Crock Pot Heaven

I love crock pots!

I have a girlfriend who insists that crock pots are for old ladies. Yes, she does have one but feels incredibly self-conscious about it.

Well, if that's true, then hand me a cane and colour my hair blue... because I have TWO!

I love them so much that I almost always have both of them going, all seasons of the year, never clean and empty, and never put away... and if I could, I'd have three.

Sadly though, I have run out of crock pot counter space...

I use my pots so much that you can see that they're well-loved! The fact is, that crockpots don't have to be pretty to make your life more fabulous! Sure it's nice if they are pretty... but nice is not a prerequisite for a crock pot. In fact, one of mine has completely lost all of it's knobs but has still been going strong for the about the last four years!

I suppose if I have one complaint about them, it would be that the plastic handles installed on the newer versions, by the manufacturing companies, are not heat resistant. As a matter of fact, after having 3 new lids sent to me by one manufacturing company, only to have the lid handle crumble again, I had HAD-IT!!

I finally just went to a second-hand store, picked up one of those old aluminum pot lids (you know, the ones that everyone had in the 70s and 80s), unscrewed the big black knob and screwed it onto my existing crock pot lid. It's been good for three years now. Now, if I could only figure out how to replace the temperature select knob that fell apart... sigh... thankfully a gluten free diet means that my fingers are no where near as stiff as they used to be...

*****

One pot, I use for at least one dinner per week and then the rest of the week it holds soup broth or even full fledged soup: Basic Soup Broth Recipes

The other pot, is where we throw all of our leftovers... and I mean EVERYTHING!!

This is the easiest way I have found to keep up with homemade pet food. Pretty much everything gets thrown into this pot full of water, much like a compost bin. A couple of exceptions would be too much raisins, chocolate, onion or broccoli, mostly because the majority of this pot becomes dog food... and too much of these items are toxic to dogs.

Dinner cleanup is a cinch! The crock pots are right next to the dishwasher, so everyone just scrapes their plates off into the animal crock pot and plunks the dish into the dishwasher. Easy peasy!

Even the stuff that I strain out of my bone broth crock gets thrown into the animal crock.

Nothing is wasted and the animals are in fabulous condition since we have not had a single visit to the vet in almost 5 years (with our German Shepherd who is almost 14 years old and our Rottweiler who is about 8 years old). Since we went gluten free, the animals did too... and their health has been entirely reflective of the fact that this diet is not only better for us, but better for them too!

Before they went gluten free, we had continual smelly gas issues (okay, occasionally we still do since the rottie seems to have beef and grain issues), ear infections, and the German Shepherd's pannus had almost completely blinded him. Yes, surprisingly, on a largely grain-free diet, his pannus cleared up almost completely. What an unexpected yet wonderful side-effect to a gluten free (largely grain free) diet!

Of course never forgetting to give much of the credit to living in Crock Pot Heaven!

In the photo below, you can see where the pannus (dark brown blob) has receded to the edge of the pupil. It also became less lumpy, which meant less aggravation and therefore, not more gunky tear streaks.

The pupil in this eye, (when we got him from the humane society, at approx. 6 years old at the

Once the pupil cleared, he not only stopped tripping on the children's toys but to our surprise, could run like the wind!

Apparently a veterinarian I ran into, completely by mistake, has had similar results with a younger shepherd also: please google DogtorJ (no - the "g' is not a typo) for more info. He attributes pannus to corn but in some discussion I had with him, his dog appeared to be gluten free also. This concurs with my dog's diet,which we purposefully ensured was gluten free, but inadvertently, was also corn free.
time) was almost completely covered by the pannus and he could not see toys on the living room floor.

And if I feel we don't have enough leftovers to make up a dinner for the dogs, I just add the cheapest meat I can find in the grocery store. This means that even if I have to buy some cheap meat/fish, my homemade, environmentally friendly, additive free dog food, is not only healthier but is actually more budget friendly (by a long shot!) than the big $80 brand name stuff that we used to get from our vet!

But I digress...

Every once in a while, I dump the pot contents into the bird compost pot (where we put scraps that are going out to the chickens and ducks), clean out the pot, fill it with clean water and continue on.

Honestly, though, even without having a crock pot for animals, I would still keep two pots just for us. One for completed soup that's always at the ready and one for soup broth in progress.

Here are just a few other things I've used my extra pot for in the past:

1) Reduce broth to the point that it's almost pudding-thick and added some balsamic vinegar to create meat rub or to further mix it with a bit of honey and pureed raspberries for a fabulously original salad dressing.

2) Taken frozen fruit out of the freezer, tossed it in the crock pot and let it stew down to make a fabulous topping for bread, waffles, dessert (ice cream, custard, etc.) or cake (in lieu of sugar-filled icing).

3) Keeping french fries warm (covered with a towel though so they don't go soggy).

4) Cooking rice in that can be tossed in at the beginning of the day (with soup broth, of course) that is deliciously ready by dinner time.

5) ... and so many more things!

Life is good, and warm, and healthy in Crock Pot Heaven (even with blue hair)!



For basic soup broth recipes, please see here: Soup Broth

Neurologic Manifestion of Gluten Sensitivity

It is not accurate for people to say that eliminating gluten will 'cause' gluten sensitivity.

As a matter of fact is has been "proven" that one of the three things required to "cause" celiac disease is ingestion of gluten.

Of course this makes sense because ingestion of gluten is what causes damage:

Gluten Ingestion A Cause of Activation in Intestinal Damage

"immune-mediated enteropathy triggered by the ingestion of wheat gluten or related rye and barley proteins in genetically predisposed individuals carrying the human leukocyte antigens (HLA)-DQ2 or -DQ8"

So, if you have these genes and ingest gluten, you could be risking your health, possibly for the rest of your life. How so? Because of the possibility of establishing refractory (untreatable) celiac sprue.

Why is refractory sprue a risk? Here's my big pet peeve - because testing will only show positive with end stage damage. It's like waiting until you have a heart attack to live a heart-healthy lifestyle - In my view that's ridiculous! Don't even get me started on the ridiculous "boardroom decision" about what level of Marsh lesion is required to get a 'gold standard diagnosis' and the possibility offered to you that diet might work for you! (And if the damage is patchy enough, they won't catch a spot with a lesion and you'll never get a diagnosis!)

How about this one, you have diabetes but it's not bad enough to treat with diet... we'll wait until you require ample medication to deal with other issues as they arise... then we'll look at altering your diet so that you don't get worse. Again, ridiculous! So why do people with gluten sensitivity have to wait to be 'end stage' before getting preventive treatment!!!

Also, many people who will never experience "true" celiac disease may only have neurological issues present like, depression, fibro, headaches, seizures, multiple sclerosis, ataxia. Of course not all together but these are only a few things that I've heard of/experienced resolution on a gf (and sometimes more) diet.

Science is only now beginning to see that neurological implications can manifest without 'apparent' intestinal mucosal alterations:

Neurological Presentation of Celiac Disease

"However, more recent studies have emphasized that a wider spectrum of neurologic syndromes may be the presenting extraintestinal manifestation of gluten sensitivity with or without intestinal pathology."

Please note: "without intestinal pathology"

I know that my first symptom is headache, my second is depression (I'll experience a fairly sharp downswing - even on a good day where nothing has 'gone wrong'). I have no bowel issues that are as blatant as these two neurological symptoms.

And yes, I have to be extremely careful... Lindt chocolate, who uses barley malt has been a prime cause of symptom upheaval for me on several occassions! :embarrassed: I kept trying it because I really didn't want it to be true. :embarrassed:

Please also see Great Gobs... I mean, Blogs of Gluten for a link to the Renegade Neurologist's post about Seizures and Gluten.

Dogs and Chickens and Ducks... Oh My!

Our house is a bit of a menagerie these days. And if you come for a visit, you are more likely to be greeted by a dog, chicken or duck, than a person.

We've just recently added ducks to our repertoire in hopes of having gluten free duck eggs, after a few years of successful gluten free egg growing via chickens.

The chickens came before our gluten free days because my preoccupation with studying food and living off-grid began long before that.

Seven years ago, we moved into the country with dreams of living a completely independent lifestyle.

I would make all homemade, wholewheat bread and was beginning to talk about plowing up a patch in the back to grow my own wheat when we realized our diet would no longer be including any form of wheat.

I began to research what I might possibly be able to try and grow on my own for bread. Spelt and Kamut, though considered low gluten were out as we were all reacting to even the tiny amount of barley malt found in Kellogg's Rice Krispies cereal and the Lindt golden chocolate Easter bunnies.

This left buckwheat (technically not wheat but a relation of rhubarb), quinoa and rice. But then my project took a severe turn as I realized that as we felt better, we were eating a lot more meat-type protein and seemed to have better energy with less grain.

So, once again, I switched gears and began to look at raising our own gluten free meat. After all, we had been keeping our few chickens for several years.

When we first went gluten free, we had switched all the animal food to be gluten free also after the children had become ill just handling the gluten chick feed. We noticed enormous behaviour changes to the positive in the animals.

Our old German Shepherd who was half blind began to see better. (I've since spoken with a vet who has also cleared a pannus affliction in a young German Shepherd Dog by eliminating gluten and corn from its diet too.) Our rottweiller no longer had the horrible gas that we endured for reasons of love alone. And our 16 year old cat who was a recluse for most of her life, began coming down from the bedroom. People would say, "Oh, you got a cat!" And we would reply, "No, we've had her for 16 years, she's just getting more sociable on her new diet." I'm sure they thought we were joking but we really weren't.

Nevertheless, changing the chicken feed to be more 'natural' for the chickens (they are omnivores like humans) had an interesting impact on the eggs we collected from them. The shells were harder, the yolks were a bright orange (as opposed to a light yellow) and tasted 'fuller', somehow. And the chickens were drinking shockingly less water. But then again, we drank less on days that we didn't eat grain too.

This brought, yet another, question to light... Even though we are so healthy now... Could we be healthier if we ate gluten free meat? I mean, if gluten affected us so adversely, could the animals that we eat be affected adversely also?

I began to look up research abstracts and found that, indeed, the meat from gluten fed animals are lower in omega 6's than it should be and higher in acid levels (which have cancer implications for humans).

Even cows that are fed grass but then "grain finished" (the last six weeks before slaughter) have much higher acidity than those who are grassfed completely.

This supported our egg differences that we have experienced first hand. Also, though the typical chicken has a laying capacity for two years at best, our chickens have been laying for five years and show no sign of slowing down. In fact, one of our girls consistently lays eggs almost as large as duck eggs.

So, back to the idea of raising our own meat, chickens seem to be the most obvious choice. It didn't hurt that we were all set up for them already either. After a few years of having a tiny flock that includes innumerable trials and errors, we've finally taken the plunge and now have a fair sized, free-ranged, gluten free organic flock and a new empty freezer waiting to be filled.

The question is, will I be able to do 'the deed' when it needs to be done? We'll have to wait and see. But in the meantime, we sure are having fun with it!

Life with Food Sensitivities: Nuttier Than A Nut

I found out about most of my food sensitivities completely by mistake.

I thought I was a happy, healthy 35 year old with no food allergy (sensitivity) issues whatsoever.

However, I had a son who had been ill for three years (recurrent virals and failure to thrive). No professional medical person in all the different 'specialties' that we went to see, seemed to know what to do with him. Thankfully our pediatrician kept saying the words "Celiac Disease". (Even though the pediatric gastroenterologist ruled it out without a single test - I now know that it is not possible to just 'look' at a person and be able to tell if they have celiac disease.)

And so finally, to get her off my back about food, I concocted a total elimination diet for my family. (I didn't want her to just shift to another food if wheat/gluten turned up no reaction.)

The reason we did it as a family is because my partner and I felt that:

1) children are led primarily by example;
2) it was easier for me to cook the same thing for everyone and
3) since food issues seem to be, generally speaking, inherited, it just made sense to have everyone go through the process and be done with it.

I must say, we did not expect to find anything at all. We had been eating only homemade, wholewheat bread, did not consume food colour or flavours everyday. Allowed pop and chips only on weekends, etc. On my side of our extended family, we were considered health nuts.

Well, long story short, to our complete surprise, we found tonnes of reactions! We trialled each one at least three times... some, completely by mistake, only realizing the mistake after someone had a reaction. (It became habit to root through the garbage for the package of our 'newest' food to look at the ingredient list.)

So, my son, who was one of the most health-challenged children in our pediatrician's office, became one of the healthiest... and I.... Well, my life has taken such an unexpected turn for the better that my family now thinks I am even nuttier than the health nut that I was! (Even some ground pepper has wheat that is used as a declumper, which I react to... so I don't use pre-ground pepper unless I can look at the ingredient list of the container that it came in.)

Here are the symptoms that I lost, that I had previously thought were just 'my life' and to be accepted:

Asthma (adult onset in my case)

Chronic daily headaches

Migraines

Cankar (Canker) sores

Joint pain

Chronic fatigue

Sleep issues

Mood issues (depression related)

Sore throats

Chronic infections (some of which would require surgery in order to 'get rid of' the infected tissue)

Boils (generally located on my bum cheeks - tmi I know, but they're so common yet unnecessary that it is worth mentioning)

Cellulite

Menstruation (long and heavy: 7 to 10 days full heavy; now: approx. 4 days and medium to light)

Hearing (improvement may be contributed to less brain fog - really not sure but trials really showed enormous improvement- many less "Pardon me?"s)

Weight loss (Not that I needed to lose enough to drive me toward a calorie restrictive diet. Nursing and 18 month old, I eat an enormous amount of calories per day and am of the mind that what I lost was water retention due to eating foods that were toxic to my system. I went from 5'4", 135 lbs to 110 lbs - no calorie counting because I'm just not a calorie counter by nature... After the fact, I actually did count up what I eat in a day and find that I eat far more calories than most people.)

Energy improvements (enormous: possibly due to loss of brain fog, extra 'water weight', better absorption of nutrients, ???)

So, let them think I'm nuttier than a nut! My quality of life, five years later at over 40, is SO much better (healthier/feeling good/getting things done) that I really could care less what anyone else thinks of my eating practices!

Thank goodness for our, very stubborn pediatrician!