Gluten free Bread Recipe!

One thing that more and more people are having problems with these days is wheat or gluten. Going wheat free is becoming a much easier thing to do these days than it was five or ten years ago. there are a lot of great products out there especially in health food and specialty stores now. I have had an intolerance to gluten since I was in my early twenties and I have experimented with A LOT of recipes. As of late, a finally feel that I have come up with a gluten free bread that is really good. I hope some one out there who dreams of eating bread once again enjoys this. You can go heavier on the rice flour to make it more "whole grain" or substitute more tapioca for more of a "white" bread.

Special note: I want to say I just tried a bread from a brand called udis and it had a lot of tapioca and potato flour. I am going to work on my recipe the next few weeks because although it is good, I want it to have that spongey light texture and udis really cracked the code on that, I will update the recipe as I improve it, wish me luck!

Em's gluten-free bread

1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1 T yeast
1 T guar gum
1 tsp sea salt
1 T cane sugar, honey or sweetener of your choice
about 1/2 C warm water

Combine dry ingredients

Heat water until warm, add to 1/2 of the dry mixture and stir well.
You can add water if it is to dry.

add the rest of the dry mix until you get a moldable dough like consistency.

Press in to a greased bread pan, brush the top of the loaf with oil or butter to avoid cracking. Let bread sit for 1 hr at about 115 degrees if possible. If you can set your oven as low as 120 degrees that should work. Your bread should rise to double it's size just like the real thing!

Bake in a preheated oven at 350 for about 25-30 minutes.

Enjoy!!!

Time to get healthy

Anyone out there looking for some moral support? I would love to be one of those places on the net that can be turned in to a community of sorts where people can go to for ideas and support when it comes to health & happiness. I'm going to make a pledge to start eating healthier and I want to start posting as many ideas and recipes as I can come up with. If anyone would like to follow this blog and join in, please do. I'd love your suggestions and comments. I think my first step to walk the walk will be to go drink the rest of my carrot/spinach juice, it's really good and seems to keep me going for quite some, must be all those sugars. Hope to hear from you soon!

Chia Seeds

Today I received a package of chia seeds in the mail. If you haven't heard of these, they are a very cool seed that falls under the "super food" category. It is a member of the sage family (salvia hispanica). Originating as a staple from the ancient incan, Mayan, Aztec cultures, and the native American cultures of the southwest.

The mayan word for strength is Chia. They were often used as a food to maintain stamina for long treks because they are very nutrient rich and hydrating as they absorb up to twelve times their weight in water in less than 10 minutes. This apparently gives you surges of energy.

You can buy the black or white variety of chia seeds. I got the white and was eager to try out the "chia gel" that is created by mixing them with water. It is flavorless and definitely gel like. I can see why people use it to make puddings. There are a lot of recipes on the internet that utilize this superfood. If you are interested in calorie content, it is a great food for a person who is "dieting" because of it's known ability to keep you feeling full for a long time. One Tablespoon has 68 calories and after you add 1/4 cup water to that, it expands into a mini meal depending on how you use it. I actually enjoyed the texture of the food and am exited to experiment with different ways to use them. I'll let you know how it goes and I'll be sure to post a recipe soon.

What's the deal with Vitamin D?

We've all heard about Vitamin D, it's all the rage. We get it when we are in the sun but in the winter everyone is saying we are depleted of it due to lack of sunshine. I recently listened to an interview about a program called The Marshal Protocol. I won't go in to great detail about that but the topic surrounds some of latest research about Vitamin D. It made me question my assumption that it is something I should be taking. There's always an opinion on every subject so I'll leave you a link to the website where you can hear the interview for yourself.

First of all, apparently it's not technically a vitamin but a steroid. It's marketed as a vitamin, I suppose because steroid D wouldn't sound to appealing. The common knowledge is that "vitamin" D is great for your immune system which is why I am confused. According to some of the latest research, Vitamin D actually suppresses the immune system.

When you are sick you are feeling the toxic die off effects of your immune system at war with all the yucky bacteria in your system. If your immune system is suppressed, there's no conflict hence you feel great but then where does that leave your body in the long term?

How could this be when vitamin D has been glorified throughout the medical community at large? Even Dr. Oz said that it is at the top of the list of things that Americans are deficient in. So I guess the answer to this is left up to you. I like to go with concrete evidence. Where is the research?
What are the pros and cons of taking this supplement? Can I use sun lamps as a replacement for D3 if I have seasonal effective disorder? These are a few of the questions we might ask.

Whether you choose to take Vitamin D is Obviously up to you but I posted this because I think it is important to know all the facts about the supplements you are taking. Lately I've been realizing that just because something is popular in the vitamin world, doesn't mean it is a good thing to be ingesting.

The link I provided for information about the Marshal Protocol is an interview that covers a method mainly for those with autoimmune issues. This would be a personal choice as it involves pharmaceuticals in small doses. I think we can all agree that getting vitamin D from the sun is a good thing, I know I feel graet when I'm in the sun more often.

Links:
http://www.oneradionetwork.com/health_-_podcasts/open_friday_forums/the_pros_and_cons_of_taking_vitamin_d_-_the_marshal_protocol_-_01.16.10_201001161490/

http://bacteriality.com/

http://www.naturalnews.com/003069.html

http://www.marshallprotocol.com/forum2/4213.html

Zesty Quinoa Salad

This is an extremely healthy and decicious dish that can be served as a side or main dish.

1 cup quinoa
1/4 c. currants
1 bunch of broccoli blached or raw
zest of 1 orange
2 t. olive oil
1/2 tsp sea salt
about 1/4 of a small red onion
3 T veginaise or organic mayo (optional)
2 T garlic powder (optional)

Cook the quinoa like you would rice, just not too long or it will get mushy. Allow to cool.
Combine all ingredients in your serving bowl and thats it!

Pass the chocolate please

So I stayed up half the night learning things about super foods on youtube from Nutritionist David Wolfe. He is a character. Very informative. He's kind of a pioneer in the nutrition world. If you are not deterred by the occasional poncho and outspoken views, he has loads fascinating information about health.

There is a lot of talk about the importance of super foods. Super foods? you ask? They are defined by having a dozen or more unique properties. Basically foods that are nutrient dense and healing to the body such as tropical fruits and herbs. Before you think this sounds like mumbo-jumbo, listen to my favorite "superfood". The star of the super food show seems to be chocolate, yes chocolate (in its raw form) David reveres raw cacao (pronounced kuh-KOW) as one of the most nutritionally dense foods on earth. We've all heard about it's antioxidant properties it also has ten times the amount of magnesium, iron an chromium than any other food and apparently magnesium is the number one deficiency in America. He explains that when the cacao bean is heated and processed, it loses much of its nutritional value.

Wolfe told a story about running in to shaman in the Amazonian rain forest while hiking. He asked what this thriving man of the forest thought about the cacao bean. To which the shaman replied "Cacao? You can live on Cacao." He went on to say "we just planted 3000 cacao trees with the kids from the village down there, we believe that that's the future." This was on an island in the middle of the amazon river that they planted these trees. David talks about how cacao is such an ideal crop for the indigenous people because of the profit they reap and effect that it has on the rain forest by keeping the people on their land therefore keeping the forest protected from logging. Eating super foods may not be a main stream lifestyle but I like the idea of eating things that have been eaten traditionally for thousands of years by much healthier generations than our own.

I'm exited by this poncho wearing chocolate pushers speech about the raw cacao bean and all of its possibilities.

If you are sensitive to chocolate, start out small to make sure it agrees with you. You can purchase raw chocolate in bean, nib, powdered or ready made chocolate form online and in some specialty stores, just make sure the source is fair trade and raw of course.

Life is so hard when you have to eat "healthy"

You can find many of Davids bootlegged lectures on youtube.com

Vitamin C from Camu Camu

This amazing little tropical fruit is my first topic because I am about to try it myself. I started to have an aversion to taking my vitamin c even though it was highly recommended by my naturopath long ago for some immunity issues. I recently heard that acerola vitamin c was a high quality source because it was natural not synthetic. It never occurred to me that my vitamin c could be synthetic. I did a little investigating and found that my c supplement was in fact produced in a lab. apparently synthetic powders are not efficiently assimilated by the body and can cause iron deficiencies such as anemia! I have been diagnosed as anemic so I'm glad I am switching over to a natural source. There are a few different natural sources of vitamin C. I am trying Camu Camu because it has the highest vitamin C content of any substance known. It has 380 mg per 1/2 tsp! Acerola is great too but only has 90 mg per 1/2 tsp.
For more bang for my buck I'm going for the Camu Camu and found some on sale for $15.49 a pound plus shipping on ebay. I found other benefits of camu camu besides the immune system boost it provides such as it fights against seasonal affective disorder, maintains excellent eyesight, creates beautiful skin, wards of viral infections, supports strong collagen, tendons and ligaments, decreases inflammation, improves lung health, helps clarity of mind, the list seems to go on! I'll let you know how this one works out.