Sunday, August 30, 2009

Health Standards

Health is important to me. I am quite young and frequently pregnant. In fact for almost four years now, I have spent every day either being pregnant, or breastfeeding, or both.
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My standard of health is pretty simple and agreeable. If God made it, it's healthy. This excludes, of course, poisonous plants and extremely potent medicinal herbs. If man has changed it, it is not healthy. Man does not know my body better than God does.
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So, the premise is agreeable, right? The real life practice is where we get into some controversy.
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Here is where I contradict myself:
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I do not buy organic. It is too expensive. Seriously, this blog is called Under $1000 Per Month because that is our income. I would love to, and if I ever took up the government's lucrative offer of $400 per month in food stamps, I would buy all organic. My husband said that that will only happen if he becomes a quadruple amputee.
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I buy macaroni and cheese in a box. It is wicked cheap. Homemade macaroni and cheese uses real cheese, which is expensive. When I am done with the mac and cheese I bulk bought on sale ($0.25 per box), I'm going to try to come up with a frugal recipe. I'll let you know how it goes, unless I fail. Then I will quietly continue to use boxed macaroni and cheese.
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I use only American cheese. I get American cheese for $2.00 per pound. Yes, I have a vague notion that it is not real cheese, but a cheese "product". If someone will sell me cheddar for under $2.50 per pound, I'll take a loss and switch. As of yet, none of my area markets have taken me up on that offer.
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I love processed meats. My mom is German. We ate a lot of sausage, kielbasa, and liverwurst, and I still eat those. I don't see those leaving our menu. My husband also brought his love of hot dogs into our marriage. He was eating a package a day when we got married. I put a stop to that, but I include hot dogs in a lot of our recipes. I now eat them a lot because they are real cheap. I do find some benefit in processed meats because our society has moved away from eating organ meats. I consider it my organ meat source.
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Here is where I stand firm:
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We avoid genetically modified foods. If you look at an ingredient list and see "corn", "soy", or "canola", and it's not organic, you're probably eating genetically modified food. Rice, wheat and sugar are also growing in the genetic modification field. Genetic modification is an appalling trend in food production and one that I won't have my husband's hard earned dollars support. I won't get into the details of the horrors of genetic modifications because I'm not ready to let you see my paranoid, conspiracy-theory, anti world domination side. In social gatherings, we are not uptight and we eat what is served.
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We do not eat sugar. We have swapped stevia in for a lot of recipes and stopped eating a lot of foods. We have a small amount of molasses left for baked beans, then I will start experimenting to find a new recipe. Again, we are not uptight in social gatherings.

I am picky about fats. This is partially because corn and canola oils are genetically modified. It is also because if you eat corn on the cob, you are not eating a lot of fat. That plant has to go through extensive processing to produce oil. They are processed at high heats that turns the oil rancid. We generally use butter and lard, with some olive oil. Butter and lard are healthy fats. God made them as fat and that's how I use them.
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I am a saltaholic and I'm pretty dogmatic about it. Jesus said that his followers were the salt of the earth. If he thought salt was good, so do I. If Jesus lied, than the ramifications for my life are more widespread than just my arteries. I enjoy salt. It is a flavor enhancer, just like fat is. Also, most studies on salt are on table salt, a man-made chemical, not sea salt, which God made.
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So, if you see me using odd ingredients in some recipes and wonder why, here is my explanation. And if you wonder why I am so uptight in some areas but not others, I guess that is kind of the nature of mankind.

Related Articles:
Sausage - $1.05 (hot dogs)
My Sam's Club Adventure (cheese)
Keeping It Simple
The Food Guide Pyramid is not for Everyone

22 comments:

Rachel said...

Emily, I think we really need to listen to what our body tells us. I have had allergy problems for about 10 years now. I also suffer from fibromyalgia. A dr. I saw a few years ago asked what foods I crave. Popcorn and ice cream! I love them! She told me that we often crave what we are allergic to. I can tell when I eat these foods I become congested and may develop a headache. so I really have to limit. I do not use much salt at all. Some reading I have done on fibromyalgia indicates that people who suffer need to increase the salt in their diet. So I am now cooking with salt, and forcing myself to shake it on the plate. And I do feel some better. Growing up here in the south it was lots of fresh vegetables, often grown in my parents or other relatives gardens. Eating vegetables is just good for you! My husband is a real meat person, so I put meat on the table for him. I would be happy with a veggie plate every day.

Anonymous said...

Olive oil is a very healthy fat; much healthier than butter. It's actually quite versatile, too. I use it in baking recipes that call for other types of ols and haven't noticed a difference.

I appreciate your standpoint on the foods you choose to eat or not eat. Each of us has our particular preferences and reasonings. Thanks for sharing yours with us.

Emily said...

Rachel, I agree, listen to your body. And all of our bodies will require something different.

Anonymous, on the olive oil, I know it's real good for you. I don't use it because good cold pressed olive oil is expensive. I use it when the flavor is essential to a recipe.

Anonymous said...

I understand; even when I purchase good quality olive oil at a warehouse store (like Costco) it's easily $24.

Anonymous said...

It's none of my business, but I'm so curious why you've chosen not to live on SNAP/food stamps. It was the first question that I thought of when I stumbled across your blog.

Emily said...

Good question. The simple answer is that we don't need it. If we don't need it, we don't think we should take it.

Anonymous said...

I've heard that you should not eat lunch meat or hot dogs while pregnant due to the nitrates. If this is true, are you concerned about this since they are a part of your diet?

The Prudent Homemaker said...

I don't know if you have a Sam's Club near you, but our Sam's (right next to Walmart, LOL), has cheddar cheese and mozarella cheese for under $2 a pound. I buy the 5lb blocks and have recently found mozarella down to $1.51 a pound at Sam's. Cheddar was $1.86. It goes up and down with the market, but is usually around $2 a pound.

Emily said...

Anonymous, thanks for the tip on nitrates. I'm looking into it. My sausage doesn't use sodium nitrate, but my hot dogs do.

Prudent Homemaker, thanks for the tip on Sam's and cheese. I actually have a one day pass, so I'll check that out and probably buy about 40 lbs if the price is right (not kidding).

Terri said...

My supermarket often has cheese (including cheddar) on sale buy one, get one free. If I remember correctly, it's usually $4 and some change per pound, so when it's buy one, get one free it works out to less than $2.50 per pound. Have you seen any sales like this at your local supermarkets?

Emily said...

Terri, I have not seen this, but I wish my supermarkets were doing it. I'll have to keep my eye out.

Guinevere said...

Boxed mac & cheese is a really unhealthy food choice -- fine for the occasional treat, but not a regular part of the diet.

Inexpensive food is great, but if eating cheap food eventually takes a toll on your health -- it isn't cheap anymore. Better off spending more money on produce, dairy, lean and non-animal proteins, etc. I don't think a PB sandwich on whole wheat bread would be that much more expensive, and much much healthier for your and your kids.

Guinevere said...

Oh, and I don't understand the leap from you made from Jesus' "salt of the earth" comment to it being wise and healthy to consume all the salt you might ever want to eat. Poor theology, poor science.

Emily said...

Guinevere, As I have said elsewhere, we have mac and cheese once every two weeks, not daily or anything even close to it. Also, we finished our boxes of mac and cheese, so I am going to start working on a good, frugal recipe. As far as science and theology, the only true base in either is found in what God said about them.

Emily said...

No, your gaurantee is wrong, hot dogs do have corn syrup, but mac and cheese and lard do not have GMO ingredients. Not to mention, as I have said in many other places, we finished the mac and cheese and not will be trying scratch recipes.

Guinevere said...

I'm a Christian as well, and I disagree. God gave us eyes to see and a brain to process information; there's more for us to learn than just from the Bible.

Jill said...

I definitely understand the "leap" from Jesus' "salt of the earth" comment to Emily's freedom to enjoy it guilt-free. She didn't say she was going to add half a pound of it to every recipe. Only that she was going to use it with no guilt on her conscience. I appreciate the clarification between table salt & sea salt as well.

I've heard of a lot of different health phases & fads, and it's true: The bible has a lot of light to shed on the area of diet.

I just discovered your blog today, Emily, and I'm loving every post!

Ginger said...

Just discovered your blog via We Are That Family, so I'm slowly going through your old posts. I do make my mac n chz from scratch usually, but occasionally use a box if I'm short on time or we are on the road. Either way, to make myself feel better about it & to get my kids to eat more veggies, I add a carrot & sweet potato puree that I make from scratch & freeze in ice cube trays ahead of time (or if we are camping I'll use pre-made baby food in the same flavors). Its a great nutritional & taste addition to mac n chz & is still pretty inexpensive (and its invisible since the color is pretty similar to the chz which is great if you have veggie picky kids).

Sara said...

Hi, I am wondering about your tub of lard in the picture. When I have looked at Armour lard at the store, it says it is partially (or maybe fully) hydrogenated. Which means they have turned it into trans fat- very very bad. I am all for lard, but not what I have seen available in stores.

Emily said...

Sara, yes, Armour uses hydrogenated and non hydrogenated lard. We have since found lard at Save-a-lot (Fields brand) that does not say hydrogenated, just "lard." That's what we use now. We also render some lard from our pork.

Anonymous said...

Guinevere maybe this will help explain:

During the times of the bible (created), salt was used for a number of reasons: ceremonial, seasoning and preservative, dissinfectant, burial, monetary, etc. It's believed that when Jesus said his followers were like the salt of the earth means that his followers were honest, loyal, hard-working who add value to the lives of others.

Salt was seen as a positive thing including that it was used in foods to add flavor and for preservation of meats. So if it is used today for the same reasons then why question it?

I do get the argument that this was thousands of years ago and times have changed and that needs to be taken in account instead of making decisions soley on what the bible says. I also get the argument and agree that if God didn't want people (in this case)to eat certain foods, then why did he let man find a way to do so?

Anonymous said...

Have you decided to eat organic now that you are making over $400 in a month from your blog? I mean, instead of the food stamps the blog can pay for it. Right?

And please tell me how you like healthy foods but you eat hot dogs and boxed macaroni.

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