Keeping Promises

Last night I found yet another use for zucchini and I can honestly say that my garden is now nearly devoid of the prodigious emerald green offspring of the dog days. As a result of cooler days I think my quest to find 1001 uses for zucchini may soon end but I can add one more recipe for your epicurean delight.

Yesterday, I thawed some grass fed beef from Pasture’s A Plenty and looked in my latest fascinating cookbook by Elana Amsterdam “The Gluten Free Almond Flour Cookbook”. She had on offer a recipe for Turkey loaf because, of course, in some minds beef is equated with the word “BAD”.  I know grass fed beef is as healthy as any protein and probably better than factory raised turkey, so I thawed it with abandon. (I will let you in on a secret: despite being very well informed on the subject of grass fed beef every time I read an author’s denigrating words about beef I feel like a kid running with scissors when I eat it.) I guess if you believe turkey is better for you add 1 tablespoon of grapeseed oil, if like me grass fed beef is what you prefer skip the oil. I have altered the recipe to suit my needs.

Herbed Meat Loaf

1 pound ground grass fed beef
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic minced
1/2 cup grated zucchini
2 large eggs
1/4 cup ketchup (Annie’sorganic)
1/2 cup blanched almond flour (Bob’s Red Mill is good)
1 teaspoon Celtic sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground Tellicherry pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh garden parsley
1 tablespoon minced fresh garden thyme

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl combine all the ingredients and prepare to dig in. I just love mixing meatloaf with my clean hands, so I blended all the ingredients ala Jamie Oliver, shaped it in to a loaf and put it in a glass bread pan patting it out to make it even. I baked it about an hour or until the juices were running clear, removed it from the oven and let it sit for 10  minutes before slicing and eating.

My husband (the spousal unit, sometimes referred to as “the SU”) actually asked me what we were eating at supper. When I told him meatloaf, I, expecting some snide remark about “mystery meat”  was pleasantly surprised when he simply replied “it’s really tasty!” That made my entire evening seem brighter.

Feeding Your Thyroid

My latest update on Facebook from Janie Bowthorpe was basically a continuation of her disagreement with Forest Pharmaceuticals and their changing the formulation of Armour Thyroid and Janie’s successfully getting many people to switch to Naturethroid and Westhroid. It is all getting old to me and I will apologize right now to any readers that offends and tell you that I am grateful to Janie Bowthorpe for her very informative book Stop The Thyroid Madness. I have a different take on the subject of the new formulation causing relapse in everyone and I will share it with my readers.

Early this winter I finally talked my very open minded doctor, Rob Bruley, in to prescribing Armour Thyroid instead of my compounded pharmaceutical T3 and T4 because we were not resolving my hypothyroidism issue after more than a year of constantly increasing my dosage. Admittedly he reluctantly did it, but he did it and told me I had to take a 3 grain dose of Armour Thyroid which by the way had to be special ordered at Target pharmacy (I tell you because it is useful information). 3 grains was equal to the T3 and T4 I was taking that wasn’t working very well although we had corrected several aspects of my thyroid malfunction. At that time I also started a bio-identical testosterone cream and progesterone tablet because those hormones were low in a recent hormone test I had taken.

I don’t want to quote exact times here because it is all a blur of history but approximately 6 weeks later I was having heart palpitations and sudden jolts that would awaken me in the middle of the night. I started taking half a 3 grain tablet at that time and when I called Dr. Bruley he agreed that this was the right thing to do, so he prescribed a blood test  which showed my T3 was now too high, T4 was okay and the TSH was within range although on the low side. I continued on 1 1/2 grains and when I had the next blood test I didn’t take my Armour the morning of the test as it will affect the T3 reading according to Janie and I was not in the mood to take any higher dosage. I was now feeling rather hyper at times and for instance if I was writing something it would almost look scribbled because I was writing too fast (my own test) so I knew I was a little over medicated but the test would tell.

That test came back with both T3 and T4 within range but my total TSH was .3 which indicates suppressed thyroid. I have since cut my half tablet in to half which amounts to 3/4 grain of Armour Thyroid. I will need a blood test in a few weeks but I can tell you that I still feel a little hyperthyroid. On 3/4 grain my heart palpitations are almost non-existent but at times I feel agitated like I need to run a marathon but I don’t run anymore.

Now to my point, the newly formulated Armour has seemingly corrected my thyroid problem greatly reducing my need for thyroid stimulating hormone. I don’t take it sublingually anymore because most of my digestive issues are resolved by not eating grain of any kind and drinking kefir every day. Swallowing Armour allows for slow release of the thyroid stimulating hormone. If and when I did what Janie suggested and took the tablet sublingually I would get a jolt in the morning that was uncomfortable and if I took some early afternoon when it had worn off I was too hyper to relax by bedtime. Swallowing it with my morning tea works perfectly for me I have sustained energy during the day and I am ready for bed at night.

I am now taking Alpha Lipoic Acid (300 mg) twice a day (with breakfast and supper) as well as a B-Complex vitamin for energy and liver health. If you take ALA you must add a B Complex as the ALA lowers your levels of the B vitamins. I also take 200 mcg of a sodium selenate/selenomethionine supplement. When I feel an energy lag I have a great B12 supplement called ProBoneO by Life Enhancement (Dr. Wright). I eat a diet free of gluten, with lots of greens, fresh eggs, avocados, grass fed meat, etc. My conclusion is that by balancing my hormones and taking the right supplements (no excipients or fillers), following a gluten free diet and staying away from excititoxins I am healing my thyroid.

Instead of complaining about the reformulation of Armour Thyroid I would tell you to try it. If it doesn’t work or you start to experience hypo symptoms again follow this advice before you change to Naturethroid or Westhroid:

Balance all your hormones not just your thyroid hormone.

Eat a gluten free diet full of greens which can be from Barley grass and Alfalfa grass or greens from the garden that are raw or lightly steamed. Add homemade kefir with no sugar added for a health gut.

Throw away supplements that have excipients and fillers as they negatively affect your immune system and create a bio film that keeps you from absorbing the supplement.

Judiciously stay away from MSG which means making your own fresh food with no boxed convenience foods and reading The MSG Myth.

Exercise using the T-Tapp method as she concentrates on cleaning your lymph system and allowing your body to heal itself.

If you do all these things and still suffer from hypo symptoms then it is time to try something new. If you choose not to try these steps first don’t cry foul on Forest Pharmaceuticals point your finger at the real guilty party, you.

My Dear Miss Piggy

As the so-called swine flu continues to hit the newspapers and television every other day or so I am sure pork producers suffer the wrath of the media. I haven’t heard specifically but I can only imagine that people won’t buy pork for fear of getting this much dreaded H1N1 virus. Why is that? Because people listen and/or read for a nanosecond and let’s face it you can only get so many facts in a nanosecond and it is usually all garbled and incorrect. I would like to say a few things to clarify and defend the much maligned porcine community.

First of all, you may or may not have heard or read this small, insignificant detail but YOU CANNOT GET THE H1N1 VIRUS FROM EATING PORK. Secondly, I do not support large hog operations (the H1N1 virus may have started on a 950,00+ hog confinement farm in Mexico) where the hogs are raised in filth, never see the light of day, are filled with hormones and antibiotics and never have a life.I do support and consume healthy pasture raised pork.

Conventionally raised pork that you buy in your local supermarket is not raised under humane conditions. They are literally crammed in to buildings where they cannot move, they never see the light of day much less feel the sun on their backs. They are filled with antibiotics to keep them healthy. Their manure which is collected in gigantic cesspools pollutes the surrounding areas often even contaminating the ground water and the reek of  toxic fumes can be inhaled for miles (I used to live a mile or two from a pig operation run appropriately enough by a family called Sewer). Those fumes have been found to cause high rates of disease on factory farms especially respiratory diseases like bronchitis. If a person should have the misfortune of falling in one of these cesspools they will most likely die of asphyxiation from the toxic fumes.

Pasture raised pork is a nutritious, humanely raised “other white meat”. Pastured pork is high in vitamin E and healthy Omega-3 fats. Pastured pigs get to enjoy the freedom to behave in natural ways even being able to create nests for their piglets and live in family groups. They spend their day rooting and grazing in the sun and fresh air and even in winter they are raised on deep beds of straw in hoop houses that enable them to be exposed to fresh air and sunshine but protected from the extremes of winter.

If  you would like to enjoy pork again, barbecue some succulent pork ribs, roast a nitrate free ham or make Cuban Spiced pork shoulder roast I can highly recommend Pasture’s A Plenty in Kerhoven, MN. It is a farm run by the VanDerPol family and they make monthly trips in to the Twin Cities and sell their wonderful pork to local co-ops and restaurants but also have drop offs for individual orders. They make about 5 stops in different parts of the Twin Cities and I am lucky enough to live close to one drop off point. If you do not live in Minnesota but have an interest in buying humanely raised pork check out CawCaw Creek and U.S. Wellness Meats. I have personally dealt with US Wellness Meats and found their products to be wonderful. I know nothing of Caw Caw Creek meat but their site is too cute.

We are so lucky here in the Twin Cities to have farmers like the VanDerPols bring our food to us. How wonderful is it to be able to buy your food directly from the farmer? Wouldn’t you like to know how your food is raised and know the people who raise it? The VanDerPols offer an open house every autumn and you can attend and check out the environs that your meat is raised in. I think this is as close to perfection as you can get and even Miss Piggy would give Pastures A Plenty and the other farmers who are dedicated to humanely raising pigs a big thumbs up for making a pigs life happy.

Easy peasie

If you recognize the phonetics of that title then you probably know Jamie Oliver and you needn’t read on. If it seems an odd thing to title a blog then read and enjoy.

I have just whipped up tonight’s pizza sauce which will be served on Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza Crust with grass fed beef, organically grown green pepper (from last year’s garden), mushrooms, onions, oil cured olives and grass fed raw Monterey Jack Cheese on top.I really had not been able to come up with the tastiest tomato sauce until this week when I was watching an episode of Jamie Oliver’s Happy Days Live.

Jamie, being the cooking wizard that he is, suggested a simple but intensely flavored tomato sauce and for me it was perfect. You take a jar of sun dried tomatoes in oil and whiz them up either in a food processor or as I just did with my hand held blender, add spices of your choice and Voila! you have the perfect compliment to your evening pizza delight. I had dehydrated tomatoes from last year’s crop sitting in my pantry, so I softened them in boiling water, placed them in a jar with grapeseed oil and added water and whizzed them until they were smooth. I added organic oregano and basil from Mountain Rose Herbs, fresh minced garlic (organically grown of couse), a touch of Celtic Sea Salt, freshly ground tellicherry peppers and now it can marinate all day just waiting to be spread thinly on tonight’s crust.

Like I said, easy peasie.