of several advantages that you tend to notice when you’re waiting in line. You see what people are eating. You mentally compare different boxed and packaged items with the homemade ones you prepare in your kitchen. You interact with others, sometimes a smile, other times with full-blown conversation. Machines can’t do that either.

One very interesting thing to notice in a checkout line is how many customers refuse the offer of a receipt for their purchases. I can’t imagine doing that. My receipts are the gold in managing what I buy, and a daily record that helps in the budget for everyday living.

Image via Alexas _Fotos  of Pixabay

People have tried to explain to me that their credit cards issue full accounting of their expenditures for each month. The problem is, by the time you get that you’ve already spent your money! There’s no choice to consider whether you should or shouldn’t make the purchase. 

Receipts are magic, as long as you record them daily. If you do this one simple thing you will be amazed at how much you save each month!

Image via cpastrick of pixabay

This is nothing new. It’s not high-tech, but it can be a good adventure. Just remember with the money you save, there’s another choice. You can physically save it, or you can use it to pay off debt. 

I wrote about this way back in 2014. Click here to see. 

Since then Covid-19 has had an astounding negative effect on money matters. At that time we paid cash for everything. Now we have to use our one-and-only credit card. But we still use the time-honoured job of recording the receipts every day. 

We now have no mortgage, no debt. It’s been worthwhile to always ask for receipts, no matter how small the purchase. 

Christmas is almost upon us. Time to consider finances, needs and wants. It’s a harsh world out there, but you can tame your little corner of it. Just remember to ask for your receipts.

A beautiful perspective

My goodness! Still, some spawning salmon to be seen in the little creek. The garden lawns are a mass of delicate green grass. 

This morning, two ducks strolled around, making a mirror image and there are lots of pretty Christmas greenery and lights to enjoy.

It’s a meaningful time of the year. 

Thank you so much to all my wonderful, supportive readers!

Image via VickiW

OK Tire: A report from Chilliwack, BC

OK Tire in Chilliwack, BC

Image via Google Maps

I’m sure I’m not alone in this. A couple of days ago a “check engine” light appeared on the car dashboard. It was so sudden. It was a definite eeek! moment. 

Not fair! Was my first thought. But as we all know, that thought appears with regularity from the time we’re about four years of age. So true. As we go on with life it becomes part of it. Only when you’re grown up, you forget about the tantrums. It’s just all in your head.

Life just isn’t always fair. And it seems worst of all when you’re dealing with sudden automobile bad behavior, 

We are a single-car family. Our car, an aging but loyal Prius has served us well. This year, after 14 trouble-free Christmases, it made no bones about the fact that  its hybrid battery needed to be changed. That is a terrifying moment for most hybrid vehicle owners. Translate it as money, money, money. 

We took it into our local OK Tire shop, and dropped it off. Some excellent service hours later, it emerged with a new, hybrid battery. Everything was good. Even the car seemed to have a certain radiance about it. 

Until two days ago, when that horrible little gold engine symbol on the dash appeared. 

Well, it demanded a check, so we obediently took it straight to OK again. 

This time I had an appointment starting at 8.15 a.m., when the business opens. I got there early. After all, I’m a morning person.

OK Tire shop, Chilliwack, BC

Image via VickiW

 The set-up

Just before 8 a.m. the staff started arriving for the day. One of the first was their super-efficient front desk woman. She put out the OPEN sign. Seemed like there were many little details that she took care of, before settling into her place behind a computer at the front desk.

I watched the rest of the staff arrive. It was obvious that cars and big boys toys are their passion. Eight arrived, one by one, skilfully and without hesitation backing into space, or turning in confidently at the side of the operation. For the most part they seemed relatively young. It was interesting to see the variety in eight cars.

OK Tire shop, Chilliwack, BC

Image via VickiW

A lively bunch!

Those workers walked with a spring in their jean-clad steps. You could see they were looking forward to what could be a challenging day for them. Some of them carried take out coffee cups and something for lunch. They smiled at each other. They chatted.

As a customer, I found myself in a lovely little corner behind a private screen. There were comfy chairs, books, a TV and two coffee machines, with everything you might need for a special cup.

OK Tire shop, Chilliwack, BC

Image via VickiW

Loved the children's pictures, faithfully drawing the mechanics they had seen and obviously admired! 

OK Tire shop, Chilliwack, BC

Image via VickiW

The little, social centre encourages chit-chat between the customers. All too soon, Samantha, the front desk person poked her head around to give me the news that the Prius spark plugs needed replacing. Their expert scan was completed to their satisfaction. Those plugs were in bad shape! 

It’s a great thing to see a business that has focus on its work and workers. How the owners encourage a positive outlook each day. But this experience made me realize how important community and customers are in the whole scheme of things. 

I’d like to add to that crowded noticeboard. But there’s no room on it at present. We need another board to add our praises. Somehow cards are often more valuable than online reviews.

Thank you, OK TIRE!

Weeping Japanese Maple

Its beautiful, feathery leaves, are all falling now.

The maple should be pruned very lightly, just for shape, and definitely before the sap starts to run in spring.

Image via VickiW

Diet Drinks: Do they make you fat?

Image via DesignDrawArtes of Pixabay

I often shop at our lovely, local supermarket. While choosing some veggies and fruit, one of those forklifts they use for big crates of stuff appeared next to me. 

Then a gray-haired shopworker ( have you noticed, these places are employing many people now, who are past retirement age?) started offloading huge amounts, cases in fact of “diet” drinks. They made up a solid block of “special deal” offerings. 

Right away, customers came to put these caseloads of pop into their shopping baskets. Later, at the checkout, a woman in front of me had two cases. Her son, about 10, carried another. There were no fresh ingredients in their cart. Just boxes of packaged items. Snoopy of me, I know, but I’m constantly amazed at the stuff that people eat and drink.

Image via CorrieMiracle of Pixabay

Statistics

According to 2019 stats, Mexico, with an average of 634 per person, per year is a world leader in consumption of carbonated soft drinks. USA follows closely with 618. India, with a very high population, ranks last with 18.

So this week we’re having a conversation about what is known in the food labs’ as Non-Nutritive Sweeteners. (NNSs). You find lots of these artificial chemicals in your drinks and your food. They are sugar substitutes.

All NNSs are developed in laboratories. They are hundreds or even thousands of times sweeter than sugar, so only tiny amounts have to be used for any given purpose. They serve the main goal of food manufacturers and retailers; profitability.

When you read your labels and see modified starch as an ingredient on your sugar-free drink, translate that to mean fillers of maltodextrin and dextrin. These lab-created substances contain about ¼ of sugar calories. So they might be sugar-free, but they are not calorie-free.

The fizzy drink manufacturers love the word “natural” on their labels. It makes everyone feel better about things. “Natural flavours” sounds healthy enough, even though it is usually last on the label list. 

For instance, stevia, the incredibly sweet plant, is used often, but not as a plant. The sweet substance is lab-extracted. The leaves are steeped in acids and solvent first, to achieve the chemical glycosides extraction. This happens in labs of course. 

Then those active compounds are further refined, purified and concentrated to the point that there are only minute amounts of the original stevia plant left. But that’s enough for the label. There are other chemical compounds too, that are not labeled, because their addition is deemed to be not necessary on the label.

Most of the time natural flavours conjure up a healthy image in your mind. But there’s little difference between the lab procedures to extract from plants, and artificial flavours derived from the thousands of available chemicals. It’s all in the wording.

Image via VickiW

Why would you pay four, good Canadian dollars for this? We have water. We can grow stevia in a pot if you don’t have a garden. We can mash up the leaves and put them in the water. But it might be way too sweet! Add some fruit for flavouring. Just one leaf can be all you need in your tea. I plan to grow another plant in a pot next year.

Decisions, decisions...

You’re between a rock and a hard place with this dietary “problem.” Go for a can of sugar-sweetened soda, and in the one above you’ll be consuming more than 9 teaspoons of sugar, to counteract the 12% bergamot, a type of bitter orange.

The plastic bottles and cans that contain soft drinks cause huge pollution in most countries and oceans.  Soft drinks are very popular everywhere! I don’t know how many countries are even able to deal with the enormous discard/littering problem.

Let’s be honest. Soft drinks, meaning non-alcoholic, usually carbonated (fizzy) drinks, have no nutritional value at all. In fact, some studies show that rather than helping your thirst they can even cause it to become greater.

There’s a lot of controversy about this. 

Image via VickiW

Microbiomes

Years ago, (2015) I read that there were real concerns about aspartame (ASP) being used in soft drinks. Then Pepsi announced they were discontinuing it in their Diet Pepsi. (Their sales were down.).Instead of it they would use a mix of sucralose and acesulfame potassium ( ACE-K) in their USA manufacturing.

Big mistake. Pepsi market shares nosedived. They brought back the original Pepsi diet cola in 2017, after numerous complaints about the new improved taste. The bottom line always rules.

Most folks decide to drink diet sodas because of their determination to lose weight. After many studies though, it seems there is a definite correlation between diet sodas, sports drinks and obesity. 

In a previous post, I discussed the existence and function of your microbiome, a major collection of microbes in our bodily systems. 

When you subject your microbiome to a constant supply of sweeteners in your diet your digestive microbes ultimately get interested enough to try using them, even though there is absolutely no nutritive value in them. 

The microbes have a collective goal. Use what is fed to them as real food. If they can’t, because of different chemicals, the glycogen usually stored as glucose in the liver will instead be released straight into the bloodstream.

It takes some while, but in some individuals, after constant exposure to NNSs, there is a build-up of glucose in the blood. Next stage is glucose intolerance, then full-blown type 2 diabetes. 

There is still ongoing research into this. Scientists are beginning to think that the brain reacts to the stimulus of artificial sweetness by skewing your need for food. To the brain sweetness equals energy. The NNSs overstimulate you to think you need more food than you actually do.

Obesity is a worldwide scourge now. The chemical extracts and other chemicals are difficult to avoid, not only in sodas, but just in almost every commercially produced foods. That means you don’t only ingest from one source. It may be several each day. 

Still want a fizzy drink? Save the money you’d spend on buying them for a time, and you’d be able to buy a machine that would fizz your plain old water! Add a slice of lemon, or other favourite fruit. Want it sweeter? Grow a pot of stevia, and throw in a couple of leaves.

Or…just learn to love water without the fizz!

Purple Mountain Majesty

Not quite in the boundaries this week, but those mountains are still to be seen from the balcony. 

If you look carefully, you’ll see a little snow on the top of the peaks!

Image via VickiW

Sugar: Is it truly, scary stuff?

 

Image via Pasja1000 of Pixabay

Tragedy? Indeed!

The workers at Canada’s massive Rogers sugar factory workers are on strike. Thank goodness though everyone managed to get through Hallowe’en, and children could get their bags of sweet goodies safely home. 

But now there’s a sugar shortage starting. Over the years I’ve cut down on sugar in our house. A five-lb bag will last us a year. But I still love creamy cakes. Love the way you have to smash through a solid sheet of sugar on the top of crème brûlée for dessert. So sugar in the pantry doesn’t count!

We often don’t know how much sugar we consume. This stat from the American Heart Association is quite interesting.

“American adults consume an average of 17 teaspoons of added sugar every day, more than 2-3 times the recommended amount for men and women respectively. 

“This adds up to around 60 pounds of added sugar consumed annually. That’s like six 10lb bowling balls”. Sounds extreme, doesn’t it?

Has sugar changed?

I ask this simply because growing up in Zululand, South Africa, I recall eating a lot of sugar. It was just what you did. 

Meals were never complete until you had the dessert after your lunch or dinner. It gave the parents ammunition to exhort children to eat their vegetables and main meal ingredients, otherwise “no dessert!”

In our large family hunger before a meal would drive you to get a slice of bread, open a can of sweetened condensed milk, and spread a couple of liberal spoonfuls on it. I know now that amount would have been about 60 mls. The sugar content then would have been about 6 teaspoons of sugar per snack slice. Yikes!

We used to frequently make fudge. It was of course almost pure sugar, mixed with cocoa, and a bit of water, brought to “soft ball” stage over heat, then spread out on a pan to cut into sugary squares. Yum!

Now, with a microwave, you can make lovely, perfect fudge in just a few minutes. You need the can of sweetened condensed milk of course, and some chocolate chips. Add pure vanilla, just to feel virtuous. Microwave 1 minute, then let it all melt together. When that’s happened, spread it quickly into a 9x9” pan. Restrain yourself, wait until it has cooled, then cut it into squares.

So, going back to those early days…what happened, health-wise? Nothing, short and sweet. We all grew up slim and healthy. So did everyone else I knew. But this was in the days before development of many food chemicals that are now interspersed with the sugar, in food as well as candies.

Obesity was such a rarity that I only knew one fellow student with it. My parents spoke to us about it, explained she had a medical condition, and told us very firmly never to mention it to her, and to be very kind.

These days, I see so many folks obsessed with different diets. Obesity is a huge concern in developed countries. Sugar is blamed for so much of the ills of society. But is it the main culprit?

I’ve never really been able to square away those early sugar habits and complete lack of obesity with what I know to be true at this much later time, the 21st century.

Life has sped up since I became an adult. It’s hard to get a break from the relentless speed of it. But strangely, in between gym sessions, or lounging in a recliner, depending on your choice, people seem to feel virtuous when they manage to shy away from sugar. It has become a “guilty pleasure.”

I must admit I find the practice of trick-or-treat quite deplorable. Yes, it’s fun for everyone to dress up, but really, should you send your children to beg for copious amounts of candies to put in huge bags? What does it mean? The sad thing is, this year folks had to decide between their need for groceries and buying candies at exorbitant prices to please their kids.

It might have been easier on the wallet to make some treats, but the sad truth is that is no longer acceptable. Anything homemade will be weeded out and discarded by caring parents who know that dangerous things can be included in homemade “treats”.

Inside those beautifully wrapped, delicious and harmless-looking Mars bars you have other interesting ingredients though.

Ingredients: Sugars (sugar, corn syrup, lactose, malted barley extract), Milk ingredients, Modified palm oil, Cocoa butter, Cocoa mass, Cocoa powder, Salt, Soy lecithin, Dried egg white, Artificial flavour. Please refer to the product label for the most accurate nutrition, ingredient, and allergen information.

Let’s look at Twix

Ingredients: Milk Chocolate (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Chocolate, Skim Milk, Lactose, Milkfat, Soy Lecithin, Pgpr, Artificial Flavors), Enriched Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Sugar, Palm Oil, Corn Syrup, Skim Milk, Dextrose, Less Than 2% - Salt, Cocoa Powder, …

So some of this stuff I'm willing to bet you’ve not heard of, and most definitely don’t have in your home kitchen. Pgpr isn’t a word, for starters.

Unfortunately, for the following information, it’s hard to translate this science -speak into language that most folks can understand.

PGPR is a mixture of esterified products manufactured by the esterification of polyglycerol with condensed castor oil fatty acids. The brief 3-step manufacturing processes is as follows:

1. Polyglycerol preparation: Glycerol is heated to above 200 ℃ in the presence of an alkali catalyst to produce polyglycerol. 

2. Condensation of the castor oil fatty acids: Castor oil fatty acids (synthesized by hydrolyzing castor oil in water) are heated to above 200 ℃ to create interesterified ricinoleic fatty acid chains of varying lengths. 

3. Esterification: Then polyglycerol mixed with interesterified ricinoleic fatty acids to produce PGPR with different chain lengths. (1)

Voila! There you have your unpronounceable polyglycerol polyricinoleate.

Sugar is indeed the first prime ingredient in these candies, and of course that’s a whole lot in those bags of candies. 

Palm oil farming is causing rapid deforestation of the tropical forests of Brazil, and other tropical areas. This destroys animal habitats, in addition to wreaking incredible damage to life on our planet and climate change.

There is a really good discussion of this here: What is Palm Oil? Facts About the Palm Oil Industry

Image via VickiW

So, there’s a lot going on in those bags of candies! My parents used an opportunity to help us become aware of a problem. They trusted us to use it wisely and kindly to help someone.

Can you teach a child to recognize some words on a label when they shop with you? Sugar is one. Palm oil might be a good choice for discussion of their future. Just hope they don’t ask you about any of the mysterious other ingredients in the lists above!

Children love discussion with parents and grandparents, or any adult prepared to give back-and-forth friendly talk with them. It lasts so much longer than chatting on social media.

Time passes quickly. Always seize the opportunities to talk with children. They are your future.

Regarding sugar: my parents taught “moderation in all things”. 

A special week!

I love to walk down the little creek. Imagine my delighted surprise to see that salmon are returning to spawn. What an interesting amazing show from Mother Nature. 

Then, amid the splashing of tails on the gravel rock bed, there are amazing reflections and colours in the water, away from the fish.

Image via VickiW

Thanks for your visit and hope you'll be back soon!

VickiW

Beef & Barley Soup: Some thoughts...

 

Image via IndigoBunting of Pixabay

Chilly weather perfection...

Dearly Beloved has been looking forward to some hearty beef barley soup. Trouble is, I couldn’t find the barley, and the beef is now incredibly expensive. I wondered if there is such a thing in a can. There is. Of course I read the labels! I’ve even provided a couple of the ingredient lists for you to read.

Sometimes it’s tough to make sense of these ingredients, never found in a home kitchen, created by food scientists in their well-stocked labs. 

So this week we’re finding out if the veggies in my home fridge can be as tasty as their commercial competition, and how much effort I need to produce my version of Bob’s longed-for soup.

Convenience version: Mitchell’s beef-barley soup

Ingredients: Beans (navy, adzuki, mung), Barley, Soup base (salt, corn syrup solids, dextrose, wheat flour, sugar, canola oil, corn starch, onion powder, beef extract, guar gum, spices, herbs, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, natural flavours, turmeric, caramel), Red lentils, Dried vegetables (carrot, potato, onion, green pepper, red pepper, leek), Onion, Garlic, Herbs, Spices (mustard).

May Contain: Tree nuts, Peanuts, Soy, Eggs, Milk, Sesame, Oats, Sulphites.

Couple of interesting chemicals here. Always read the labels.

By the way…where’s the beef?

Progresso Beef-Barley Soup

Ingredients: Water, Beef Broth, Cooked Diced Seasoned Beef and Modified Food starch Product (beef, beef broth, hydrolyzed soy protein, modified food starch, salt, sodium phosphate, natural flavor, maltodextrin), Carrots, Barley, Tomatoes, Tomato Paste, Celery. Contains less than 1% of: Dried Peas, Modified Food Starch, Corn Protein (hydrolyzed), Sugar, Salt, Soybean Oil, Yeast Extract, Natural Flavor, Caramel Color, Potato Starch, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Spice, Maltodextrin, Beef Fat, Beef Extract, Calcium Chloride, Citric Acid.

Questions?

What is beef extract? 

It’s extracted by the test tube folks from porcine pancreas, bovine heart. Very tasty.

Hydrolysis means scientifically breaking the substance down into tiny pieces with water. No, You can’t do this in your kitchen. 

How much salt should you have in a day?
Less than 800 mg.

Canned soup is a processed food that owes part of its extra long shelf life to lots of added sodium. One cup of Campbell’s Condensed Tomato Soup packs an amazing 960 milligrams. As with other prepared foods, try to find low-sodium options. When you make your own soup it has only the amount of saltiness that you choose to put in the broth.

My Beef Barley Soup

These are the fridge clearing ingredients today! You want to use whatever veggies you have in your fridge. This was my collection.

Image via VickiW

To the vegetables I added some prepared garlic, some barley,
and the remains of a bottle of strained tomatoes. You can feel okay about using some ready prepped ingredients. Just read the labels

The beef was an unusual bargain, so that was appreciated. It was ready cut, and four packs at $5 each. Bought two chicken and two beef. One teaspoon coarse salt, and a liberal amount of fresh ground pepper.

Image via VickiW

I used my trusty pressure cooker for this soup. Took me 10 minutes to prep everything, ready for the pot.

Final step–I added the barley on top, then mixed the whole thing up. Added the water mixed with the broth cube, about five cups. Sneakily added a big dash of Worcester sauce for its wonderful umami flavour.

You can use an ordinary pot, or a slow cooker, or like I did, use my beloved pressure cooker.

This was the moment of truth, and delicious aroma, not to mention taste!

You can always adjust the soup with more water if it is too thick, and add salt and other flavourings from your pantry.

Image via VickiW

But, this isn’t the end of the story. 

Those fridge leftovers have given us 8 good meals. Bob enjoyed a second-to-last cheese scone with our dinner tonight, zapped for 20 seconds in the microwave.  One left for tomorrow. This is really fast food.

These containers are frozen for the future.

Image via VickiW

Talk about convenient food. Reheating is easier and faster than bought soup. And we don’t need any chemical processes to give us flavour. 

A view from the balcony...

Image via VickiW

Just a peaceful duck couple today. There are many of them in the little creek just a stone’s throw from the balcony. 

The trees are losing their autumn coloured leaves. All too soon they will be bare again.

Food scientists taking over?

 

Image via artursfoto of Pixabay

The war on food

We’re seeing first hand,  the terrible war events taking place in the world and how important food is for everyone living. It’s the gasoline for your body. 

But humans, being who they are, the more food can be provided at the least cost to the masses, the wealthier the food conglomerates get. Money is at the bottom of it all. 

Food has changed. So has people’s health as they consume processed non-food.

We have to find our own ways to afford food and prepare it.

But how?

It seems once you jump on the processed food bandwagon, it’s hard to get off again. Those tempting-looking packages show food like you would love to serve yourself and your family.

They’re supposed to be the same thing, you see. After all, how could you go wrong with mac and cheese? Or mashed potatoes? Or shepherd's pie? Turns out it’s easy when you buy them. Take a look at the almost-all reveal of ingredients in bought, frozen offerings.

☙ Mac and cheese

Image via VickiW

☙ Mashed potatoes

Idaho® potatoes, sunflower oil, corn syrup solids, salt, mono and diglycerides, sodium caseinate, maltodextrin, natural flavor, dipotassium phosphate, tricalcium phosphate, soy lecithin, artificial color. Freshness preserved by sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bisulfite, citric acid and mixed tocopherols.

Contains: Milk, soy.

☙ Shepherds pie

Topping: potatoes (contain sulphites), cream (milk ingredients, dextrose, microcrystalline cellulose, carob bean gum, cellulose gum, carrageenan, polysorbate 80), butter, salt, spice, water, caramel colour. filling: ground beef, corn, onions, butter. sauce: water, enriched wheat flour, beef base (beef, beef stock, salt, flavour, potato flour, caramel colour, corn oil, spices), salt, flavour (contains salt, canola oil), dextrose, spices, caramel colour, garlic powder, onion powder.

When I make these items I know only my limited kitchen-friendly ingredients go into what I cook. 

One of my good friends said she was too embarrassed to cook her own cheesy scalloped potatoes, because next to Betty Crocker’s they just don’t match up in taste, and her family doesn’t enjoy them. So this is why!

☙Potatoes

Enriched Flour (wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), Corn Starch, Maltodextrin, Salt, Onion*, Potassium Phosphate, Modified Whey, Vegetable Oil (canola, soybean, and/or sunflower oil). Contains 0.5% or less of: Whey, Garlic*, Celery*, Cheddar Cheese* (cultured milk, salt, enzymes), Monoglycerides, Lactic Acid, Nonfat Milk*, Calcium Lactate, Color (annatto & turmeric extract), Sodium Phosphate, Blue Cheese* (cultured milk, salt, enzymes), Chicken Broth*, Natural Flavor, Silicon Dioxide (anticaking agent), Buttermilk, Coconut Oil, Pea Protein Isolate, Rice Flour, Spice. Freshness Preserved By Sodium Bisulfite. *DRIED

Are you rolling your eyes as you read my clumsy attempts at warning here? After all, you know your government and its associations would never allow health-endangering substances to be sold in your local food establishments, or do you? 

I care, because I’m seeing the destruction of our civilization through the food that goes into their bellies. There’s solid evidence that all the high-tech additives in “convenience” foods have links to cancer. I now have five younger friends with different types of bowel cancer. 

This would have been unheard of before all the present day scientific advances in food ingredients. These foods have become so common in our lives that many who prepare them from packages actually think they are “cooking”.

Image via LucasJackson1 of Pixabay

The same chemicals that are found in our processed food are found in cosmetics, paints and glues, plus other products that we wouldn’t really care to eat. It’s estimated that a minimum number of these is 6000.

It’s hard not to write in terms of gloom and doom on this topic. You read about “tipping points” in climate change. More of the same in the plastic and other pollution in the oceans. Can you imagine being a sea creature, forced to try and survive in this far-from-pristine environment? 

Or being a farmed salmon, swimming in waste and antibiotics, then bought by consumers because it’s so much cheaper than wild-caught fish? 

Seems like I’ve digressed here. After all, this article is about our food, not the battle that sea animals face. It’s worthwhile remembering though that many humans depend on those creatures for our own food. We’re intertwined, no matter which way you look at it.

Groceries are in the news these days. Prices have increased exponentially. It doesn’t take more than one trip to buy food to realize this. Sure, it would be nice if you had unlimited money to buy only organic food, at four times the price of the regular stuff on offer, but comparatively few of us can do that.

At this time researchers and biologists are warning about microplastics. Those are the tiny, pretty beads found in so many products these days. They serve one important purpose for food manufacturers. They add to the weight of products, therefore increasing the profitability for these gigantic corporations.

It’s worth telling you at this point that it’s actually quite impossible to avoid the global mess food manufacturers have inflicted on all of us. Manufacturers, food scientists, marketers and governments do not have our health in mind. The only thing that matters in their world is profit and money. Nothing else. 

What I have written here is just a tiny, skimming look at our modern food situation in 2023. It will not get better. The barn door closed after the horse escaped. We’re beyond the tipping point.

From a personal point of view, there are things you can do for yourself and those you care about. You cannot completely avoid processed food or ultra-processed food. Organophosphates mean that even supposedly organic foods can no longer make that claim.

☙ Read the labels. Know that any items on them you aren’t familiar with should make you pause, and possibly find another.

☙ Try to buy sauces, etcetera, in glass bottles. Plastic disintegrates into microplastic pollution that will be a curse for thousands of years. 

☙ Try some simple home recipes, made with familiar ingredients in your kitchen. They taste better, and are always way cheaper.

☙ Find folks who know how to cook, and learn to scratch cook from them. Lots of internet folks for this!

Thanks for reading. This affects us all. I’d love to hear your views on scientifically processed food.

Whorled Tickseed (coreopsis verticillata)

This lovely little rock plant grows just under my window in our new home.

It spreads, and is a lovely cheerful yellow. Seems strange, but it’s actually a tough little relative of the sunflower.

Image via VickiW