What I Wish I Had Known About Nourishing Babies

Before I became pregnant with my son, I tried to prep myself for the healthiest pregnancy possible. I worked out and got in shape. I followed a Candida diet for several months to get my yeast problem under control. I read pregnancy and birthing books. I weaned off of Prozac because I wanted a drug-free pregnancy. I finished school, quit my job, and only worked on things that were enjoyable to me, keeping my stress levels nice and low. Having a good pregnancy and a healthy baby were very important to me.

When I first got pregnant, I was eating probably the healthiest I had my whole life. And I don’t mean the American idea of healthy, but I was actually eating a lot of butter, whole fat plain yogurt, shrimp, greens, nuts, eggs, and modest amounts of whole grains and a reasonable amount of meat, which I always got from the health food store. I actually think this is why I got pregnant so easily–I was eating a lot of fertility foods, and I didn’t even know it.

The first several weeks of pregnancy went great. I thought I’d be one of the lucky ones who didn’t get morning sickness. But then it hit, and when it hit, it hit hard. The first thing I threw up was a spinach salad with goat cheese. Needless to say, I didn’t eat spinach or goat cheese again for a very long time. In fact, I didn’t eat hardly any vegetables for a long time. Or meat. Or eggs. Or anything else that was really good for growing a healthy baby.

I had thought it was going to be easy to eat well while pregnant because I had already been doing it. But my extreme morning sickness kept me from eating pretty much all real food. Instead, I went into survival mode. I ate pretzels and crackers because they were easier to keep down. I had no shame in eating chocolate cookies when I realized they tasted better coming back up than other foods did. Almost all my nutrition came from commercial nutritional smoothies, a highly-processed food fortified with synthetic vitamins. I hoped these smoothies would nourish my baby despite my now deplorable diet.

The day before my first appointment with the midwife, I went to the ER for dehydration because I couldn’t keep anything down that day. I was put on an anti-nausea medication that I had to take as a suppository because I couldn’t even keep a pill down (I am pretty sure I had hyperemesis gravidarum except I was able to avoid weight-loss through the drugs and the high-calorie nutritional shakes). When I went into my midwife appointment the next day, the nurse who was assisting told me to just stop taking my vitamins. I thought she was crazy, but she told me that babies are very good “parasites” and will get what they need. I don’t know why I actually listened to her because I knew the vitamins weren’t causing my nausea. But I did. Later on, someone else (probably a midwife) told me to take prenatal vitamins, so I bought some cheap ones at Walmart. The multivitamin I was originally taking was actually much higher quality, and here I was taking cheap prenatals. But it didn’t really matter, right? Because my baby was a parasite taking everything it needed from me. Right??

I wish.

I wish someone had told me that the more nutrients I took in during pregnancy, the better formed my baby would be. I wish I had known that women need a very high amount of nutrition in order to give their baby the best possible health that would affect their whole life.

I wish I had known that eating plenty of protein at regular intervals throughout the day helps keep morning sickness at bay and is extremely important in avoiding preeclampsia, which I was thought to be at risk for. I wish I had known how important protein was to keeping blood volume where it needed to be and growing a baby.

I wish I had understood why I was getting heartburn so early on my pregnancy (the poor food choices and lack of healthy gut flora), and why it kept getting worse despite trying several medications (antacids only deepen the problem of acid reflux).

I wish I knew how beneficial raw milk was and had safe raw milk at my disposal. I wish I knew about pastured eggs. I wish I knew how to make my own nutritional smoothies that were made with real food.

I wish I knew that taking a magnesium supplement before and during pregnancy would have helped with liver function and reduced the chance of morning sickness. I wish I had known that a magnesium supplement would also have reduced my chances of having preeclampsia.

I wish I had known much earlier in my pregnancy that vitamin B6 helps prevent morning sickness. In fact, I wish I had known how important all the B vitamins were in pregnancy.

I wish I knew that the very foods I was consuming to help deal with morning sickness, not only perpetuated the problem, but deprived my baby of important nutrients.

I wish I had known the importance of certain fats and fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D and K2 for the development of the baby’s brain and facial structure during pregnancy. I wish I had known there was a way to prevent the need for future orthodontic treatments! (Because guess what, breastfeeding sure didn’t do the trick!)

I wish I didn’t ever read The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy which told me it was okay if I never exercised while I was pregnant. I wish I had understood just how important exercise during pregnancy really was.

I wish people didn’t tell me not to worry about my diet. I wish my doctors could have instead advised me on proper prenatal nutrition instead of waiting for my body to fall apart so they could come in and “rescue” me.

***

I ended up bringing home a “healthy” baby. A “healthy” baby that spent his first three days in the NICU and had to be kept away from people the first several weeks of his life. A “healthy” baby whose head was only in the 25th percentile, while his weight was in the 50th and his length 75th. Did you know that a baby who is well-nourished in-utero will have a good-sized, nicely-shaped head? I wish I did.

My “healthy” baby had a lot of trouble breastfeeding for two solid months. I don’t think I can blame this purely on my nutrition while pregnant, but I can’t help but wonder if his development in-utero affected his ability to breastfeed well.

My “healthy” baby didn’t get sick much and had a good temperament, but when he started sitting up around 7 months old, he had poor posture. I had ignored the advice to administer vitamin D drops because the natural parenting community I was involved with insisted that babies have enough from mom until six months or so and after that they can get enough from the sun. I started getting him in the sun soon after he was born to help build up his stores. I wish I had known that I was probably extremely vitamin D deficient when I was pregnant with him. After I finally started giving him D drops, he finally started getting some teeth, which were very late coming in, and over time his posture improved. I wish I had known that my baby could be born with a vitamin D deficiency if I was deficient. I wish I had known that mother’s milk doesn’t always provide everything the baby needs.

I wish I had known about the Weston A Price diet for breastfeeding mothers. Instead, I ate poorly and suffered deeply because of it. While I have always had mood problems, I had them “under control” before I had my son. Afterwards, I became ten times worse. And I had no energy. Not just for months, but for years after having my son, and I eventually was overcome by adrenal fatigue. If someone had told me about this wonderfully nutrient-dense diet, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache. I could have been a better parent. My baby would have likely enjoyed better nutrition from my milk. Maybe he even wouldn’t have dropped so far down on the growth charts.

I wish I had known the proper way to introduce solids to my child. I had heard of delaying solids and was very intrigued by that idea. Apparently it was a natural thing to do. I loved breastfeeding, I believed breastfeeding supplied everything a baby needed, so I thought maybe this was a nice idea. It turns out that breastmilk only supplies everything for about the first six months, and that is if the mother is eating a sufficient diet. Thankfully, I decided to listen to my son’s cues instead, and started feeding him solids right around six months. But I didn’t know what to feed him! I had heard of baby-led weaning, which allows baby to choose what he wants and feed himself, no purees involved. But I wondered how a baby could possibly digest food well that wasn’t pureed. Gumming food only does so much. I went back and forth a lot and ended up on a combo approach to feeding him, including pre-chewing some food for him, but honestly who cares what method you use if aren’t feeding the right foods?? We mostly avoided grains because they didn’t seem like nutrient-dense food to me, and I didn’t want him addicted to them like so many babies I had known. We avoided pasteurized milk, except for whole fat yogurt. We avoided sugar like it was evil. We gave fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, and I tried to give him some fatty foods. But his diet was lacking in all the “super” foods! I wish I had known to give him egg yolks, liver, broth, fish eggs, and even more fat.

Attempt at feeding him pureed raw spinach. Not a first food I will be offering my next baby.

I wish I had known about properly preparing grains, too, because as I slowly introduced grains to him, my “healthy” baby started having mood problems. My “healthy” baby had weak digestion, just like his mama. The winter my son turned 2.5, he was literally sick with something or another every other week and had a very volatile mood. At age three I discovered he had food sensitivities that were likely caused by compromised gut health and began working to restore his gut and overall health using the GAPS diet as well as following WAPF guidelines. This was a turnaround point for my son’s health, during which he went from a “healthy” child to an actually healthy child. He may not be as hardy as a child whose genes were developed on a traditional diet, but now at almost age five, he’s doing really well.

I’m grateful I learned about traditional foods while he was still little. I’m grateful I know better for the next one. I’m grateful I know now for my own health and well-being.  But looking back, I can see there is a lot of misinformation and ignorance about the importance of eating well before (men included in the before), during and after pregnancy, while breastfeeding, and how to feed babies solids. To think of the health problems we could avoid!

***

I am happy to announce that Nourishing Our Children, a resource that has helped me learn how to nourish my body as well as my child’s, is having a week-long promotion of their educational materials, which are available for 50% off during this time. This is purely coincidental to my writing this post! I highly recommend taking advantage of this special offer if you wish to learn how to truly nourish your children. They make it so easy to understand how to eat before and during pregnancy and while breastfeeding, and how to nourish your little ones with nutrient-dense food. I will be writing another post in the next couple of days to explain more, but you can look for yourself now what is included in this promotion.

Easy Small Batch Lemonade

It’s almost officially summer, and I’ve already made a few batches of this super easy lemonade. I know sugar isn’t the healthiest thing in the world to consume, but lemon juice is really good for you, so my hope is that to two balance each other out. Besides, there are times when sugar is beneficial to the body, such as when you need to get rehydrated without ‘diluting’ your body. How do you know if you are diluting your body? If you feel thirsty despite drinking water, then your body is probably feeling diluted and getting rid of the extra water as soon as you drink it, which is extra work for the kidneys and extra trips to the bathroom. This is when you need salt and/or sugar to help you absorb the water. And when it’s hot out, lemonade just really hits the spot, ya know?

This small batch lemonade is quick and easy to make, which is great for me because making a beverage for dinner is usually an afterthought for me, or sometimes you’re thirsty now and don’t want to wait. The benefit of making it in small batches is that you can finish it right away and reap the benefits of fresh pressed lemon juice, which diminish fairly quickly. This recipe makes approximately 3 servings, depending how much everyone likes to drink. Feel free to double, triple, etc.

2 cups (or so) filtered water, divided

1 cup ice

1/3 cup unrefined cane sugar

5 small lemons, juiced, approx. 3/4 cup

pinch of unrefined salt (optional)

In a small pot, heat 1 cup of the filtered water until hot enough to quickly dissolve sugar. Add the 1/3 cup unrefined cane sugar and stir to dissolve. Remove from heat.

Pour sugar water mixture into a 1 liter water carafe or a quart-size mason jar. Add ice and stir.

Juice the 5 small lemons with a citrus juicer.

Pour juice into the carafe or jar. Add remaining water and stir. Taste and add more water if desired. Add a small pinch of salt if desired for electrolytes.

Lemonade will be cold and ready to serve!

Flavoring Options

The two flavor options I love best actually make the lemonade a longer process, so start it a few hours early to allow flavors to infuse.

Option #1 Chop some fresh ginger root and add to lemonade. May wish to strain out before serving.

Option #2 Add chopped ginger and torn fresh basil leaves.

I’m sure you can think of other things to add, like strawberries and raspberries!

So I’ve gained a little weight…

I’m going to level with you.

I do not like being fat. I know we are supposed to love our bodies no matter their shape and size (and I do have a lot of love for my body), but I just happen to not like the way it looks when my belly sticks out as far as my boobs, you know? I grew up skinny, I have a thin frame–my body is just built to be on the thin side. Other women can be much thicker than me and still be in their ideal weight zone and have beautiful figures. I’m not obsessed with being thin, I just was built that way, and feel and look my best when I’m fairly slender.

But right now I weigh more than I ever have–not counting when I was pregnant and immediately following pregnancy, of course. According to “official” weight charts, I’d be considered overweight right now. But it’s not the number on the scale that bothers me…it’s the fact that I can barely fit into my “fat” jeans. It’s looking in the mirror and seeing that my figure isn’t quite the hourglass I’m used to seeing. It’s knowing that if my body were functioning optimally, I probably wouldn’t have this extra fat on me. And, it’s wondering…why?? I eat a good diet, so why did I gain extra weight?

I think I know why. I think it’s because my metabolism fell during the winter due to various reasons, and I wasn’t exercising. It’s because I kept eating lots of food anyway because I didn’t want to miss out on the nutrients I know my body needs before conceiving. I put the creation of a healthy baby above my vanity. I put my health above my vanity.

It’s better this way. Even though I don’t prefer to have a flabby midsection, I’m kinda proud of myself for putting my future baby’s health ahead of my desire for a smaller tummy. I’m pleased with myself that I understand that the path to good health is not paved with food restriction. And I’m happy that I’m actually *sort of* okay with being rounder, if it means I am healthier than I would be if I wasn’t eating enough.

I did not always have this mindset. I used to eat smaller meals or meals with fewer calories. I would skip having a nighttime snack if I thought it was too close to bedtime. I wasn’t intentionally restricting myself; rather, I had just ingrained the messages conventional dietary wisdom had instilled in me, and I did this with barely even thinking about it. Deep in the recesses of my mind, I had learned that if I didn’t want to get fat, then I shouldn’t eat too much or too often.

Have you ever thought about what conventional dietary wisdom tells us? I mean really thought about it? I was listening to the John Tesh radio show the other day, and he was reading off some recommendations from some diet-guru-I-don’t-know-who, and was telling everyone that when you go out to eat, to order from the “lite” menu, which averages around 700 calories per meal. And then he said that you should still take HALF of it home! Do you realize there that he just told people that they should only eat 350 calories for dinner? And of course you aren’t supposed to snack, either, right? Are we eating only 350 per meal for every meal, then? 350 x 3 meals a day…that’s only 1050 calories! Maybe if you get two 100 calories snacks, then it would be 1250.

If that doesn’t seem like a small amount to you, let me give you some perspective. The USDA recommends 2000 calories per day for the average American woman. Consider that the average American woman is not very active. So that’s 2000 calories a day for a somewhat inactive person. An active person with a healthy metabolism could easily handle 3000 calories a day. That’s a thousand calories per meal, people! (If you don’t snack.)

I’m not very active. I don’t work out. I don’t weight train, so I don’t have that extra muscle mass to burn extra calories. But, if I do not eat at least 2000 calories a day, I can’t even keep up with the housework, I am so tired. So eat I do. I eat for energy, I eat for nutrients, I eat in hopes my metabolism perks back up (and it actually does when I’m consistent about eating regular nutritious meals). If I actually exercised regularly, I bet I could eat 3000 calories a day without gaining any weight. I actually have a goal to be able to eat that many calories. Why?

Because I know that more food = more nutrients.

I had this epiphany a couple years ago that by not eating enough, I was denying my body the nutrients it needed to heal and function well. I want to heal and function well! What would only 1050 calories a day do to me? It would starve me of the nutrition I need and completely flatten my metabolism, that’s what. It would slowly kill me.

I’ve gained a little weight not because I’m eating too much. I’ve gained weight because I haven’t been very active due to a foot injury. I’ve gained weight because my eating habits had been inconsistent over the winter and it screwed my metabolism. Starving myself will not heal my foot, and it certainly will not help me have the energy I need to be active. Starving myself most certainly will not improve my metabolism. Starving myself will not help me conceive and grow a beautifully healthy child. Sorry John Tesh, but starving myself just ain’t gonna happen. Nope. Sorry. Not gonna do it.

But obviously I can’t just keep gaining weight. What’s a person in my position to do? I think the only thing I really can do is work on increasing my metabolism. Our metabolism is how efficient our bodies work, it’s how well nutrients get into the cells, it’s how well energy is used. By improving my metabolism, I will be directly improving my health. I can do this with food, with exercise, and increasing muscle mass. But honestly, I’m not even very motivated by weight loss to do these things. I care a lot more about feeling good and being healthy. Having a leaner body would just be a really nice side effect.

The March Against Monsanto

On Saturday I marched with an estimated 6000 protesters in Portland, Oregon in the March Against Monsanto. We were but a small portion of people marching against Monsanto and GMO foods around the world–there were over 2 million people worldwide who joined in this protest.

I didn’t know how many people would show up. I know there are a lot of Oregonians who care about their food, their health, and their rights, so I was hoping for a good turnout, but there was still this tiny fear in me that it would be too small a group to get any attention. How many people in my area were really concerned about GMOs, anyway? I had no idea. But when I arrived at Holladay Park, my fear dissipated when I saw the park with packed with protesters. As I walked through the crowd with Sandrine Love of Nourishing Our Children, it was quite obvious that I was in the company of a LOT of people who were passionately against GMOs.

Having never before been to any kind of protest rally, I made a rather conservative sign that read: Protect our Food. Say NO to Monsanto. Say NO to GMOs. It didn’t portray the emotions I feel toward GMOs and biotech company Monsanto, but simply stated my main concern–that we need to protect our food supply. Signs carried by children said things like “I am not an experiment” and “I love real food.” Other signs said “The World Doesn’t Want Your GMOs,” “F*&% Monsanto,” “GMOs are Poison,” “Monsanto’s Worst Enemy is an Informed Public,” as well as signs asking to save the bees, save the seeds, and support farmers. There were signs with skulls and crossbones or that portrayed Monsanto as the devil. Other signs had statistics written on them, such as the high percentage of foods made with GMOs and the number of countries that have banned GMOs.

Me and Sandrine.

There were speeches given before and after the march. Some of the speakers included Mary Nickles, director of GMO Free Portland, Elizabeth Swagger of the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign, Becky Learner, author of Dandelion Hunter, and Andrew Still of Adaptive Seeds. Unfortunately I didn’t get all the names of the speakers but there were several others. I especially loved hearing the farmers speak. One farmer insisted that we CAN feed the world and do it RIGHT. Andrew Still said that the heirloom seeds of Adaptive Seeds outperform GMO seeds, busting the myth that we need GMO seeds for stronger crops. I learned that Oregon is an important area of the world for seed production–seeds that are shipped around the world. You can imagine what GMO contamination here would mean.

Of course, Oregon isn’t the only place that has people concerned about GMOs. Over 2 million people around the world in 436 cities and 52 countries marched against Monsanto on Saturday. And of course this only represents a fraction of people who have concerns about GMOs. When people talk about GMO dangers being a myth, I have to laugh. I really don’t think this many people in so many places become so impassioned against something that is simply a myth. People have real cause for concern regarding GMOs. We’re talking about people from all walks of life, including some very intelligent and educated people. To call us all gullible myth-believers is an insult.

What’s also insulting is that the federal and local governments are creating laws to protect Monsanto and other biotech companies from the concerns of citizens and the concerns of small farmers. It’s hard to believe we are really living in a democracy when the government makes laws without our consent to protect the big companies that we believe are harming us.

But it sure felt good to at least be able protest GMOs. There are those who believe Monsanto’s days are numbered. I hope they are right.

9 Reasons to Eat Real Food

I remember when I thought that protein bars were a healthy snack. When I thought flax oil infused margarine was good for the heart. I remember buying 1% milk because my mom always bought us lowfat, so that’s what I was supposed to drink, right?? I remember when I bought the cheap “wheat” bread, thinking it was whole grain, but really it was just colored brown to trick me. I remember buying some weird “whole wheat” white bread and wondering how that was even possible. I ate Ramen noodles with the seasoning pack for a cheap meal, and the noodle cups, too. I bought hamburger helper and other boxed meals because I didn’t know how to cook. My most elaborate meals usually included opening several cans and pouring them into a pot. The most expensive–and probably the only real–food I bought was cheese. (Ironically, I still buy the same brand of cheese, but it’s no longer the most expensive food I buy.) As if my main meals weren’t bad enough, my desserts were worse. And okay, I ate produce, but it wasn’t organic. I sometimes ate eggs and meat, but they weren’t really what eggs and meat are supposed to be.

I was always trying to eat better, but it was a verrrrrry slow progression. When I look back in time, it seemed like I was making a pretty good turnaround in the months before I got pregnant, but that all went downhill when morning sickness hit. And I still didn’t know enough about real food when my son was born to save me from the horrible snack foods I depended on to keep me alive during those first months postpartum. In fact, I had yet to hear of the term “real food.”

It must have been some time when my son was a baby that I started to wake up. I remember my stepsister talking about the term “whole foods” and I remember thinking a lot about it. I thought about all the food I ate and asked myself if it was a whole food. I realized some things were. Some things definitely weren’t. Then I moved on to the term “real food.” That’s about the time I realized that lite sour cream was not even made from cream. It was fake. So was margarine. I began to realize that a lot of things were fake.

So I started making everything real. And you know what? That’s when I really started to enjoy food. That’s when I started to enjoy cooking. Because you know what? Real food tastes better!!! And thus, my first reason for switching to real food. (Okay, it may have been a tie with it being healthier, too.)

Real cereal.

Reasons to Eat Real Food

1. Because it tastes better. I remember the first time I made macaroni and cheese from scratch. I was like, “Wow! This is amazing!!” I never bought Kraft macaroni again. Now that I’ve been eating real food for years, I can tell instantly if something I eat has non-real ingredients. Like ice cream made with high-fructose corn syrup. I swear I can even taste the pesticides in non-organic lettuce.

2. Because it is healthier. Want to see your health improve fast? Dump all the processed foods. Yep, all of them. Replace them with real foods. You don’t need a special diet to see results, you just have to eat real food.

3. Because it’s better for small family farms. Eating real food means you are buying a diversity of foods, since processed foods are mostly made up of the same ingredients. Small farmers usually grow a variety of foods, instead of the monocrops that go into processed foods.

4. Because it’s better for the planet. Real food does not need to be grown with a bunch of pesticides. Real food can be mostly local food. Local food is fresher and does not require as much gasoline to transport it. Real food does not need a factory to make it. Real meat, dairy and eggs (as nature intended them) are raised on pasture, where manure can fertilize the soil, rather than become pollution. Diverse farms are more sustainable and can actually improve the level of topsoil rather than deplete it.

Real soup.

5. Because it’s cheaper. Okay, technically it can be more expensive, too, but in the end it’s really cheaper. Real food is usually made from scratch in your own kitchen, which is a lot cheaper than buying convenience foods. But if you are buying high quality ingredients, the cost can go right back up to where it was when you bought all convenience foods. BUT you will be healthier, so you end up saving money in medical costs. See? Cheaper.

6. Because it’s better for the local economy. Since real food tends to be more local, you are supporting the farmers in your own area.

7. Because it’s better for animals. When you buy cheap, non-natural animal products, you are supporting a system that is unhealthy and even cruel to animals. Pastured-raised (or the equivalent) is much healthier for the animals and much more enjoyable for them, too.

8. Because it connects you to your ancestors. Your ancestors didn’t eat out of a box. When you cook from scratch using only ingredients your great-grandparents would recognize, it connects you with them. You know that they chopped vegetables, made soup with soup bones, and dressed whole chickens. You know they made bread and cake from scratch. When you prepare real food, you are doing the same things people did hundreds of years ago, and I believe this builds the human spirit.

9. Because it connects you to the earth. Trust me, this is important. I don’t know how to explain it, but it is. You feel more complete as a human being when you are connected to your food and where it came from. Being aware is the first step, and the first step toward becoming aware is making your own food from scratch, from whole, real food ingredients.

Real yogurt.

Did I mention that real foods taste better, too? Oh, yeah, right. I did. I just think that’s worth mentioning again. When I switched to eating real foods, I was finally able to stick with eating better. The more “real” my food became, the easier it was to stay off junk food. It was easier to eat things that were good for me because they tasted so good. It was so much easier to get healthier, for once.

So, did I miss anything here? What’s your top reason for eating real food? How did you come to realize what real foods were?

The Chicken Girls Are Here

It’s funny how suddenly it happened.

For a couple of years, we had tossed around the idea of having chickens someday. It started after I read the book Farm City, the same year my parents got their chickens. But it always seemed off in the future somewhere. Maybe not even until we had moved somewhere with a bigger yard. Certainly it wasn’t going to be right now.

It’s funny how things just click together sometimes, and you just know it’s the right time for something.

I am always thinking about emergency food storage (in fact, I’ve started a blog on traditional food storage–there just isn’t much there yet), and I wondered to myself what the best food storage eggs were. Certainly not the powdered ones, but maybe freeze dried? Of course, I knew what the real answer was–it was to keep chickens.

Then there was my current situation with eggs. My parents’ eggs were so delicious from all the grass, food scraps and grubs they ate. But I wanted eggs that came from chickens not fed GMO feed, so I switched to organic pasture raised eggs. But when I found out that some of the eggs I was getting were up to two weeks old, I began to think that having full control over the quality of eggs we eat might be a better idea. I began to dream of collecting fresh eggs every day and not even having to refrigerate them.

Almost as soon as I decided I wanted chickens, my husband told me that my stepdad had bought something like 30 layer chicks and was going to sell them. We could buy some from them.

And that’s when the plans for the chicken coop began. Lucky for us, husband was schooled in engineering and is pretty good at building stuff. The coop was built under the elevated clubhouse he built for our son last summer. Of course the little boy–engineer-in-training–helped.

At first we were going to only get three chickens. I thought it would be more manageable. Plus, I wasn’t eating as many eggs as I used to. But soon three turned into four. Okay, I guess we could eat more eggs–we’ve done it before. Plus we didn’t know how good layers they were going to be anyway. If we ended up with extra eggs, we could share with our neighbor friends. Then, when we actually went to go pick out the chickens, we somehow ended up with FIVE. I thought this was funny because that’s how many I originally wanted back when we were eating a ton of eggs. So five it was.

The pullets were about 8.5 weeks old when we got them earlier this week. There were two breeds. My mom said the reddish ones were Welsummers. She couldn’t remember what the speckled ones were, so I looked at some pictures online and I think they are Speckled Sussex, which would be good because that breed is not only friendly but also good layers.

We snatched up three of the Speckled and two Welsummer and put them in a box. They peeped for dear life like they were being kidnapped. I guess they sort of were. When we got them home, husband put them in the coop. They weren’t too keen on going in, and sat in a pile in the doorway. So I went over and took one down and showed her where the food was below. Soon the other chickies came down to see what their friend was doing. They ate, drank, and totally relaxed. When the sun went down, they went back in the coop, and again huddled in the doorway. We tried to push them in further so they wouldn’t get cold, but they wouldn’t budge.

The next day I started getting to know the girls. The first one I picked up–a speckled one–was actually fairly calm. I cuddled her in my arm and pet her. After a while I set her back down so I could grab another one, and you know what? She came back to me! The others took a little more work. Another speckled was fairly easy to catch, and after some petting she started to calm down–way down. She sat down like she was really enjoying it! These first two decided after one petting session that they totally trusted me and wouldn’t fuss at all if I picked them up again. I tried the last speckled but she just kept running away from me. When I caught her and pet her, she realized it was fine and settled down–but even now, three days later, she’s still hard to catch!

The two Welsummers were also hard to catch. Boy they are fast and spritely! I caught the bigger one and she fussed, even after being pet. The other one was even worse, like she thought she was being kidnapped all over again and was calling for help. So the next day I tried just catching them, and immediately letting them go, or just putting them on my lap and letting go. The bigger one decided after this that I was okay, and even settled down to be petted finally. The last one still needs work.

You’re probably wondering why I would bother to do this. I’m kind of wondering myself if there is any benefit to it other than my personal reasons. Thing is, I’m kind of afraid of my parents’ hens. I’m afraid they’ll peck me. I would be afraid to catch one if I needed to. I figure if we could build some trust while they are young and get them used to be handled, then I would have less to fear. It makes me feel better to know I could handle and care for the chickens if they got hurt. Plus, it’s really neat to bond with an animal.

That first speckled one now thinks she’s my baby. She often comes up to me when I’m in the chicken run, expecting to be picked up. Yesterday I was feeding the pullets a handful of grass, letting them peck at it while I held the tuft. When done, I stood up and who did I find sitting under me? Such a funny girl.

My funny little friend.

Little boy and I have been trying to figure out what they like to eat. So far they really love grass and clover. Ironically, almost all the food scraps we’ve had lately are foods that aren’t supposed to be fed to chickens. There isn’t much they aren’t supposed to eat, so it’s kind of funny it’s happened this way. I’m sure they’ll be getting a lot of food scraps when our CSA gets started. I’m also going to plant some lettuce for them. I have a partly shady vegetable bed that is best suited for growing greens, and we’ll get so many greens from our CSA. I know backyard chickens are considered to be garbage disposals, but I want my eggs to be really good, so these girls are going to get the best I can manage for them. We’ve even been foraging for clover and other greens around the neighborhood. I just don’t want them eating too much grain.

So, that’s our first four days with the chickens. They are fun. I’ll update when they are older and let you know what we decide to name them.

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My New “Diet”

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have gone off the GAPS diet. I had more or less intended it to be sort of a trial, to see if it was really going to be better for me to eat starches, but now that I’ve gotten off of GAPS, I don’t even have the heart to try going back on. It’s way too liberating.

Let me rewind just a sec. I feel like I have to make this disclaimer because every time I tell someone I’ve gone of my “special diet,” I am told they think it’s healthier to eat in a more balanced way, anyway. Well, I totally agree you need to eat a balanced diet, but balanced isn’t necessarily going to mean the same thing for one person as it does for another. And while I generally agree it’s not a good idea to restrict entire food groups from your diet, in some cases it actually can be therapeutic, if done in such a way that the diet is still balanced. For about ten months, I feel like I had more or less done that on GAPS. At least, I was doing better on GAPS than I had pre-GAPS. The problem came, I think, when I got sick with a stomach bug, and things seemed to roll downhill as I lost my energy from being sick and then never got back on the ball with preparing balanced meals. At that point, I needed something easier than GAPS. But instead of doing something easier, I stuck with it for two more months. By the end of those two months, I was pretty hungry. I was no longer interested in GAPS food, I didn’t feel like spending so much time preparing food, and so I had trouble eating enough food. But boy, did bread sound good. My body was telling me it was time to move on.

So that’s why, instead of gradually adding new foods into my diet like you are supposed to when weaning off GAPS, I completely jumped off the GAPS wagon. I immediately felt drawn to Matt Stone’s Eat for Heat concept, as other ex-GAPSters before me have done. It can be like a diet recovery for people who have gone too extreme on special diets, or for someone like me, who was unhealthy to begin with, got notably better on GAPS, but then started slipping backwards toward the end of it because I lost my motivation to prepare food.

If there is anything I’ve learned in the past three years since I’ve started this blog, it’s that I need LOTS of nutrients, and the only way to do that is to eat PLENTY OF FOOD and a variety of types of food. So it came as no surprise to me that my lack of motivation to prepare meals came at an expense to my health. Luckily, I knew just what to do–find an easier way to eat more food. The easy way to do that was to cut out all the restrictions.

So I immediately started eating starches and even some sugar. But, since I was still not back into a great cooking routine, I was now neglecting to eat enough vegetables, and my body started feeling acidic. One of my readers on Facebook concurred with what I suspected I needed–more alkalizing foods. And soon after that, a friend of mine at church got all super excited when I mentioned food combining to her and recommended The Body Ecology Diet (which, strangely, I had been thinking of reading anyway) and lent me her copy. This book talks about food combining (for better digestion) as well as acid and alkaline foods. Long story short, I now have some simple tools to help me eat better.

#1 I’m not going to stress over what I eat. Stress is so bad for our bodies and can even cause indigestion and food sensitivities.

#2 I’m going to be mindful of eating enough warming foods when I feel I need them (I will probably talk more about this later). If I keep my body warm with warming foods, my metabolism should be better, and metabolism is really important to good health, having energy, and can even help with digestion.

#3 I’m going to be mindful of getting enough alkaline foods in my diet. As soon as I started doing this, the feelings of acidity went away.

#4 When I’m ready for it, I will work on the food combining concept. This should allow me better digestion. I still don’t digest beans and grains super well, but this may help.

I am in this weird state of mind right now where I feel like I can suddenly eat anything I want, especially because of #1 and #2. But I’ve gotten a little crazy and gone and eaten some processed foods lately. I don’t mean obviously processed foods, but foods that look like real foods but have disgusting vegetable oils in them (which make me feel sick) and some artificial ingredients and preservatives. Like the brownie I ate at choir practice yesterday, and the frozen yogurt I had last week at a frozen yogurt shop. I actually sort of forgot how bad everything out there is while I’ve been in my GAPS bubble and making literally everything I eat from scratch. It seems I will still have to make most of my food myself, unless I am diligent about reading labels and making sure the convenience foods I buy have nothing gross in them. In other words, I really do need to still be on a traditional foods diet.

So I feel like I’ve stepped backwards in time to before I had gone on the GAPS diet but had not yet fully transitioned to a traditional diet. I have to work on my sourdough skills and get in the habit of soaking beans, for example. I need to figure out how to make this all as easy as possible without breaking the bank. Which means my diet isn’t going to be perfect for a while, because above everything else, I really just need to make sure I eat ENOUGH.

My favorite thing about my new diet is that it’s a lot less “diet,” if you know what I mean. There’s nothing really strict about it–just being mindful, you know? I like eating more like a regular person–kind of like I’m actually healthy, haha.