Monday Morning Mix-Up 7/5/10

I love it that our house is often where all the neighbor kids gather, really I do, believe it or not.  Even if trying to write posts or work on my rookie class with a dozen kids here does get a little tricky.  (It really is that many kids here sometimes, or more.  At the moment the music from the electric piano is blaring and I keep seeing various kids go by with a guitar, Nerf guns and blankets.  I guess I should probably go see what’s up…)  It’s especially fun to make them all happy now and then when I pass out warm cookies, my “famous” homemade popcorn with coconut oil, or some homemade popsicles (but I can only give those to my close friends’ kids who I know don’t care that they have raw milk and raw eggs in them).  While I’m certainly not one to wish time away when life already flies by too quickly, I do sometimes think about this fall with a dreamy look in my eye, when our youngest will be in Kindergarten at least a couple days a week (a third day every other week), and get this:  I helped Kal set up his fall college schedule and rigged it so he’s got classes those SAME two days a week, woohoooooo!  A little peace and quiet and the house to myself really are in my future!  Too bad my very next thought with tears in my eyes is, “But Kal will be in college and my baby will be in Kindergarten and not home with me all day every day, and the other two are growing up so fast, too…”  Us Moms can never just enjoy a moment, we always have to have some sadness or guilt thrown in there, too.  (Or is it just me?)

• Jimmy posted some good coverage on the issue of the recently released 2010 USDA Dietary Guidelines (what a big farce!) – he also included a few more of my favorite articles on the topic from Sally Fallon Morell, Tom Naughton, and Kristen Michaelis.  Check it out if you feel like getting ticked off at the government today.  Again.
• By the way, Jimmy, if you’re reading, you are my sister, Terri’s, new best friend. She calls all the time and says, “I love Jimmy!”  She’s reading your site like CRAZY (yahoooooo!) and not only losing weight, but her blood sugar is finally coming down after being uncontrollable for years. I’m working on her now, hoping she’ll soon write a guest post for me on her whole story…  If you want to make her scream like a groupie, say hello to her in the comments, will you?
• One more fun thing about my sister, Terri.  We were with my family over the weekend and they’re in shock that she’s eating tons of healthy fats and is now off insulin and blood pressure meds! (Most of them have thought I was full of crap for years and rarely read my blog.)  She started getting on my Mom, who is also diabetic, about her diet, and I said, “Wow, this is so nice that she’s taking over for me and I can just sit here and listen!”  I know that many of you are fully aware of how difficult it is to try and bring your family into the Real Food way of life.  But I was just as resistant not that long ago either…   (Have you seen this post, “How difficult was it for you to get over the low-fat mentality?”)
• On a similar topic, I love this post last week from Modern Alternative Mama, probably because I’m always intrigued by someone else’s story and this is a good one for sure:  Our Changing Diets.  I sent it to a few people who are resistant to trying to lose weight the Real Food way…
• Remember the Dr. Eades post about “heliophobes” that I linked to a couple weeks ago?  He now tells us that it’s worse than he thought in Heliophobe Madness.  “The danger of too much sun is minimal – the danger of too little sun is enormous.”
• I’ve got a request for you that began with this email:  “Hi Kelly,  Love your blog ~ I check it out regularly.  I am wondering if you have any posts on organic coffee?  Brands etc….  I do drink a cup of coffee every morning and so does my husband and older kids (I have seven – four of them are 18 and older).  So, my kids are requesting organic/fair trade coffee – have you done any research on this?  Thanks and God Bless, Maria”

“Hi Maria, you know, that's one I've never done, but maybe I'll put out a plea on Monday for someone to do a guest post for me on that topic…?  Surely someone out there has already researched all this!  For now, though, I'd suggest calling your local coffee roasters or coffee shops and asking a lot of questions.  We have a coffee roaster in town that knows everything there is to know about this stuff so I buy “like organic” coffee from them.  They assure me it’s grown organically although it isn’t labeled as such.  Sorry I’m not more help!  Kelly”  Readers, also check out this link:  Food Renegade posts about why it just might be OK to drink coffee.  Personally, for now I’m firmly in the “Fine, I’ll cut back but have no intentions of quitting” camp.

• I get most of my Monday material from reader emails, does it show?!  Here’s one from Jen:  “This article on vaccinations makes me so ANGRY!!!  It's such propaganda.  There is NO WAY anyone can convince me that febrile seizures after a vaccine are always “benign”.  UGH!  Also, “one less shot” is not better if you're still exposing the child to 4 different diseases at the same time, with two shots instead of one.  I just want to bang my head against the wall… it makes me so crazy!”
• Another one on vaccines, this one from Kent.  It would be funny that not as many people fell for the hype as they expected, except for the fact that you and I paid for these expired flu shots.
• One more from Jen:  “Ok, get ready for this next article on genetically altered salmon of all things!  As soon as I saw the title, my brain started screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!”
• What’s this?  The FDA is making sense?!  Read this USA Today article about antibiotic use in animal feed.
• Another one from Kent:  “11 reasons to break the sugar habit.”  We all know most of this, but it’s good to hear it again.
• OK, reader friends, I’ve got a doozie of a question for you now.  It will be a total “God thing” if at least ONE of you out there knows the answer.  A guy that I talk to at our local Weston A. Price Foundation meetings, Jeff, presented his latest dilemma to me and I told him I’d try to help by asking all of you, my super smart readers, and see if you can shed some light on this. He owns a couple restaurants in West Michigan and does his best, with limited financial resources, to offer the best foods he can.  He struggles finding a good source for huge amounts of affordable beef tallow (I told him to check here), but said that even if he did have it, he doesn’t have the right fryer he needs.  He uses a pressurized deep fryer (a broaster) for the best tasting fried foods, but said that when he uses all tallow, it hardens in and around the drains or tubes in the back of the machine and clogs everything up.  To make it work again they have to take it all apart to clean it out.  He’s afraid he’s going to have to use a mixture of the healthy tallow and an unhealthy liquid oil.  If McDonald’s used tallow to fry in (the good old days), then it can’t be THAT hard to find the right type of deep fryer, right?  (Update:  Jeff said theirs wasn’t a pressurized deep fryer, though, just an open fryer.) Please comment or email me if you have any info on this, thank you!

Have a great week!