My First Roast Goose

I roasted a goose for the first time yesterday.It was also the first time that I ever tried goose. DELICIOUS! I basically spent the whole morning figuring out how to cook it, then the whole evening making a big mess of my kitchen. I managed to splatter 3 walls, the floor, and even the underside of the cupboards. Oops. It was worth it through. Oh, and dirtying all the dished I owned wasn’t enough… I had to borrow one from a friend so that I could make even more mess for my boyfriend to clean up 😉 (Ok… the dish I borrowed was the roasting pan… and it was kind of essential)

I roasted my goose without any stuffing, mostly because I wasn’t organized enough. I simply rubbed lemon juice all over the skin, then put the two halves in the cavity along with a head of garlic. I then put little cuts all over the skin (I think maybe I needed more) to let the fat drain off. Finally, I rubbed salt and pepper all over the bird. Oh yes, I added some water to the bottom of the pan so that the fat drippings wouldn’t burn.

I baked the goose at 325 F for 45 minutes, then cut off the breasts. They cook faster than the rest of the goose, apparently. The rest of the goose stayed in for another hour. Once the rest of the bird was ready, I pan-fried the breasts, skin side down for a couple of minutes, then quickly on the meat side. Btw, I poured the drippings out of the roasting pan periodically and added fresh water. A few of the websites I visited had scared me with the possibility of the fat catching on fire. Yikes! Not on my watch!

My last step was to create a pan sauce from the drippings, along with the roasted garlic, wine and some black pepper. This is where things started to get really messy. Boiling goose fat in a roasting pan on a hot plate is a bad idea. Trust me here. I transferred it all to a little pot and it worked out much better.

Of course, I made stock (which is also very yummy). I started by browning the giblets, then added some onion to the pot, and finally topped it off with the wing tips and neck, some thyme, a bay leaf, a splash of white wine vinegar and a whole bunch of water. That’s part 1. Part 2 of the stock involved straining off the stock, putting the rest into the slow cooker, adding the leg bones and more water then simmering for another couple of hours. I strained this concoction into the same pot as the stock I created in part 1. The rest of the carcass is sitting in my fridge waiting for me to make stock, part 3.

Of course, I saved all the fat I could, since cooking with it makes things taste so good. I’ll definitely be cooking a goose again, but I’ll probably make a few changes to my method. I’d like to try cooking it all day at an even lower temperature.

~K

Being a Vegetarian WON’T Help Feed the World

Many vegetarians cite “ending world hunger” as a reason to adopt a vegetarian diet. Not so. First of all, the crops (the cereal grains and legumes) that vegetarians depend on are grown in huge monocultures and are destroying the arable land on our one and only planet. These crops depend on HUGE inputs of fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers and pesticides. Then of course comes the harvest and shipping – also fossil fuel dependent.

Agriculture is the leading cause of poverty world-wide. And it’s subsidized by the US taxpayer (I’m not sure if the Canadian or European taxpayer is subsidizing it or not…). Basically, there is a very small number (like 6) companies that control almost the entire world’s supply of grain and legumes. Because these companies are subsidized by the US government, they can sell their product for less than it costs to produce. And they produce more than they need, so they need somewhere to dump the excess. Foreign aid it is then. It becomes cheaper to buy imported food than to grow your own. The sustenance farmer in a developing nation can no longer afford to grow his own food…

The huge monocultures that provide the basis of the vegetarian diet are destroying our planet and creating world hunger. My question to you is what happens when we run out of arable land? Or fossil fuels? We certainly won’t be able to survive on grains and legumes. Instead we will have to rely on the animals who can eat plant cellulose and transform it into something that we can eat: meat, eggs, and milk. Raising animals on pasture, eating their natural diet, is sustainable – so long as there are not too many mouths to feed.

My sincere wish is that we figure it out before it is too late. We are currently facing a triple threat: we are running out of land, filling our atmosphere with greenhouse gasses and watching the human population explode around the world. It’s not sustainable. We must do something if we are to avoid killing the planet (and ourselves).

~K

There is no moral argument for vegetarianism

I’m currently reading Lierre Keith’s book, The Vegetarian Myth. It’s absolutely fantastic, highly readable and incredibly well researched. Please get your hands on a copy of it – it’s a book that EVERYONE should read.

Keith was a vegan for 20 years, until her health required her to rethink her diet. Before switching to a meat-eating diet, Keith had to confront her moral, political and nutritional views on eating animal products. Basically, the moral argument against vegetarianism is that no matter what you eat, something has to die in order for you to eat.

Please remember that factory farming is a recent invention (less than 50 years old) that is cruel to the animals and devastating to our environment. The moral arguments for eating meat does NOT apply to eating factory farmed animals. Animals should be raised on pasture in their natural environment – eating their natural diet. (Did you know that cows were supposed to eat grass, not corn and soy?)

Vegetarians like to claim that their diet is free from cruelty – that nothing had to die for them to eat. But is that really the case? NO. Millions of small mammals and birds are killed each year in the machinery as the grains are harvested. Do these animals matter less than the chicken that died to feed me? I think not. What about the insects and other bugs that are killed with pesticides?

But the death of a few animals is nothing compared to the death of entire ecosystems and species caused by agriculture. To grow cereal grains (which are the basis of the vegetarian diet) requires land to be cleared, ploughed, fertilized and watered. This destroys the top soil, along with the forests, savannahs, wetlands and rivers. The animals forced off this land die – and entire species become endangered or extinct as their habitat is ploughed under. Agriculture actually destroys the land: the topsoil is eroded, the nutrients are depleted, and the water used for irrigation gradually salts the land. Each year, the world loses more and more arable land.

By comparison, animals on pasture build the topsoil. They eat the naturally growing plants, then return the nutrients to the soil as urine and manure. Without animals, farming and agriculture cannot be sustainable. Without animals, farms require large quantities of fertilizers and pesticides. Fertilizers and pesticides require vast quantities of fossil fuels to produce. Other ingredients are obtained by open-pit mining. In short, agriculture is the worst thing that humans have ever done to our planet.

For health reasons, I decided to remove grains from my diet. After reading The Vegetarian Myth, I don’t think that I will ever add them back in. I encourage you to read the book (and to share it with everyone you know) and come to your own decision.

 

Project Consistency, Final Wrap-Up

Project Consistency started out great… then I got a cold. In the end I finished 10/18 workouts as scheduled 😦 . I’m a little disappointed in myself, but not really. I don’t believe in forcing myself to work out when I’m under the weather. I figure that it’s more important for my body to save its energy for getting better. I sure wish that I could shake this cough though.

Staying sugar-free has been easier since I started the GAPS diet. Although it isn’t completely sugar-free in the manner that I intended – I’m allowed to have honey on the GAPS diet. But since starting the GAPS diet 2 weeks ago I have not had anything made with any other kind of sugar (at least not that I know of, but I have eaten out a few times and there might have been a tiny bit snuck into something. I hope not).

~K

GAPS Diet, The Full Thing… Among Other Things

I’ve worked my way through the various stages of the intro diet, with far more east than I would have expected. I’m feeling better, I have more energy and ambition to do things, my skin looks better, the dark circles under my eyes are disappearing, and I’m lighter (I weighed 148 lbs on Friday, but find that I don’t even care about my weight so much anymore). Now that I’m allowed to eat so much more variety… all I want is a cup of stock.

My basic eating plan is this:

• Prior to breakfast, I’ll have a glass of juice, a smoothie or a piece of fruit.
• For breakfast during the week, I’ll have a cup of stock with an egg yolk beaten in and some sauerkraut juice.
• For breakfast on the weekend, I plan on having nut butter pancakes one day and an egg dish on the other day.
• For lunch, I plan on having some kind of soup (made from my homemade broth of course).
• If I need a mid afternoon snack (and hopefully I won’t) it might be some baking, a piece of fruit, some fresh juice or a smoothie.
• Dinner will be some kind of meat, and some vegetables. I’ll either cook the vegetables, or have a big salad. Oh, and I should start the meal with a small cup of stock.

For now anyways, I’m not adding in any other foods. Over the next few weeks or months, I’ll be adding a few dairy products as well as a lentils, split peas and navy beans.

The plan for dairy is to start having ghee in another week or two, then butter, then homemade sour cream, and finally hard cheeses. I want to find a source for grass-fed milk before I start having dairy products. I might have found a source today actually: at the Ethical Kitchen in North Vancouver. It’s a fabulous little cafe and deli, that sells all kinds of delicious goodies. They sell grass-finished meat, and cheeses made from grass-fed cows. I can’t wait to go back and eat there.

As for the legumes, I’ll wait a few months to add them back into my diet. It would be great to be able to make soup out of them while hiking and camping, but only if they agree with me. There are always other lightweight high energy things I can have while camping: jerky, pemmican, nuts, dried fruits… I can’t wait to get a dehydrator so that I can make my own.

A few other things that I’ve discovered in the last few days (and totally love):

• The Weston A. Price Foundation
• Nourishing Traditions, a book by Sally Fallon – I want to give a copy to just about everyone I know, and I’ve only just started reading the book.
• The Vegetarian Myth, a book by Lierre Keith
• Mark’s Daily Apple, a blog by Mark Sisson
• Chezacut Wilderness Ranch and Adventures, because they run a course on traditional food preparation and preservation. Not to mention that spending time on a ranch, learning to ride and going on a wilderness excursion sounds like a great way to spend time to me.
• Southlands farm, an organic biodynamic farm in the middle of Vancouver. I’m thinking about joining their CSA program (aka every week I’ll get a big box of produce from them).

I’ve been all over the place with this post, so I though that I’d go off in another direction to finish with. This afternoon, I made some carrot muffins. Very yummy, but I think that my recipe needs a little tweaking. Basically I combined cooked and pureed carrots, stewed dates, a couple of eggs, some duck fat and some ground almonds together, threw in a bit of ginger, cloves and nutmeg, and baked it. It took about 45 minutes at 350 F… but it probably could have stayed in a little longer.

~K

GAPS Diet, Stage 6

The fresh salad I had yesterday tasted soooo good! It was a fantastic change from all the cooked vegetables. And the salad was simply greens and cucumber drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice. Yum.

The best part of the GAPS Diet is that I don’t feel deprived at all. I have no cravings for sweets. No driving need to eat. It feels so good to be just right. It’s an experience I don’t remember ever having before.

I’m looking forward to a few things with stage 6:

• fresh fruits
• home baking sweetened with honey or dried fruits

Yesterday my boyfriend and I made mulled apple cider. It was fantastic. I had a bunch of mulling spices left over from making mulled wine at christmas, so I threw some in a pot with the apple cider and simmered it for about 10 minutes. So good! I’m looking forward to having more this afternoon.

For breakfast tomorrow I’m going to make banana pancakes. I’ll simply blend almond butter, an egg or two, and a banana up in the blender. I’ll fry up the little pancakes in coconut oil and Voila! Breakfast. To top the pancakes, I’m also going to make some mixed berry jam. I’ll simply thaw some berries overnight, then heat them up with a bit of honey and mash it all up.

~K

GAPS Diet, Stage 5

Mmmm…. more delicious food to come in stage 5. I’m looking forward to it.

So far the GAPS introduction diet has been treating me well. My gas and bloating are essentially gone. I’m not hungry all the time, and I don’t crave sweets or starches at all. I’m satisfied on less food. In fact, food has become something I can take or leave (but I still love delicious food!). I’m sleeping better, and waking up with more energy.

Today I started stage 5 with a delicious green smoothie: I blended up half an avocado, half a cucumber (peeled and deseeded) and some mint leaves. I had to add a bit of water to thin it out. I adored my cucumber-avocado-mint smoothie. I highly recommend trying one for yourself.

Stage 5 additions:

• Cooked pureed apple. Stew a peeled and cored apple in a bit of water, add some ghee or duck fat and mash.
• Raw vegetables, starting with peeled and seeded cucumber and baby lettuce.
• Fruit juices.

I haven’t added any nut baking yet, since I have lots of zucchini-almond butter pancakes leftover from the weekend that I’ve been enjoying with avocado or with pate all week. Another very tasty treat.

I’m looking forward to my apple puree tonight (I think that I will add a bit of cinnamon). And tomorrow I’m going to be making banana-almond butter pancakes for breakfast (Yum!). Oh yes… and a roast duck for dinner!

~K

What The Bleep Do We Know: Chapter 11

I Create My Reality?

Do you believe that you create your entire reality… Right down to each leaf that falls on your car? Or your tyrannical boss? But what “you” is doing the creating? It’s not your personality (although your personality may choose what to eat for breakfast). But there are other levels of you – and it is the deeper spirit you that is creating all these conditions in your life, in an attempt to become whole. At some point in the past, you created all the conditions that we are faced with in our lives. Call it karma.

But what controls all the karma of all the billions of people on our planet? The universe. The non-dualistic, entangled universe. It’s frequency (or vibration) specific. Everything in our lives reflects our signature vibrations – and the ugly, repressed parts of ourselves are reflected just as much as the pleasant, superficial parts. As soon as you embrace the idea that something “happened” to you, then you just endorsed the idea that you don’t create your own reality. Victimization is prevalent throughout our society: when something happens, we look for someone to blame. Let’s turn things around: let’s accept that we create our reality. What changes would you make in your life? Focus on the results you want, and the universe will supply the details.

Ponder this:

• What are the limits, if any, to our creativity and power? Only the extent of our belief in them.
• Can we change the laws of physics? Hmmm… good question. We already know that Newtonian physics and relativity are not perfect, they are just approximations that work well in certain circumstances. So are they really laws? no. Can we change the laws of physics? Quite possibly.
• To create more effectively, we must take complete responsibility for every aspect of our lives. For all the intended and unintended consequences of our actions. For the good and bad. For everything.
• How can we know that our individual aims are aligned with cosmic aims? Presumably when our individual aims materialize. But does the universe have aims? I would think that the universe just is. That it just exists without aims.
• The impact of knowing that we are creating all the time (consciously or not) is astronomical. It should have the effect of changing our deeper attitudes or beliefs, so that our deeper selves are in line with our desires. That way, we create what we want to create, even if we are not conscious of it.
• The personality and the higher level of consciousness are different, as they reflect different aspects of ourselves. Our personality is the side of ourselves that we acknowledge and is subject to fleeting whims. Our deeper selves contain all the repressed facets of ourself, along with our unconscious attitudes, habits and beliefs. Creations coming from our personality are the result of a conscious decision that we make. The rest of our creations, the ones we cant explain, come from our higher selves.
• Our personality might sometimes get in the way… it just depends how different our personality is from our higher self. If our personality acknowledges and accepts all the facets of who we are, if it takes the time to become aware of our beliefs, habits and attitudes, then our personality and higher self will be in harmony… and will be stronger for it. If our personality is separate from our higher self, then it will have a hard time accepting what the higher self creates. Unless our personality can accept what our higher self creates as well as what the personality creates, it will have a hard time creating the life it wants. Is the personality baad? No. The personality just is.

~K

What The Bleep Do We Know: Chapter 10

Consciousness Creates Reality

Eternal question: Do I make my reality, or does it make me? It’s easy to accept that we created our breakfast, but did we create the tree that fell across the driveway in the storm?

Science seems to be pushing us away from dualism: it’s not mind over matter, but rather that mind is matter and that consciousness is reality. It’s a radical change in thought, that everything is independent.

SO who is creating reality? Can two people create different realities? What “I” is doing the creating? The idea that consciousness created reality brings up the very important question, what consciousness? It’s obvious that our personality does not create our reality instantly. Could you imagine the world if everyone’s fleeting whims were manifested instantly? It would be devastated!

Our attitude is so key in how our reality is shaped.

Ponder this:

• Consciousness is reality; Mind is matter; Spirit is science; Transcendental self is nature; God is things. Are any of these pairs mutually exclusive? The first two are mutually interdependent, so the is makes sense. Spirit is science? Maybe not so much the same thing, since I believe that science is a method for learning about the world, and that spirit is something that comes from our deeper selves. Spirit is something that science can investigate though. Transcendental self is nature? This would depend on how we defined “transcendental self” and “nature” but we are connected to nature and depend on it for our survival, so they are not mutually exclusive. God is things? God would have to be defined. In the classic religious (at least western religions) I don’t believe in god. The whole idea that there is something out there creating and manipulating the world is like saying that I’m just a pawn in a game of chess. The idea of “god” totally destroys the idea of us being the creators of out own reality.
• Was time invented to keep karma at bay? The whole idea of karma kind of implies that there are forces at work outside or our own creation of reality. If we create reality, we have to take the responsibility for ALL the effects (intended or not) of our creations. Is time something that was invented? I don’t thing so. We experience reality as a progression through time. I think that’s just the way we are. Do other animals experience time differently? For example a mayfly lives only one day, while a jellyfish is “immortal”. Can a rock experience time? What about a nebula? Is a nebula conscious? If it was conscious, and could exist for eternity, would it think at the same speed as us or would it only have a thought every 1000 years? Is consciousness a prerequisite for experiencing time?
• Was time invented to give us time to realize our power and the ramifications of it?  It makes more sense that we would realize our power and the ramifications of it if time didn’t exist. If there was no time, then we would just be (without beginning and without end). We would exist in an eternal state.

GAPS Diet, Stage 4

I started the transition into stage 4 last night, but I think I rushed things just a little bit since I had some gas this morning. Just a bit, but still. The culprit was probably either the carrot juice I had as an appetizer before dinner, or perhaps the forkful or sauerkraut that I had at lunch. The sauerkraut veggies are actually a stage 3 food. Or maybe I just overindulged in nut butter pancakes (another stage 3 food): had 5 little ones with avocado for breakfast an another 4 with duck pate at lunch. Hmmm… so many things it could have been. Time to slow things down and back off a bit.

Today’s eats: a cup of ginger tea to start the morning. Stock with an egg yolk beaten in, and 3 nut pancakes with avocado for breakfast. Chicken soup for lunch, with a spoonful of sauerkraut added. Sausage (Oyama sausage, delicious!) and butternut squash soup for dinner.

Recipe for butternut squash soup:

Begin by roasting the butternut squash (cut it in half the long way, scoop out the seeds and stringy bits, then put it cut side down in a baking dish, add a cup of so of water to keep it from drying out and bake it at 350 F for about an hour.

Once it comes out of the oven, let the squash cool off for 10 minutes or so, then scoop the flesh into the blender. Add some chicken stock and puree. Put it back into a pot and heat gently on the stove. Season with salt and pepper.

Stage 4 foods:

• grilled and roasted meats
• cold pressed olive oil (start with a few drops and work up to 1-2 tsp per meal)
• fresh pressed vegetable juices (starting with a few spoonfuls of carrot juice and working up to a full cup, then moving on to juice made with carrots, celery, lettuce and mint). the juices should be taken on an empty stomach, preferably first thing in the morning.
• “bread” baked with ground almonds, zucchini (or other squash), eggs, duck fat, and a bit of salt.

I’m looking forward to the increased variety, but I’ve learned my lesson and need to start slow, and add things in gradually. Let’s get my gut healing so that I can eat whatever I want in a few years!

~K