“Milk in the Batter! Milk in the Batter!

Stir it! Scrape it! Make it! Bake it!" – Maurice Sendak from In the Night Kitchen.

I used to love milk. My favorite snacks in high school were Tim's Cascade Jalapeno chips with a tall glass of cold 2% milk to cut the spice or any cold cereal with milk. Mmmmm yummy! Then I discovered when I drank a lot of milk within the next few hours I would have some gas. Not the kind that just sounded embarrassing but rather the kind that smelled embarrassing. So being in high school and highly self conscious I decided milk had to go. Now, 13 years later, I still avoid drinking milk or eating too much ice cream though I eat cheese and butter without incident. My husband also feels he is sensitive to it so he doesn't drink it and our son is only drinking goat's milk.

When milk has been heated it's lactose proteins have been broken down making them easier for a sensitive body to digest therefore when cooking and baking I don't hesitate to use milk as an ingredient. Most recently my favorite things to make with "milk in the batter" are pancakes. Here is a recipe that I have adapted from Joy of Cooking:

Whole Wheat Pancakes with Blueberries

½ cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon double-acting baking powder

¾ teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons honey

1 egg

2 cups buttermilk or yogurt

1 cup blueberries

    Mix together both flours, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

    In a separate bowl combine honey, egg, and buttermilk or yogurt.

    Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, add blueberries and stir.

Over medium-low heat, melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a 10-inch nonstick sauté pan or griddle.

Spoon approximately 1/3 cup batter on the hot pan.

Cook 2-3 minutes until bubbles appear on the surface and check the underside if it looks good flip it!

The second side will only take 1-2 minutes.

Serve and enjoy!

Food Myths Debunked: Got Milk? Part One

Since we got our grass fed beef (and may I just say it is hands down the best beef I've ever had), I've been thinking about cows. And this logically has lead me to think about milk. Recently, I've had two very dichotomous experiences with milk: my vet recently got a cow and has been enthusiastic about her family's experience with fresh milk and I got a newsletter in the mail from the school district with an article about how they add sugar to the milk to get kids to want to drink it. So here we have two extremes: milk in its raw form as it has traditionally been consumed and milk that has been pasteurized, homogenized, fortified, and laced with sugar. So, is milk good for us? Let's explore. (An important note: I'm going to limit this particular discussion to cow milk—good old "moo juice"—and I'll save the discussion of other dairy (cheese, yogurt, kefir, goat milk, etc.) for future posts.

It is likely that humans originally domesticated hoofed animals for milk, not meat and shepherding preceded agriculture by hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Humans began domesticating and milking cows about 8500 years ago in Mesopotamia. Unlike goats and sheep which tolerate rough climates and poor forage, cows are a bit more delicate and produce best on plenty of fresh grass. So, domesticating the cow gave us access to plenty of milk—but was that a good thing?

Critiques of milk fall into three major categories: milking is inhumane to cows, dairy farms pollute the earth, and milk is unhealthy. While it can be true that industrial dairies are bad for cows and the earth, the same cannot be said of traditional dairy farming (as we'll discuss further in a moment). Critics link dairy products to acne, allergies, anemia, eczema, asthma, constipation, IBS/IBD, obesity, and breast cancer. They cite the problematic components of milk: bacteria, viruses, allergenic proteins, lactose, growth hormones, antibiotics, cholesterol, and saturated fat. So let's look at each of these concerns.

To address the first two critiques, we need to look at the industrialization of the dairy industry. This really could be a blog post all on its own but we're going to condense it down considerably (See my previous post about beef—the commercial beef industry and commercial dairy industry share many of the same problems). Industrial confinement dairies keep cows indoors and feed them grains, corn, and soybeans. Confinement increases disease requiring the use of antibiotics. Eating grain, corn, and soy gives cows acid indigestion and ulcers (the four-part bovine stomach is designed to digest grass, not grain). Cows in industrial dairies are often given growth hormone to increase milk production to unhealthy levels and requiring them to be milked up to three times a day, which greatly increased the incidence of mastitis (breast infections). The manure lagoons from industrial dairies pollute the environment. Traditional dairy farming is very seasonal—the cows graze on grass out in pastures and produce an abundance of milk and cream when the weather is pleasant and are "dry" in the winter while pregnant cows are moved indoors and fed grass hay. Cows grazing on pasture are healthier than those in confinement and proper pasture management is actually beneficial to the environment. For more detailed information about the industrialization of dairy farming (as well as tons of other foods), I highly recommend the book Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck.

The third critique about milk, that milk in unhealthy, is a major topic and I will address it in my next post so stay tuned for Got Milk? Part Two!

Here’s the Beef

A few months ago I got a call from my neighbor who owns a food cart here in Portland asking if I would like some part time flexible work. Well sure, as any mother knows, "part time" and "flexible" are magical words when it comes to juggling work and children. So I started working for Wiffies Fried Pies in their production kitchen making pies Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings. It is now three months later and I just worked two 40 hour weeks in a row and my mom is here helping with my toddler and the upkeep of the house. I am enjoying my job, but missing my family, I want to throw myself into this job as I have in the past, to take over the kitchen and whip it into shape, but at the end of a 10 hour day at work I feel sad that I have missed a day with my son and we are eating Chinese food again. How do I balance my old passion for running the show at work and my new passion for running the show at home? Luckily I have an understanding husband and an understanding boss. I am shifting things around at work and making more time for my family at home. All this is helping me to prepare to one day launch my own business so it is valuable in more ways than just financially.

 

The reason I have chosen to share this story with you today is because I was at work one early morning thinking of recipes to post for the topic of beef. As I was thinking of this I was taking three large beef briskets out of the oven where they had been cooked low and slow for many hours. I then proceeded to chop the juicy and tender meat up and then douse it with owner's secret recipe BBQ sauce. It dawned on me that instead of posting a recipe this week I will give you Portlanders a dinner suggestion perfect for a busy summer day; head down to Whiffies Fried Pies at SE 12^th and Hawthorne and try the BBQ Brisket pie and for dessert I recommend the Mixed Berry pie. The most brilliant thing about eating at a food cart lot is that there is a variety of choices so while one member of the family is eating at Whiffies the other members could be enjoying French fries from the Potato Champion (try their new banana ketchup, crazy I know, but delicious) or Pizza from Pyro pizza.

 

I look forward to sharing more recipes and my journey with all you readers as I start down this new path in the coming months.

Food Myths Debunked: Beef…It’s What’s For Dinner (All Year at My House!)

So, two days ago we put down a deposit on beef. In a few weeks we'll be getting a whole, grass-fed beef from Soggy Feet Enterprises on Sauvie Island. I am so excited about this amazing, grass-fed beef; a friend of mine let me sample some of their "grass burger" at it was really tasty. What makes me so pleased about this is that I'm getting a wonderful, nutritious, grass-fed, hormone-free, local beef! And because we're buying in bulk, it's really affordable (just under $4.25/lb final cost). Beef seems to have a bad reputation because it's high in saturated fat. If you have been reading our blog from the get-go, you would know that this is a misrepresentation (see my post about coconut oil). Beef can actually be a wonderful source of protein, iron, B vitamins, and even healthy fats if it is raised properly.

It is important to point out the distinction between industrially-raised beef and grass-fed beef. Industrial methods are designed to bring animals to market weight quickly and cheaply; this method involves unnatural, fattening diets, antibiotics, growth hormones (steroids), and over-crowding (less space to move means less calories "wasted" on exercise). Corn-fed beef, with its marbling (30% fat by weight) became regarded as superior to grass-fed beef whose fat content is equivalent to a skinless chicken breast. Feeding cattle grain instead of grass increases the acidity in their guts which in turn increases the risk of E. coli infection in people. Grass-fed beef is higher in omega-3 fats, vitamin E, and beta-carotene than grain-fed. Overcrowding in feed lots leads to increased disease in cattle; antibiotics are fed to cattle with the side effect of increased drug resistance in the bacteria (helping to create "super bugs" that are resistant to common antibiotics). Drug-resistant bacteria are becoming a major health crisis. Industrial cattle are implanted with hormones to help fatten them up quickly; these hormones, when consumed by people eating commercially-raised beef, alter the body's natural hormone balance and contribute to breast, prostate, and testicular cancer. Mad Cow Disease (bovine encephalopathy) becomes a problem when commercially-grown cattle, herbavores, are fed animal byproducts. In short, grass-fed beef is better for the cow, better for the environment, and better for us (and it even can be more profitable for the farmer because grass is cheap)!

So, enjoy your grass-fed hamburger! The protein helps build enzymes and strong muscles, the vitamin E and beta-carotene help boost your immune system, and the saturated fats help fight infection, aid digestion, extend the use of omega-3 fats, improve calcium absorption, and build cell walls. And remember, the fat in grass-fed beef is typically 50-55% saturated fat, 40% monounsaturated oleic acid (the same fatty acid in olive oil), and 5-10 percent omega-3 fat (the same healthy fat found in fish). Oleic acid and stearic acid (which is much of the saturated fat in beef) help lower LDL ("bad cholesterol") while maintaining HDL ("good cholesterol") levels. Grass-fed beef is also a good source of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) which is anti-cancer and builds lean muscle.

I'm really looking forward to having a good supply of grass-fed, local beef at my disposal! I'll be making my fair share of burgers, stews, roasts, steaks and—my favorite—Shepherd's pie! I hope this inspires you to make healthy choices about your diet and bring beef to the table more often.

Date Night

My hubby and I haven't had much time in our relationship that hasn't involved kids (sorry about the double negatives…). For the last couple of years, we have tried—mostly unsuccessfully, unfortunately—to have "date nights." Tonight is Tuesday and for the last year or so, we have tried to consider Tuesday our date night. As I sit here typing, it is 10:10 pm, my children have just now gone to bed, and my hubby is taking a shower…alone. Needless to say, we were unsuccessful yet again with date night tonight. I realize that this post is supposed to be about dates the fruit, but I have this other kind of date on my mind tonight and felt like sharing. Since Chef Brett and I wanted to make this blog about our lives—and share these events and stories with you, our faithful reader—for this post I'm going to talk about the "health benefits of dates" and I hope you will pardon the pun and bear with me!

My family life is a bit crazy. I'm sure that many of you are in a similar situation. How do you balance time for work, children, home, friends, family, self, and still have time for a relationship? My husband works very hard, long hours and has a 35 mile commute each way. He leaves home most mornings at 6 am and often (especially this time of year) doesn't get home until after 6 pm. I work two days a week (outside our home) and take on most of the household duties and get to spend time at home with our boys. I am so grateful that my hubby's job supports us and allows me the chance to be home to raise our boys and also has given me the opportunity to work part time and start building my medical practice. But this definitely comes with a trade off: he and I don't get much time together as a couple.

Fortunately, we have a very strong relationship and despite the fact (hopefully not because of it!) that we don't get much quality alone time together, we are still going strong. We try to take advantage of the times we do get together, we talk to each other, we are on the same page about parenting, we have lively political and social debates (he's a bit more conservative than I tend to be), and we try very hard to keep the romance alive. So here in this public arena of my blog post, I'm going to make a promise to my hubby—for our health and the health of our relationship—to be better about date night! I love you babe! Wanna go out?

Yours in health,

Doctor Crystal

Time for a Date

I have recently rediscovered my love for dates. I regularly shop at Trader Joes and when I do I will buy a container of their chocolate covered cranberries or their raspberry sticks, which are covered in chocolate. I like to purchase these items so that I have a small treat around the house to satisfy a sweet craving rather than indulging in say a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard from Dairy Queen. It usually works but my new favorite treat I have discovered at Trader Joes are dates. In the produce section they have a package of approximately 25 dates that is easy to grab and store in the refrigerator and pluck a date or two out when the need for sweet is upon me. I know that Trader Joes is not the only place to get dates, it is just the place where I rediscovered them. I would also like to add that my 2 year old son will not touch the dates. He will eat a prune but under no circumstances will he even taste the date, I don't get it.

The recipe I want to share today I have not made yet (will do a follow-up post with a full report on the outcome). It is a bran and date bread straight out of Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker. Sounds healthy… or at least good for the colon, right Dr. Crystal?

Quick Bran Date Bread

2 cups chopped dates

2 cups boiling water

2 eggs

¾ cup brown sugar or ½ cup molasses

2 cups whole grain flour (divided)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups bran

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chopped nuts

 

Preheat the oven to 350®

Combine the dates and the boiling water. Set aside.

Beat eggs and slowly add the brown sugar or molasses.

Add 1 CUP of the flour and the baking powder and baking soda to the egg mixture.

Add half of the date mixture and the remaining cup of the flour, the bran, and the vanilla.

Add the rest of the date mixture and the nuts.

Place the dough in two lightly greased loaf pans.

Bake for 1 hour.

Enjoy!

Honey for Health

I have already talked about honey as a sweetener in my post Sweet 'N' Lowdown so I'm going to focus on the health benefits of honey in this post. Honey can speed wound healing, act as a cough medicine, relieve diarrhea and constipation, and even treat ulcers.

Honey was commonly used to treat skin wounds up until World War II when antibiotics started to be more widely used. Now, honey is being used once again in mainstream medicine—to help fight skin infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The sugar in honey helps absorb moisture which bacteria need to survive; honey contains varying amounts of hydrogen peroxide; finally, raw honey contains propolis which kills bacteria.

Honey is an effective cough suppressant. Research has shown it to be more effective at relieving cough than dextromethorphan ("DM") and also improved sleep quality better than diphenhydramine (Benedryl). I would dose a two year old with ½ teaspoon and a child over 6 with 1 teaspoon.

Honey is very useful in the treatment of diarrhea & constipation. Mixed with water, honey becomes an electrolyte replacement with the added benefit of having antimicrobial properties that can kill off the microbes in the digestive tract that may be causing the problem. Honey can be helpful with constipation because it contains large amounts of fructose that sometimes arrives undigested in the large intestine. This undigested fructose draws water into the colon acting as a laxative.

A specific type of honey called Manuka, made by bees feeding on a flowering shrub from New Zealand, has been found effective at killing Helicobacter pylori—a bacteria that causes stomach ulcers. To be effective, this honey must be taken raw.

A folk remedy recommends eating local raw honey to help treat allergies and hayfever—the idea being that the honey will contain small amounts of local pollens and may work similar to an allergy shot to reduce symptoms. Unfortunately, there is little research on this topic and the research there is doesn't show honey to be any more effective than placebo. A rare but serious possible side effect is anaphylaxis if the honey contains enough of a pollen you are particularly allergic to.

A word of caution: because honey may contain trace amounts of Clostridium botulinum—the bacteria that causes botulism—honey should never be given to infants under 1 year of age.

So, you may want to start using your honey for more than just sweetening your tea! My personal favorite use for honey is to make beer—my favorite homebrew, Rocky Raccoon's Crystal Honey Lager—is made with honey in addition to the malt. I've got to say, it's a particularly refreshing way to take your honey!