I’m still behind on answering my comments, emails, and Facebook messages since I’m working a lot on the Rookie class, so please be patient with me! (Don’t forget if you didn’t yet, be sure and sign up for my new newsletter for a chance to win a Real Food Ingredient Guide. You’ll then be on my “first to know” list!)
I’ve recently gotten my other website, Christianity 101, moved over to WordPress and I’ll be posting there more often. Not a ton, but maybe weekly or so. (The tagline is, “Don’t get the whole Christianity thing? I can help.”) I hope you’ll subscribe, I’ve got some neat post ideas I’m excited to put out there soon, including a series on sex, believe it or not. Don’t worry, it’s presented in a way that won’t make you squirm. If you’ve never visited over there before, be sure to read this post first: FAQ’s.
LOCAL READERS in or around Grand Rapids, Michigan: Have you checked out the newly updated local Weston A. Price chapter site? If not, be sure to take a look. It has a page for local resources, too. I just found out tonight about some amazing speakers and workshops coming up! Nourishing Ways of West Michigan. (They meet in downtown GR the 3rd Tuesday of the month from January to July – I’d love to meet you there someday!)- Jeanmarie sent this to me and expressed my feelings exactly, “Something about this is creepy, but I’m not sure why.” Cheese from Mother’s Milk. I can’t wait to hear what you guys think about this!
- Speaking of Jeanmarie, read her post with the latest hullabaloo: Farewell Whole Foods Market. Kimberly has a good post on this, too. Read her quote from Mark McAfee: “This may appear to be a anti-raw milk move by Whole Foods. A deeper look exposes something perhaps very positive…”
I’m still behind on answering my comments, emails, and Facebook messages since I’m working a lot on the 
I’ve recently gotten my other website, 
LOCAL READERS in or around Grand Rapids, Michigan: Have you checked out the newly updated local Weston A. Price chapter site? If not, be sure to take a look. It has a page for local resources, too. I just found out tonight about some amazing speakers and workshops coming up! 
For me the creepy factor is about something precious and private, mother’s milk, being used like a store-bought commodity. It has nothing to do with negative views about breastfeeding. I am a big proponent of breastfeeding.
Cheese from mothers milk does seem strange but we eat cheese from mother cows milk. Whats the difference? Perhaps we are all buying into our societies views about breastfeeding and the human body-that is is something to be ashamed about. While it might be hard for me to eat breastmilk cheese because of these ideas that soceity has instilled in me, I would hesitate to call it creepy. If a woman were making it would it seem less creepy?
Thank you both Wardeh and Judy for your suggestions. Right now I am doing the simmering thing, and I also didn’t expect for the heart to already be sliced! That makes my life a lot easier. It’s in the water with some salt, pepper, and cumin, and already smells quite good.
Heather, I’ve never purchased it anywhere else so I’m not sure. Try asking around at your farmers market. Or call the place where you get your grass-fed meat. Most will sell you the fat, but it’s not rendered.
Kelly
Kelly, where else can beef tallow be bought besides US Wellness meat?
thanks
We love beef heart! I usually slice it thinly and then pan fry it. Kind of like fajita strips. It does not have a strong flavor like liver, nor the liver texture. It is not quite like steak – but really easy to like. You can grind it up and mix it with regular ground beef for burgers.
Congrats again to Jenny at Nourished Kitchen for getting the word out about real food! Her web site is so great and thorough, and it definitely gives me something to aspire to! I hope more people will continue to read that article in the Canadian press and see just how much sense it makes. I was disappointed to see the negative comments, but for some people it ended up being too challenging, I guess. The important thing is to focus on little changes over time, which I think Jenny’s challenge did really well. It’s not like the food police were going to come after someone on the challenge list who didn’t complete all the items for the month. And I think it awakened in a lot of individuals just how important eating healthy is and that it’s not impossible. I was also encouraged to see all the positive comments too, from those on the right track!
Something both interesting and a bit disturbing about the Whole Foods goings-on is that I posted something about their Health Starts Here Campaign back in early February. Sometime after my post, the 4 criteria in their mission statement – whole foods, nutrient-dense, low-fat, and plant-based where they specifically called out animal foods as being something people should minimize, the wording was changed from the recommendation of “minimizing meats and animal products (as called to my attention by a person calling himself a Whole Foods employee) to “if eating a diet that includes meat, seafood, or dairy, choose leaner meats and seafood as well as low-fat dairy products”. So it seems that Whole Foods is responding somewhat to consumer commentary (I also sent a message to their corporate office), but they still aren’t going the whole way on this. They are still touting the low-fat mantra, and telling us to get our fats from “healthy plant sources” like avocados and nuts. But the ‘Whole Foods’ employee was pretty riled up about my post. I hope it got him thinking about his plant-based philosophy. Here’s the link:
https://www.agriculturesociety.com/?p=3209
Hi Kelly, Kate and all. Did you see my reader Chandelle’s comment on my WFM blog post?
“I used to work at Whole Foods. The CEO, John Mackey, is vegan. The vast majority of WF
I love hearing what you guys think about that story, you all make me laugh.
Kate, you & I would get along well in the store. (And annoy everyone around us.)
Soli, the only way I cook beef heart is when it’s already ground up and mixed with my ground beef. You could google it, but my suggestion would be (remember I’ve never done it), to cook it like you would a big roast – low and slow. Either in some liquid on the stove in a big covered pot, or in a big covered pan in the oven with a little liquid in the bottom. Cook ’til it falls apart. OH, first brown it on all sides, and season with whatever you’d like – salt & pepper, herbs, etc. That’s my guess, but honestly I don’t know for sure. Maybe someone else will jump in?!
This is right up Ann Marie’s alley – have you checked Cheeseslave.com?
Kelly
Hi Kelly,
I just checked Anne Marie’s site, and it seems she only mentioned heart when mixing it with muscle meat. guess I will be hunting the internet to find an answer today. At the least this should be an interesting experiment! 🙂
I never cook it before, so I decided to be brave and buy it, then I have no idea how to incorporated into a meal, you see my family knows that I am changing the cooking fats, and cooking more veggies and eating it with butter, but they are in the dark about feeding them liver and heart, I pass on the kidney and the rest.
So I decided to make a super beef broth, so I roasted first the heart with some beef shanks and beef bones, then I put it all in a pot with all the veggies I could find in the fridge, and make the stock, now I have the broth and the meat along with the marrow in the fridge, now what do I do with that meat? I know I could use the broth in a soup, but what about the meat? I think the meat already gave everything that it had in the broth, don’t you think? maybe I feed it to the dogs.
Use the meat in the soup, too!
When I first heard about the breastmilk cheese, honestly, the first thing I thought was, “You can do that with breastmilk?? Cool!!” And I’m nursing my 10 month old right now. I would probably try it. Is that crazy? I might be crazy. I’d try it with my own, but I’ve never pumped or expressed at all! DD gets it straight from the source. 🙂
I guess it seems…that it would be better for us, since it’s milk specifically for humans, as opposed to cow’s milk. And I just like that it makes guys especially squirm and freak out. 🙂
I would have to agree that the cheese from mother’s milk website is kind of weird. Having breast-fed my daughter for a year now I definitely would NOT make cheese out of the stored breastmilk in the freezer!
My husband saw that article about the mother’s milk cheese and sent it to me. Our daughter loves cheese but is allergic, so he sort of suggested we try it, just for her. We haven’t. But I don’t see anything wrong with it if you’re keeping it in your family.
Whole Foods is honestly a bit of a disappointment, but I’m finding most health food stores are right now. Most are pro-soy, anti-fat, and it just makes me sad. I can be found in those stores making comments loud enough for others to hear, “Ugh, soy?! Why do they have that crap? Low-fat? Are they kidding?!” lol. I wrote to Trader Joe’s about this issue a couple weeks ago. I’m sick of the low-fat, high-sugar, pro-soy, pro-processed “health” food trend!! I think we need to do something about it…. But at least the Real Food Challenge is going mainstream, right?
I saw an article about that “cheese” that you mentioned and decided to not read it. Very creepy. It goes against nature.
Julie how does that go against nature but drinking milk from mother cows is not consdiered creepy? Whats the difference? Mothers milk is for humnas after all. Maybe u are buying into societys views about breastfeeding.
I’ve got a cooking question which I hope someone can help me answer. Last time at the farmer’s market I got beef heart. I’ve never cooked it up before and so I have no clue exactly how to prep it, season it, temperature, etc. A friend of mine said it comes out amazing in a slow cooker, but I do not own one. Nor do I have a meat grinder at home right now. Help?
You can do wonderful slow-cooker things in a Le Creuset-type heavy enameled iron pot or a cast-iron Dutch oven with a lid. Brown your meat (I haven’t tried heart, but I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t work) in good fat on the stovetop, along with onions, carrots, celery if you like. Add some stock or wine or some kind of liquid plus some sea salt and seasonings and put the whole thing in the oven at no more than 300 degrees, cook for 2-3 hours, test for doneness. Should be very tender and flavorful. Of course you’re better off following a specific recipe rather than my ad hoc instructions, but you get the general idea, basically an oven stew.
Soli, I’ve just simmered a beef heart, covered in water, very slowly for about 2 1/2 hours. I really like the taste and to me it is nothing like liver. I like the chewy texture when I slice it for sandwiches. The broth can go into anything you normally use beef broth for without adding a funny taste. My guess is that the texture will turn someone off who hates any cartilage or gristle in meat, both of which I like. If that is the case, I’d grind it and in my opinion, it won’t be detectable like liver in a ground meat.
My dairy farmer and I have been discussing this Whole Foods raw milk thing on Facebook. She has a very unique perspective. Every time I talk to her I learn something new. My farmers are all very smart people and in comparison I feel like the village idiot!
Yeah, the cheese from mother’s milk thing is very creepy to me. I don’t know why. Perhaps because it takes nutrition from an infant’s diet and turns it into an adult’s indulgence, which seems wrong. If I’d never nursed an infant, the whole WAPF concept of a “sacred food” would be entirely foreign to me.