Traditionally, February is one of the coldest months of the year where I live, but our winter has felt like anything but. I think we have gotten a grand total of three or four inches of snow all winter which doesn’t hurt my feelings at all, having grown up in California, but has left my husband grumbling. He doesn’t think it is winter without a foot or two of snow on the ground. Despite how warm it has been, it seems like everyone has been sick anyway. I think it is especially easy for those of us who live in a cold winter climate to forget that temperature isn’t the only contributing factor to getting sick. Continue reading
Making through the cold and flu season
Posted in Personal Health, colds and flu
Tagged children, colds and flu, immunity, personal health, weather
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Against Monsanto
A couple weeks ago a petition requesting that Obama cut FDA ties to Monsanto made the rounds. Here is an article on the subject as well as a link to the petition. If you have not already, please consider signing it.
In the news
Having just had our second child, I seem to have babies on the brain. We had our second successful home birth and could not be more happy with our experience, in both instances. This time around, labor took me by surprise and from start to finish it was all over in under 6.5 hours, a far cry from the 44 hour labor I had with Rowan. As such, here are a few articles that have resonated with me the past few days. Many of these articles come as no surprise, but it’s nice to see people talking about these issues.
A study in Britain states that half of the British female population could safely give birth at home.
Have you ever wondered what the ideal length for maternity leave is, when considering the health of the mom and the baby?
Breastfeeding mom takes on Facebook.
Screening your 11 year old for high cholesterol?
This is a long article, but well worth reading on the state of heath and diet in the United States. It covers the controversy between fat and carbohydrates and how our increasing carb intake directly correlates to many health issues including diabetes, obesity, and others.
Posted in Female Health, In the News
Tagged female health, in the news, kids, pregnancy
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Soup: it’s what’s for dinner
Soup is one of those remarkable dishes that is simple, generally healthy, and an excellent way to keep your New Year’s resolution to eat more vegetables. According to the Chinese, soups are a great way to keep your immune system healthy. Hot foods on a cold day, (as well as hot foods on a hot day) are much less of a shock to our immune systems than cold ones–this includes cold drinks too. Immune boosting foods can be easily added to soups at any stage: mushrooms, ginger, thyme, garlic are all good options as well as winter greens kale. Continue reading
What you want in your milk
We are big fans of raw milk around these parts. Short of that, we’ll take regular pasteurized milk. There has been a recent crackdown in California regarding raw or unpasteurized milk, and where I live in Ohio, you basically have to go underground to get access to raw milk. The last time I looked for a raw milk source, I was told a friend of a friend of the person I was talking to had access, and they would pass a message but nothing ever came of it. Here’s a post that explains better than I can why we love raw milk and why you should avoid ultra-pasteurization.
http://www.thesweetbeet.com/ultra-high-temperature-pasteurization/
Posted in Food, Personal Health
Tagged digestion, digestive system, healthy eating, milk, raw milk, ultra-pasteurization
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In the garden, part 2
Here are a few more November photos of our garden. Enjoy!
All photos taken by David Klemp.
In the garden
Even in November there is plenty going on in our garden. Here are a few images that we especially appreciate.
All photos copyright of David Klemp 2011.
In the news
For those of us in Ohio, we received some good labeling news recently. The Ohio Department of Agriculture agreed to withdraw a dairy labeling rule that prohibited milk from being labeled as produced without the use of the artificial growth hormone, recombinant growth Hormone (rbGH).
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Here’s a follow up on grocery store honey.
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Here’s an excellent post from Slow Food USA’s blog on ways we can integrate the Occupy Wall Street movement with the Slow Food movement.
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It’s no secret that we do a lot of things backwards in the United States. Here is an article on some pointers we could take from The Netherlands on teen sex.
Cold weather cooking
When the weather changes and temperatures start dipping, we tend to gravitate towards comfort foods and meals that stick to our ribs in the cold winter months: soups, stews, and casseroles. I generally try and avoid turning on my oven during the hot summer months so I especially look forward to our winter meal routines. We go from eating an abundance of tomatoes, peppers, berries, and stone fruit to root vegetables, squashes, leeks, kale, and a multitude of others. Continue reading
Holiday Herbs
I can hardly believe that Thanksgiving is just weeks away. Here is an excerpt from Martha’s book, A Pocket Full of Posies on the focus of herbs during the holidays. Enjoy!
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Herbs come into focus during the holidays. Sage and thyme accompany the aroma of Thanksgiving turkey; cloves and ginger dominate pumpkin pie; cinnamon in mulled cider and apple pie; nutmeg and vanilla in eggnog; the importance of frankincense and myrrh predate their Christian significance as do the smell of pine, fir, and spruce; saffron, sandalwood, tangerine, lemon, orange, grapefruit—all deepen our experience of celebration surrounding the winter solstice. Continue reading
Posted in General, Holiday
Tagged butterflies, cooking, holiday, holiday cooking, holiday stress
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