Are We Happy In The Kitchen?

I've been rolling this question around in my mind for the last few days. Am I happy in the kitchen? The other day I was working away in the kitchen and I was NOT happy. I was actually feeling sorry for myself! I spend SO much time preparing and cooking food!

In the middle of my pity party I started to think about women 100, even 50 years ago, and what their lives were like. Becoming a wife and mother was the highest and ultimate goal for women back then. Their lives revolved around feeding and caring for their family's needs. They didn't have microwaves or processed foods so they must have spent a large amount of time preparing and cooking food. The ability to cook and care for a family were qualities men desired and valued in women. Mothers trained their daughters from a young age to be able to cook and care for a family. Even 50 years ago almost every woman was a "stay at home mom." This title wasn't looked down on or belittled. It was held in high esteem!


As I stood thinking this over that day I think the Lord blessed me with a little insight and I want to share it. I know many will disagree with me, but I still need to get it out! Here's my take on the matter: When my great grandma, or even my grandma, cooked a meal for her family it took quite a bit of work! Baking bread, chopping things, peeling things, maybe even plucking things! By the time she set the meal on the table she had really worked! Then I bet she watched the look on her husband's face as he bit into his homemade roll dripping with butter. I bet she watched as her children happily, even greedily ate what she had labored over. Her heart and soul took great pleasure in their happiness and satisfaction. She had done her part once again by nourishing her family! It made her HAPPY! Of course I know her life wasn't always sunshine and roses, but she knew that her role was important and I think she felt fulfilled by her efforts.

Flash forward to me just a few years after I got married. My skills in the kitchen were limited. I hadn't taken much time growing up to learn those skills from my mother. I didn't think they mattered much! I could make a great salad, mac-n-cheese, tuna casserole and beef stroganoff. I knew how to open cans really well and I knew how to run the microwave. I learned to make homemade (white) bread and thought I was doing good. Was I happy in the kitchen? No, not really.

I think all the fast and convenient food we have access to today has to some degree robbed women of the sense of accomplishment that comes from REALLY cooking. We rush in from work or running kids around all day to heat up pizza rolls in the microwave or open a can of something and hurry to get everyone fed so we can move onto the next thing we have to do. Looking back over our day where do we get the sense that what we did really made a difference in the lives of our family?

Being a stay at home home is now on the bottom of the list of important jobs for women. Stop any girl walking to school and ask her what she wants to be when she grows up and how many of them will say, "A mother!" Girls can be anything they want today and be a mother too. But will they be happy? The world says a woman can't possibly be happy being "just" a stay at home mom! Do young girls see their mothers being happy in the kitchen? Did their mothers see their mothers being happy in the kitchen?

I have chosen to "do it the hard way" when it comes to cooking. I don't buy processed food. I make pretty much everything from scratch. I don't use the microwave, I don't use white sugar, white flour, or white rice. There's more, but you get the idea. I'm sure you are rolling your eyes and wondering why I do this when there are so many quicker options available. You'll have to read my other posts to really understand that. What it all comes down to, what I felt the Lord helped me understand the other day, is that I cook this way because it's how I show my love for my family. (Please note that I said "I." This is my way and I know it's not every one's way and THAT'S OKAY!) I know that every day at almost every meal my family is nourished and strengthened because of my efforts. That (usually!) gives me a great feeling of self worth and accomplishment. BUT, sometimes being a stay at home mom frustrates me and I long to go out and save the world! Maybe not even save the world, but just do SOMETHING and get recognized (and PAID) for it! I think the Lord understands this and has led me to this "style" of cooking to help me feel that recognition. When my kids are chowing down on homemade ice cream or a soup I spent a long time making and one of them says, "Mom, this is the best thing you ever made! I wish you made this every night!" THAT is when my heart fills with joy and I know that I AM saving the world...one kid at a time!

Why I Changed My Mind About Cheese and Milk

When I went almost vegan 7 years ago I was convinced that all animal products were bad for our bodies. I cut out all animal products from my cooking and thought that our low-fat diet was the way to go. Not too long after that I read a book called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price, DDS. He told the story of his quest to find out why his American patients had such rampant tooth decay and other health issues. He decided to travel around to little isolated towns and villages throughout the world. Places where the "modern" Western diet hadn't been eaten. The book documents his findings with written words and pictures of people in these isolated places. What he found was that people who ate their native, traditional diet had strong bones, no tooth decay, no tooth crowding, no diseases, etc. The diets they followed differed a little from town to town, but they all basically ate what they grew from the ground and the animals they raised. They all ate animal fat, grain, veggies and fruit in their season and most of them ate dairy products.

What really caught my attention was that NOT ONE of these healthy populations ate a vegetarian diet. There was something in the animal products that contributed to the great health of these people. Dr. Price called it Activator X. I decided then to add eggs and a little cheese into our diet, and even some skim milk. We had maybe one serving of dairy a day. We still kept to a very low-fat diet. I mostly used olive oil and vegetable shortening when I cooked. I rarely used butter. I kept a few sticks of it in the fridge for buttering toast or putting on popcorn. My theory was that milk was meant for turning a 100 pound calf into a 500 pound cow as quickly as possible. It was not meant for humans. We are the only mammal that drinks the milk of another mammal.

As my food education progressed I learned about the terrible conditions cows and chickens were raised in. I felt even more sure that meat,milk, and eggs should play a very small role in our diet. Not to mention all the saturated fat these things contained! EW!

My food education took a huge detour when I really started to read and study Dr. Price's ideas and the books written by Sally Fallon. (She, by the way, is the president of the Weston A. Price foundation. They have a great website, check it out! I'll put the link at the bottom of this post.) The idea that people have been living healthy lives eating traditional foods for thousands of years really made me stop and think. I had to throw out my milk theory because I saw how plain silly it was. If you want to get crazy with that theory you can. We shouldn't eat eggs because they are potentially baby chicks who deserve to live! We shouldn't eat any meat because animals have rights! We shouldn't eat honey because it is stealing from the bees who work so hard to produce it. Do you see what I mean? What about the theory that a loving God created these things to sustain and nourish us? That's the theory I feel best about right now.

I also feel strongly that grains and fruits and veggies should make up the bulk of our diet. In a minute I'll give some sample menu plans I follow. The thing is, we need to be very careful about our FOOD SOURCES! We need to get our food from our own back yards as much as possible and then after that look for ways to get food that has not been doctored up with hormones, chemicals, and antibiotics.

I also feel strongly that a low-fat diet is actually BAD FOR YOU. That is why I am okay with the cheese and butter and milk. We have to get fat in our diets. If you go walk around the grocery store on a Fat Hunt, what will you find? Fat in peanut butter (hydrogenated), fat in cookies (hydrogenated), fat in processed oils, ie. canola, safflower, LIGHT olive oil, (rotten and bleached!) vegetable shortening (hydrogenated) processed milk products (DEAD and full of hormones and chemicals, eggs (from confined chickens fed a corn & grain based diet - not natural to their species), meat (from animals raised in confinement and therefore dosed with hormones and antibiotics, not to mention the poor diet they eat!) SO... where can we get healthy fats?

Here's my list:
Olive Oil - NOT the LIGHT variety - it's processed too.
Raw Milk
Pasture fed meat
Pasture fed chicken eggs
Raw nuts and raw nut spreads
Cheese
Butter
Sour Cream

This is why I'm okay with cheese, butter, and sour cream:
I would not buy my local store's brand of cheese or sour cream. I use Tillamook cheese. It is made from cultured, natural, no hormones added milk. We don't eat tons of it, but I use it almost daily to jazz up what I am making. I look for the best quality butter I can. Butter is a simple fat that is easily digested by our bodies. Butter is real! While I have not been able to find any made from raw milk, butter is a better choice for cooking and flavoring than the hydrogenated shortenings and the newfangled oils that are SO over-processed and just plain bad for you. I'm still trying to learn more about butter. I just can't cook everything in olive oil! I buy Daisy sour cream. The ingredient list is short - Cultured Cream. Sour cream is great made into dip, in soup, on pizza, I LOVE it! Someday I will have a few cows and make my own cheese and butter. In the mean time I'm just trying to get the best I can.

Bottom line:
We need fats in our diet. I'm going to use the fats that are naturally occurring on the earth, that are not processed and that have been valued as a healthy part of diets for thousands of years. I feel good about my choice.

A Few Sample Menus:

B - Soaked oatmeal w/ cream, raisins and apples
L - Pizza: soaked whole-wheat dough, organic pepperoni, tomato sauce, cheese
D - Chili: soaked beans, spices, home-canned tomatoes and soaked dough rolls

B - Scrambled eggs, fruit, and milk
L - Raw milk smoothies and soaked dough apple muffins
D - Soaked dough cheese sandwiches

B - Soaked dough muffins, fruit and milk
L - Soaked rice, zucchini(fried in butter) soaked rolls and carrots
D - Roast beef, veggies and soaked rolls

I try to have chopped veggies or air-popped, buttered popcorn for snacks. I also try to set out lacto-fermented pickled beets or pickles with the meals. Butter and cheese are not a big part of the meals. The raw milk and grains are. I use raw milk to culture buttermilk for the soaked dough, so we get it there too.

This has been a really long post!! Thanks for reading it. This topic has been rolling around in my head and I REALLY needed to get it out! Please ask me questions if there are any I haven't answered.

Here's the link for the Weston A. Price Foundation.
westonaprice.org

"My Time Is My Own"

I think the hardest part of being a mom is coping with the HUGE amount of time it takes to do everything "momish." Taking care of a family, no matter how large, is hard and requires a lot of work! It is so easy to start to resent all of the things you have to do. As that resentment builds a mom often finds herself resenting the people she is caring for. Have you ever found yourself saying (yelling), "Why am I the only one who notices that this trash needs to go out?" Do you feel like you never have enough time to do the things YOU want to do? I know I have felt this way at several points in my life.

A turning point in my attitude came after I pondered the advice of a wonderful mentor. She explained to me that my time is not my own. My time is really God's time! I needed to give up my frustrations that I don't have time to do all the things I want, and learn to embrace my opportunity to bless my family now with my acts of service. She encouraged me to read a great book, The Screwtape Letters. The story is told in the form of letters from Screwtape, one of the Devil's top demons, to his nephew who is trying to tempt a human on earth. A passage in the book really helped me refocus. Screwtape counsels his nephew to "...zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption 'My time is my own'. Let him have the feeling that he starts the day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours...man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift."

So, "my time" is God's time. Right now the best way I can use this time is to take the best care of my family that I can. If that means I'm in the kitchen a good chunk of the day it's okay! I can be happy in the kitchen knowing that I am using my gift of time to make sure that my kids grow healthy and strong and that my hubby is satisfied too. This is the first step to being happy in the kitchen! Embrace the time spent preparing nourishing foods! The benefits - a healthy family, fewer doctor bills, time spent working with your kids, etc. - are SO worth it!