School lunch

I've been having such a hard time figuring out how to balance my comfort with kids' nutrition, peace and harmony at meal times and a fundamentally unhealthy diet other adult members of our family follow. Really, how do I raise healthy kids when bagels, candy, cakes and pasta are considered reasonable staple by those they love?

Little steps, I have decided! My goal for this year is to expand their taste palates to include lots of meat and paleo-friendly carbs over the course of this year, learn to cook and plan for a transition to proper nutrition perhaps starting in the fall of 2011.

My son is starting the new year of pre-school tomorrow.  I need to have a plan for what he will eat for lunch if I have any hope of feeding him what I believe is right.  I have located a list of wonderful ideas at Everyday Paleo.

So here is my tentative meal plan (not all of this can be packed to go to school - but great for after-school snack):

Ingredients	Meal options
Yogurt Whipped Cream Berries Peaches Palm Sugar Cashews Dried blueberries Dried cranberries Carrots, cauliflower, celery Veggie dip Chicken nuggets Cubed meat Cubed cheese Cabbage/lettuce Bell peppers Hot dogs Meatloaf Bananas	Whipped cream & berries Healthy fruity yogurt (frozen?) Berries mix Healthy Trail mix Crunch Veggies with dip Chicken nuggets w/ketchup Chef-style salad O'derves luncheon Meatloaf pieces with ketchup Boiled eggs Nutty muffins

I have purchased little sauce cups of the sort you find in Mexican restaurants and they work great for ketchup and other dips. This is still work in progress, but here you go.  Any other ideas?

[UPDATE] I would like to try these baked sweet potato chips, too!
[ONE MORE THING] Found an interesting snack: almond cucumbers I have to try.

Healthy fruity yogurt

Have you ever looked at the sugar content of any flavored yogurt?  What about kids' yogurt?  And the winner of all - gogurt!  Knowing that parents will be all about the "healthy" association with anything that has yogurt in it - food companies create little sugar addicts by making the health food a nutritionally inferior option to jelly sandwiches.

We have invented our own kid-friendly yogurt!

Ingredients:

High-fat unsweetened yogurt (I buy Greek or Creamline Village brand at Trader Joe's)

Palm sugar (with its low glycemic index and facintating texture, it's a big win)

Sliced peaches or berries

Shredded coconut, sweetened & roasted

This wins high awards as breakfast, snack or desert. It has sufficient calories and nutritional content to be a small meal and it's sweetened to taste, which, not surprisingly requires so much less!

'Poo-less hair

No shampoo? Sounded crazy to me when I first read about the idea at Mark's Daily Apple. Still, some of the commenters called me to action when they said, they could grow longer hair, got rid of dandruff and found their hair healthier than before. I have given up on having long hair years ago, having become frustrated with the spider web-like texture it obtained once it got to my shoulder blades.


I took the plunge and it is finally time to tell my story.

The method:  I wash my hair with plain water in the shower.  At the end, I rinse it with cold water only.  I do not know whether this second step is necessary, but it feels so good afterward! My scalp awake and tingling. Occasionally, I rub a teaspoon or so of baking soda all around and rinse it off to eliminate any potential smells.

Weeks 1-2.  My hair turned super-oily. Though contrary to expectations, I liked it.  Because it was short, it held its shape so much better than before. There seemed to be no dandruff. I was excited!

Weeks 3-4. The oiliness let up slightly. Hair would have looked fabulous if its newly strengthened body did not accentuate the horrible Fantastic Sam's haircut! It was clear, I was on the right track. Even my husband, who was understandably skeptical about the whole adventure, was surprised.

Month 2.  I was disappointed. My hair went back to exactly the way it was! No longer oily, it didn't have the super-body I observed earlier and the dandruff was back! Still, there was no reason to give up yet. Looking back to the poo-less resources, I learned that Apple Cider Vinegar is good for dandruff and purchased a bottle.

Month 3.  Results! There is nothing special about my hair any more. It has a normal amount of moisture, looks healthy and strong, and the dandruff is gone.  I never opened the Apple Cider Vinegar. The nasty dandruff that I have been living with since early childhood, torturing my hair with all kinds of horrid chemicals, always itching, always snowy nevertheless - just disappeared! I love the waves and curls that are now part of my hairdo maintained by the stronger strands of hair.

I am now looking forward to having long hair for the first time since the year 2000. My kids were thrilled to switch away from the irritating shampoo process, too. I think, I see a difference in their hair as well - it just stays looking clean and healthy even when we go several days between washes.  The process is so simple, I recommend it to any parent of a bath-resistant toddler. The clear water doesn't bother or scare them like shampoo did.  And they love rubbing the baking soda - I use it more often on their hair than I do on my own - because they are always asking for it!  After years of hair-washing tears, we have peace at bath time.


So how does it work?

Have you ever changed the frequency with which you wash your hair?  Gone from daily to 2-3 times a week or vice versa?  Note what happens.  On a daily regime your hair becomes oily and demands a wash on the second day.  If you switch to going longer between washes, it protests at first, but overtime adjusts to the new schedule. I guess, it is just that simple. Natural hair oils will act to restore the balance upset by the environment or hair products. Daily shampooing dries the hair out so profoundly, natural oils rush to rescue what is left of the moisture on your poor dried out scalp in a way that it would if you were walking through the desert. By day two, another "desert" treatment, complements of Protein ProV is necessary to combat the overflowing oils. Stop shampooing and the hair slowly learns the new chemical equation - the one evolution had taught it to work with. It will produce more oils when the air is dry, fewer in humid weather and rush to offer special defenses after a chemical attack of a chlorinated pool.  Fresh water serves as a catalyst to start the process and the rest is evolutionary history.  :-)

If you would like to try this, please read through Going poo-less article in Mark's daily apple including all the comments.  It's a good overview of why, how and use-cases.  I wish you the best of luck.  Enjoy your beautiful hair!  And tell me how it goes.  Please!

Nutty banana nut muffins

I wrote a few days ago about good-looking paleo muffins I wanted to try. I was extremely nervous, as always, experimenting with substitution recipes. Will anyone like them? 

The muffins turned out unbelievably delicious.  I enjoy muffins - but these were the next level. They stayed fresher than their flour counterparts and my whole family admitted, they were a wonderful treat.  They are now a permanent part of our family recipe collection.

Here is the recipe I wound up with:

1 1/2 cups almond flour
3/4 cup bananas pureed with a fork
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Blend eggs separately, breaking the yolk.  Mix together all the ingredients (including the blended eggs) except for the walnuts until smooth. Fold in the nuts.

Spoon batter into 6-12 greased or paper-lined muffin cups (I used muffin paper cups and filled each 1/3 of the way, making 12 perfect muffins). Cook 20-25 minutes at 350 F until the top is golden-brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

These are very soft and cakey muffins. I think that cutting them in half and toasting them is very nice since it gives it little crisp edges.

They were very sweet for my palate - but I have dramatically reduced sugar intake.  Everything tastes sweet to me.  Next time, I'd like to try reducing maple syrup to 1/4 cup and sprinkling palm sugar on top.

My mother-in-law, my 2- and 4- year-olds thought they were delicious, even my husband!  I made half without the nuts for texture-sensitive palates, but in the end, all muffins were gone, nuts and all!

I was surprised that there was no grittiness associated with almond flour. Muffins were soft, fluffy and acted like they were what mother-nature intended.  :-)

We are going to try the pumpkin variation at Halloween time.

Paleo muffins

I've been excited for months to make these good-looking paleo muffins that I found on Caveman Food blog.  Muffins used to be among our favorites: blueberry, orange, even cornbread muffins won a lot of cheers at breakfast.  Will my darling family like these? (I am planning on making the banana nut variation ,not the cranberry pumpkin pictured.  The latter might come at Halloween time!)

For whatever reason, I keep running into trouble: when I have almond flour, I am missing chopped walnuts. When those finally arrive, there are no bananas. Today I thought I was finally ready - no baking powder!

This is it! I am going to find a way to acquire baking powder by lunch time, before we eat the bananas!

UPDATE: I did, and here is the recipe: Nutty Banana Muffins.  This turned out to be the mother of all muffins: soft, flakey, and the best part - they do not go stale for days, unlike their flour-based counterparts.