How to Stay Healthy

Hello!  How have you been?  I hope marvelous!!  I have nothing to complain about.  Life is good and Jesus is awesome!  :-)

With the way sickness has been rampant this winter, I thought I would write an article on how to stay healthy.  Most of these points are pretty obvious, but still need to be stated.

Rest
How many of you do not get enough rest?  This is the foundation to a healthy body.  The way God made these bodies, is that they need rest in order to stay healthy.  How many hours of sleep are you getting?  If that number is below 7 or 8, you need to make some life changes.  Turn off that T.V., stop scrolling through Facebook, or put down that book.  You cannot function, your brain cannot function without sleep.  Think about this.  Please.

Food
Eat your fruits and vegetables.  Remember half of your meal needs to be fruits and vegetables in order for your body to properly digest the food you are eating.  Can we do this 3 meals a day?  Maybe not.  But strive.  Add more fruits and vegetables to your day.  If we ate more fruits and vegetables we wouldn't have room for all of that junk food.

Sugar
Sugar is POISON!!  No kidding.  I really believe Satan either created sugar or gave a human the idea to create sugar.  I hate sugar.  HATE.  If we could all eat it in moderation, that would be GREAT!  But most of us cannot.  If you haven't watched the documentary "FED Up", I highly recommend you buy it or rent it.  It outs the sugar industry and is one of the best documentaries I have watched.  Sugar compromises our immune system.  We really DO NOT need our immune systems compromised this winter with all of the sickness going around.  Stay away from sugar!

Hand washing
I know this sounds like your mom talking to you now.  But honestly, it's the simplest things that work.  When you leave the house and go to the grocery or go where ever, use the little cart cleaning station stores have to wipe down your cart before pushing it and don't touch your eyes, nose or mouth until after you wash your hands.  We keep wet wipes in the car and the kids know to get the wet wipes out or the essential oil hand spray as soon as we get back in the car.  Then when we get home, it's straight to the sink to wash our hands with soap and water.  And not anti-bacterial soap.

Probiotics
I saved my favorite for last.

Probiotics.  Oh, how I LOVE probiotics.  You can get them anywhere nowadays but that doesn't mean they are worth you spending money on them.  I have bought several different brands and my favorite brand comes from doTERRA.  I am a Wellness advocate for doTERRA.  Ain't gonna hide that.  I LOVE their products.  They sell a probiotic that is amazing.  It is double encapsulated.  Which means it doesn't dissolve in your stomach, it dissolves in your colon and intestines.  Which is where you want the probiotics to go.  Most probiotics are destroyed in the stomach by our stomach acid.  But not doTERRA's.  It's the only probiotic I use and highly recommend.

If you want to go another route, start buying or making Kombucha.  This effervescent drink is full of probiotics and tastes delicious too!  Here's a link on how to make it.  And here is a link to why I drink it.

Here's a link to PB Assist, if you are interested.  If you already know someone that is a Wellness Advocate for doTERRA, please contact them to get your bottle.  1 a day is recommended. 

And here is a link to my doTERRA webpage, if you want to check out other products.  Or go to my.doterra.com/itstimetogreen 

Here is a link to make your own homemade hand sanitizer.

Did I forgot anything?  If I did, leave me a message!!  Gosh, I am full of links aren't I?  :-)

Stay healthy and keep living GREEN!!

Blessings,

Don't have time to cook? Now you do...

This post is looong over due.  I have found a new love.  An appliance love (yes....again. :-)  )

My steamer was starting to give out so I went online months ago looking for a new steamer.  Everywhere I looked this thing called an Instant Pot popped up.  I ignored it.

Then I decided to find a new pressure cooker to use on the stove.  I have one but it is aluminum and I am NOT cooking in aluminium anymore.  Guess what kept popping up in my search for a new pressure cooker?  Yep, you guessed it, this weird little appliance called an Instant Pot.  Still, I ignored it.

Then a friend sent me a link to this appliance that she knew I would love.  Can you guess what the link was too?  Yep.  An instant pot.

Hilarious, right?!

So, I started researching and asked for an Instant Pot for Christmas.  My giving husband delivered. :-)

Then for about what feels like 2 weeks, I sat there staring at the Instant Pot.  The manual was overwhelming and my past fear of pressure cookers was resurfacing.  Finally, I decided to bite the bullet and just try something...anything.

So, I boiled water (this is a test they want you to perform before using) I thought I could handle that.  

Then I was ready to cook a meal.  And it turned out beautifully.

Here are a few reasons why I am in love with my IP:
-Chuck roast in IP-45 minutes....crock pot 8 hours
-Beef bone broth in IP 1 hour 50 minutes and delicious....stove top 1 day.
-Refried beans in IP-30 minutes....crock pot 24 hours.
-Ribs-actually tender
-Best cheesecake ever
-Best soft boiled eggs ever
-Best hard boiled eggs ever
-Dinner time is no longer stressful and I enjoy meal planning

So, for those of you who have told me you can't cook traditional, that there aren't enough hours in the day....well.......guess what?  Now you have no excuse.  Start saving for the appliance that will change your life forever and allow you to cook healthy, home cooked meals in a fraction of the time.  And I can't even imagine how much this is cutting down on our electricity bill.  Click here to see the one we bought.  A 6qt Duo.  There is a new one with blue tooth, but I didn't want that one.

You can see in the picture the 3 cookbooks I bought.  I love them all but Bob Warden's is my favorite.

Also make sure you are part of the Instant Pot community on Facebook.  It's amazing.

Happy instant potting!!!  Your life will never be the same.

  

How to make Ghee (butter oil, Indian clarified butter)

~This is a forgotten about post I wrote months ago.  :-) ~

I am needing butter oil.....NOW!  I am placing an order to buy butter oil from Green Pastures today.  But I need to start this in my 6 year old today and can't wait for the delivery of my butter oil.  So, luckily my local raw milk farmer had raw butter at the last milk delivery instead of raw cream.  Ironic huh'?  You know I believe that God takes care of us in small and big ways, and this is one of the small ways.

My 6 year old has a cavity.  GASP!  I know.  He eats healthy, doesn't eat sweets much and brushes his teeth daily (To be honest, I still brush his teeth daily.  He totally knows how to do it but I want excellent oral hygiene and this is how I know he is getting it).  Yet, we still have a cavity.  Hmmmm??

I remembered reading this a long time ago.  Sarah Pope, The Healthy Home Economist had actually healed her sons cavity.  So, this article was the first place I went to after the visit to the dentist this week.

So, in a nutshell she healed her sons cavity by changing 2 things.  Her son was already taking FCLO (fermented cod liver oil) every day, but he was not taking the butter oil with it like he should have been doing.  See my post "Why I Take FCLO" for more info on FCLO. So, she started making him take the butter oil each time he took his FCLO.  She also suggested that he change what he was putting on his morning 2 slices of toast.  He started putting raw honey and raw butter on his toast instead of the tahini and raw honey that he was eating every day.  In a nutshell, within 1 month....1 MONTH....that was when the dentist appointment had been pushed back to, due to various things in life that came up....the cavity was GONE!  The dentist was shocked.  So, in a nutshell, what we eat and what we are lacking in our bodies plays a major roll in our health from our hair down to our toenails.

I also read that directly applying the FCLO and butter oil to the cavity is another great idea.

So, as of today we are starting the same cavity adventure.  And I hope and pray that this will heal my sons cavity.  In time we will have our answer.

Back to Ghee.

Buy only TOP TOP quality butter to make ghee.  It has to be either local grass fed raw or low temp butter.  I get mine from my local RAW milk farmer Pasture's Delights (I appreciate you more than words can express Mark, Troy and Carrie).  If you do not have access to local grass fed butter you can buy Kerrygold butter.  Costco, EarthFare and Whole Foods Kerrygold butter.  Kerrygold butter is fantastic and is quite affordable (if you shop at Costco).  Click here to learn more about Kerrygold grass fed Irish butter.  If your butter is not yellow, it is not good high quality butter from cows who eat grass.  If it is white butter there is little to no nutrients and vitamins, at all.  You want beautiful yellow butter.  And sorry to say, but if you are buying organic butter and it it white, well......you guessed it, it is highly lacking in omega-3's and beta-carotene.  You have to read "The Untold Story of BUTTER" to truly understand what I am talking about.  I am also currently working on a butter post to take all of this further into detail.

Ghee is great for someone who has a dairy or butter allergy.  All the milk solids are removed, all the protein, casein and lactose are removed when you make Ghee (obviously the same goes for the butter oil from Green Pastures.  Ghee does not need to be refrigerated, you can keep it in your pantry for many months.  You can refrigerate it if you want but you don't need to.  Ghee has a high smoke point and you can use it for frying.  It is similar to coconut oil in this aspect.

What you need...
Butter (raw grass fed, low temp grass fed, or Kerrygold) I used 8oz raw grass fed
Glass Pyrex bowl
Slotted spoon
Coffee filter or cheesecloth
Funnel
Glass jar to store ghee in

Bring butter to a boil, over medium heat (no higher), in a glass Pyrex bowl, on top of your stove (yes Pryex is safe to do this with.).  After the melted butter begins to boil wait until the entire surface area of the melted butter is covered with a white foam and you are still seeing little bubbles in the butter.  Once the entire surface of the butter is covered in the white foam, use a slotted spoon to remove as much of the white foam that you can.  Place foam in an additional small bowl and set aside.  Reduce heat (I went medium low), allowing the butter to simmer for an additional 10-15 minutes.  When the butter is completely clear, and you can see the milk solids on the bottom begin to slightly brown,  your ghee is ready to separate.  Turn off your heat.

Starting to boil.

The foam that you scrape off.

Place a funnel in a glass jar with a coffee filter or cheese cloth inside the funnel.  Carefully pour your butter into the funnel.  DO NOT scrape the milk solid or the butter into the funnel!  Leave the milk solids in the bottom of the Pyrex bowl and discard.  Allow the butter to drip through the funnel until the coffee filter no longer has any butter in it.  I let mine set for 10 minutes just so I got all of the butter out of the funnel.  You don't want to waste 1 drop!  Now you have ghee!

Milk solids left in the bottom of bowl.  Don't scrape the bowl!

Beautiful. Isn't?

It is recommended that you take 1/2 tsp butter oil (ghee) when you take your 1-1 1/2 tsp of fermented cod liver daily.  Take them together at the same time. 

Ghee also tastes WONDERFUL drizzled over your homemade popcorn, popped in coconut oil.  ;-)

Sarah puts her butter oil into gelatin capsules, immediately after straining, that you can buy at a health food store.  I am going to just use one of our clean syringes that came with my fermented cod liver oil and shoot it in the back of our tongues.  This will require placing our glass jar of homemade ghee in warm water and allow it to return to liquid.  This will also depend on what temperature you maintain your home.  We keep ours fairly cool, thus the solid state of the ghee.

There you go!

I will post back later to update you on my sons cavity, or hopefully lack there of.

Note:
The reason why I am still ordering butter oil from Green Pasture's is due to the way they make their butter oil.  They use a process that still allows the butter oil to remain raw called centrifuge.  Which means more nutrients for my family.  It majorly depresses me that I "cooked" our raw butter, but that was the highest quality of butter we have in the house and want this cavity gone yesterday. 

Update:  To date my kids will not take the butter oil from Green Pasture's.  They refuse.  So, I sold it to a friend.  Now, when I can get them to take the butter oil, it is my homemade ghee.  Some days I can't even get them to take the ghee, so they get a piece of toast slathered in butter or a heaping teaspoon in their hot soaked oatmeal for breakfast.

Update:  And we are now alternating back and forth between Green Pasture's FCLO and doTERRA's IQ Mega.  Two great products in my mind.  I will write about the IQ Mega in the future.

To watch the full video from Sarah on how to make Ghee, The Healthy Home Economist, click here.  And please read Sarah's blog.  It is full of amazing and profound knowledge (some controversial but I can take it. lol).

Why I Take Fermented Cod Liver Oil (this will surprise you)

****Update 2-25-2016   We are no longer purchasing from Green Pasture.  Information has surfaced that the FCLO is actually toxic.  Google it....there's a ton of info.  Cheeseslave has a lot to say about it too here. Wonderful, right?!  How long did we take this?!  I am now using doTERRA's Life Long Vitality and the kids are taking doTERRA's IQ Mega.*****



My current passion has been studying Fermented Cod Liver Oil (FCLO).  Sounds fishy doesn't?  Sorry, couldn't resist.  Lol

Remember back when everyone was talking about fish oil and how you should be taking it?  Well we listened, sorta.  I just donated 1 very large bottle of our fish oil capsules to our local soup kitchen.  We took the fish oil capsules, sorta, for a while.  Then stopped.  Didn't really feel a difference so we stopped.  The reason we didn't feel a difference?  The stuff we were taking was crap.

Now that there is so much noise about FCLO I had to buy some, start taking it and start doing some heavy research on the subject.  So, here is what I found.

Why should you take FCLO?
-decreases bad cholesterol
-increases good cholesterol
-can heal cavities (When taken with butter oil.  I will go further into detail later on)
-can prevent cavities
-can prevent illness (colds, flu)
-can boost your immune system
-can decrease the healing time from a cold by at least 1/2 (I know from experience)
-give you more energy (definitely agree with this!)
-when given to young children, can prevent or decrease the future need for glasses and braces
-very nutrient dense
-great source of Vitamins A, E, K and D
-fermented (good for your gut)
-decreases inflammation
-full of omega 3's (EPA and DHA)
-can fight infections
-it has never been heated, which retains all the vitamins and nutrients available
-consistent testing occurs to insure the FCLO is mercury free
-cod are wild caught
-helps fill in the holes (if I don't eat our healthy foods at home every day I know I am still covered)
-can help with infertility issues
-if taken before you get pregnant can increase health in your baby exponentially!
-it does not taste bad at all, trust me here me and my 2 kids take the liquid form no problem.  I have heard that the fermented tastes better than the old formula which was very fishy.

Where do you want to buy your FCLO and butter oil?  Once place...Green Pasture.  And Radiant Life carries Green Pasture products for a little less money and shipping (and right now they are offering 10% off!).  Just make sure the bottle reads Green Pasture.

Why do I need to buy Fermented cod liver oil?  Why can't I just buy cod liver oil?  There is a real difference here.  Fermenting the fish and fish livers is an ancient practice.  The resulting oils were considered sacred.  "Many great cultures had one sacred food in common which they relied upon to ensure strong mind, body and spirit of their people.  The Mighty Roman Soldier consumed a daily ration of fermented fish oil.  The Stoic Scandinavian Viking kept a drum of fermenting cod livers outside he door of his home.  Even Grandma had the wisdom to keep a bottle of cod liver oil in her cupboard."(1)  
Fermenting is a natural procedure that takes months.  Cod liver oil that is not fermented and from Green Pastures has been heated to speed up the process of acquiring the end result, cod liver oil.  Heating kills and destroys the nutrients and vitamins your body needs.  So, in a nutshell but fermented, don't waste your money on cod liver oil that has been heated. 

Dosing-recommended to take first thing in the morning
Adults
1-1 1/2 tsp each day
plus
1/2 tsp butter oil each day

Kids
1/2-1 tsp each day
plus
1/2 tsp butter oil each day

The first bottles we bought from Green Pasture was their Blue Ice Arctic Mint Liquid Fermented Cod Liver Oil and their Blue Ice non-gelatin capsules.  And believe it or not but myself and my 2 kids take the liquid without a problem.  The liquid comes with a syringe.  I have the kids open their mouth, tilt their head back, stick their tongue out and I squirt the FCLO at the very back of their tongue.  Then they take a drink of raw milk.  No problem at all.  Makes me very proud of them.  Hubby didn't think he wanted to try the liquid so we got him the capsules, no prob.  :-)

I do not recommend you take the FCLO without the Butter Oil.  The butter oil helps the body absorb as much of the FCLO that your body can.  Without the butter oil, you are getting benefits from the FCLO but not like you do with it.

If you don't want to spend the money on the butter oil, make your own.  It will not be as "perfect" as the butter oil is from Green Pasture's but it will be close.

Here is how you make you own butter oil or ghee (this will be up tomorrow).  Thank you Sarah Pope at The Healthy Home Economist.

*Information gathered from the following resources...
-Sarah Pope's ebook "Get your fats straight."
-Green Pasture website
-Radiant Life website
-Wise Traditions The Cod Liver Oil Debate by Chris Masterjohn
-The Healthy Home Economist website
-And of course my own personal experience
-Even though I have not finished reading it yet, Dr. Weston A Price's book titled "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" is the foundation to all of this information.  I did find a website that was offering his book to read for free as an ebook, click here.  
(1)-Quoted from Green Pasture

For a little cod liver oil humor, click here.

And if you would like to hear the cod liver oil songs, click here. 

Keep trying to live green. :-)

Me, My Passion and I

Well, I thought I would update you on what's going on in my life.

I am in love, addicted, obsessed, focused, dream about, think about, research every moment I can about my new love.  My new love is called Kerri's Kakes, which I hope will one day become a successful business for me.  I have dreamed about starting my own business for years. 

I have dreamed about taking a cake decorating class...for years.  I had actually signed up for one years ago.  But the store, won't mention the name, cancelled the class and would not give me and my friend our money back.  Kind of made me mad.  Life spiraled out of control right after that and, well decorating a cake seemed not so important.

So, last month, I took a cake decorating class with 3 friends at Hobby Lobby.  And boy did it open the floodgates for me.  I so love baking already, so now I love to bake and decorate.  (Good Lord am I glad ViSalus is in my life.  Otherwise I would probably gain 100 pounds.)

But my 'bizness' has a different spin.  I want to make cakes, cupcakes, etc with a natural twist.  

By natural twist, I mean I WILL NOT use food coloring to decorate.  I only use colorants that have been made from fruits and vegetables.  Any dairy that goes into my recipes is organic ONLY.  The eggs in my recipes are free-range   My cupcake cups are bleach free and biodegradable.  I really do not want to use any aluminum cake pans.  (Aluminum crosses over to the food and aluminum is gaining itself a direct link to Alzheimer's).  I want glass to be the only cake pan I use.  And I am studying how to make cakes and icing without the gross shortening we are all familiar with.  I want to stay as close to natural in every aspect that I can.  Finally I am studying gluten-free and gluten-free ingredients, organic where I can. 

I am soooo in love with all of this.  I am very passionate about providing an alternative to the desserts we are used to.  I want to break down that scary wall that we all see when someone talks about baking in a healthy manner.  Healthy DOES NOT have to mean gross, flavorless, dry or toss that recipe in the shredded to be recycled later.  Healthy to me means, let's find a way to cook or bake that is better for me and my family. 

There is a lot of controversy about wheat.  I am trying to slowing limit the amount of wheat products that are brought into this house.  Will I get to the point where we are completely wheat-free??  I don't know.  But I do know that there is a food, chemical or something out there that I am allergic to and I am on the hunt to figure out what it is. 

After reading "Eat Right for your Blood Type" my gut feeling tells me that it is wheat.  So, we will see.  I know that it takes awhile to undue everything that I have already done.  So, I pray for patience and strength as I begin this journey.  But boy am I excited about it all!!!  :-)  I will keep you posted on my progress.