Eggs: My favorite food

If you haven't noticed, I have been writing about eggs a lot lately. They are my absolute favorite food- period. Especially in the winter. I could eat them twice a day. In fact, after I finish writing this I am going to make myself an omelet.

I just wanted to share something with you that I learned recently about how the egg is supposed to look when you crack it out of it's shell. You should know by now if you have been reading my ramblings that I go to a farm to buy meat and eggs. I buy as many eggs as Carla has available, and since I don't get down there as often as I would like, I buy the rest of my eggs organic and pastured if possible.

Look at the difference between one of the farm eggs (bottom) and an organic store-bought egg (top). If you can't notice a difference let me school you:

• the farm egg (bottom) is darker orange in color which means that it is richer in beta-carotene 
• the egg white around the farm egg is thick with a defined edge
• majority of the liquid in the bowl came from the organic egg (top)

Here are some things that you cannot see:

• The shell of the farm egg was a lot harder to crack
• I did a poke test to see how easily the yolk would break and the farm egg's yolk was much more resilient to my poke; the organic egg yolk broke almost immediately. 

Why is this important? Well, the healthier the animal, the stronger the egg, the healthier the egg is for you. Beta-carotene, which is the pigment responsible for orange foods like carrots, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin, is important because it is a precursor to Vitamin A. Vitamin A is an important vitamin because without it our bodies cannot utilize all of the vitamins and minerals we take in through our food. It works in conjunction with Vitamin D, which is why they fortify dairy with both, however the dairy industry missed the boat and is using the wrong form-Vitamin D2- when we really need Vitamin D3. If you don't know my stance on vitamins read thisA Bitter Pill to Swallow...how vitamins may not actually be healthy. 

Bottom line is that this power couple (Vitamins A & D) is responsible for directing where other nutrients are sent in your body. They are like the air traffic controllers. Without them it is a whole big mess. 

In addition to the sun (Vitamin D) and fruits & vegetables (Vitamin A), you can also get them in the meat and dairy from animals that have been pasture raised. The animals absorb Vitamin D from the sun and they get Vitamin A from the grass, both end up being stored in their muscle, organs, and milk (and subsequently the milk products). This is one of the reasons why so many cultures (including ours until recently) ate the organ meats of animals. They were very high in Vitamins A & D- although I doubt they knew this. This is how many cultures survive in very cold climates with hardly any exposure to sunlight. They ate animals in their entirety- the liver, the bones in soup, the feet, EVERYTHING! And the animals were either wild or pasture raised. Factory farms didn't exist until very recently. 

So. It's winter. I live in New Jersey. I don't get any sun- I usually go tanning a few times a week, but my package ended and I just haven't gotten around to renewing PLUS I want to see if I can fulfill my needs through my diet. Enter eggs, meat, and dairy from pastured animals. 

Do you think people used to worry about getting enough vitamins or did they just eat what was abundant in their area? 

(Pssst... Nutritionism and all this hype about individual nutrients is an American made thing (scary!). It has never been practiced anywhere else in the world. Cultures around the globe practiced eating whole foods which were indigenous to their area. Over time, they found what worked for them so they could survive and thrive where they lived. I think we need to go back to that- who the hell are we to think that we can design it better than Mother Nature?)

We need a brand!

As promised, I am writing to you to discuss the development of our green juice company. First task...naming our brand. I am the worst at this. Give me a name and the feeling you are going for and I can whip up some graphics and branding in a flash. But ask me to come up with a name and my mind goes blank, then I start thinking of everything that rhymes with green, and the best I can come up with is mean green juice.

This is not the image we are going for.

We are providing fresh, raw, dark green leafy vegetable juice mailed to your door. We juice it, package it, ship it, and all you have to do is drink it. We take the mess out of juicing. We are developing the highest quality product conveniently delivered to your door.

Here are the benefits in a very big nutshell:

• builds a high red blood cell count
• helps prevent cancer
• provides easily absorbable iron to organs
• makes the body more alkaline
• counteracts toxins eaten
• improves anemic conditions
• cleanses and deodorizes bowel tissues (no one likes a stinky bowel if you know what I mean)
• helps purify the liver
• aids in hepatitis improvement
• regulates menstruation
• aids hemophilia condition
• improves milk production (for all you mommies out there)
• helps sores heal faster
• eliminates body odor
• resists bacteria in wounds
• cleans tooth and gum structure
• eliminates bad breath
• relieves sore throat
• benefits inflamed tonsils 
• soothes ulcer tissues
• soothes painful hemorrhoids and piles
• revitalizes vascular system
• improves varicose veins
• reduces pain caused by inflammation
• improves vision
• boosts immune system
• weight loss aid
• highly concentrated and easily digestible source of vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, & phytonutrients
• improves energy levels

So I ask you, loyal blog readers....please help a girl out! If you have any suggestions or creative ideas drop a comment below or email me (jessicageier@gmail.com).


WAIT! There is a prize... if we pick your name for our brand or use your creative idea in our marketing you will get an order of one of our first batches for free.


(Image Source)
Health benefits from Green For Life by Victoria Boutenko

Working From Home

So for the next month I am going to be mainly working from home (score!). This means mornings filled with rolling out of bed and onto my computer, utter disdain for the way that I look, and poorly planned meals for myself (fail).

I know this to be true because I have worked from home before and this is what happens. So...my goal for the next few weeks is to:

1. Go food shopping at least every Sunday and do not put it off when produce runs low
2. Shower every day (most people don't need to remind themselves of this but I find it necessary)
3. Make 1 smoothie a day
4. Cook at least 1 meal every day
5. Workout for at least 1 hour 5 days a week

Wish me luck! I will be reporting on all of my dark-green-leafy-veggie-findings so don't you worry...

Has cold & flu season hit you yet?

I personally have not been sick in a while. Every so often when I don't get enough sleep I get that run down I'm-about-to-get-sick feeling. Usually I just whole up and sleep it off , but if that is not an option I have a solution that may possibly work for you. I became aware of Dr. John Douillard a few weeks ago when I listened to one of his lectures on Ayurveda. He is big into living in conjunction with nature and using everything that is available from nature to cure sickness.

Here is his explanation of why cold and flu season occurs during winter months:

"In the winter, temperatures drop and the air dries out. The further we go into winter, the drier the air becomes. Even the rain dries out and becomes snow. For ourselves, we further aggravate these dry conditions by pumping dry heat into our homes and offices to stay warm.

"In the case of the common cold, this dryness has become overwhelming to the body. When we become excessively dry, the dryness extends to the mucus membranes in the sinuses and gut. The respiratory tract is lined with ciliated epithelium, skin covered with sweepers called cilia that house part of the immune system. These cilia, much like the villi of the gut, sweep toxins, bacteria and viruses through respiratory mucus membranes into the Mucus Associated Lymphatic Tissue, or MALT, where they are neutralized by the white-blood-cell-rich lymph nodes.  

Nature’s prescription for all this dryness is the seasonal harvest. The winter harvest consists of high-fat, high-protein, insulating foods that antidote the harshness of winter. Think of squirrels eating nuts when the weather begins to cool. See my Winter Tips & Grocery List, which explains how to prevent systemic dehydration and other winter imbalances with seasonal foods. 

He is proposing that to stop a cold from fully forming, you can take a combination of

• Trikatu: an Ayurvedic spice combination made from ginger, black pepper and long pepper that thins mucus, stimulates circulation to the respiratory tract and cervical lymph. 
• Sitopladi: is a traditional Ayurvedic combination of herbs that opens airways and heals and decongests mucus membranes of the sinuses, bronchioles and lungs. 
• Turmeric: is an Indian spice that has many medicinal uses including thins mucus, moves lymph, boosts immunity and heals the mucus membranes.

I know. I was like "what they hell is trikatu, I can't even pronounce it, and where the hell do I get that? Well, Dr. Douillard conveniently sells this stuff on his website which you can find by clicking here. I am buying this stuff and am going to use it as a preventative measure as I'm sure taking a little bit of these spices everyday could not hurt (I will let you know if it does). 

SIDE TRACK: Some of you may have read my post on being anti-vitamin (which I still am) and are confused because these are clearly supplements. Let me explain. These are not individual vitamins that have been plucked from the original source (or synthesized). These are herbs and spices that in their whole form are medicinal to the body. There I said it. I am against taking individual vitamins and minerals, and a multi-vitamin in that case. We don't know what vitamins and minerals our bodies need. Scientists think they know, but we are learning more and more each day about the nutrients in food and I know scientists are not even close to having the complete picture. In my humble opinion it is best to just eat whole foods to get your nutrition. 

What is your view on vitamins & supplements? Yay or nay?

Being an on again off again meat eater

A while ago I was vegetarian, and after about a year I slowly started eating meat again. Then I felt bad about eating meat because I knew the meat I was eating was not the best quality. Now I can completely enjoy it because I know where it is coming from.

I have also found that I naturally want to eat more meat during the winter months. This seems like a natural thing. Up until very recently in the course of us (humans) fresh produce was not available all year round. 200 years ago where I live in New Jersey I could not get oranges and asparagus and lettuce in the middle of January. I would have had to live off the vegetables harvested in the fall (like root vegetables, winter squash, and onions), the fruits and vegetables I was able to can & jar from the summer months, the grains I had in stock, and whatever animals I could hunt or could afford to kill- like the family cow or pig :(

As some of you may know I started a garden last spring with my father. I noticed that I was more inclined to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables since we had them, and I grew them! Towards the end of last summer I had increased the amount of fruits and vegetables I was eating by a tremendous amount and I loved it. I felt great, and I was losing weight. And then it got cold, and so did I. I just couldn't eat raw fruits and vegetables all day. So I stopped. I switched to soups, stews & chili, a lot of cooked vegetables, and more meat.

Nature provides foods that are going to nourish you in that season. Spring is filled with berries, sprouts, lettuce and such which are all great to detoxify your body from all of the heavy foods that you eat in the winter. Summer foods are light and cooling- tomatoes, greens, cherries, watermelon, etc. Foods that are ready in the fall (winter squash, potatoes, onions, apples, cranberries) are able to be stored for several months to get you through the winter.

It makes sense that all I would want to eat right now are hot soups and oatmeal and meat and potatoes. Ask me if I want a big, hot, meaty meal in the middle of July when I'm a hot sweaty mess. No thank you! I want a salad and melon and fruit smoothies.

This is my goal, and the aim of the book that I am writing... to create a guide for all of us to easily eat in season. It is one thing to know what is in season, and it is a completely other thing to be able to actually come up with a month's worth of recipes involving mushrooms, cabbage, leeks, and cauliflower. I had originally wanted to just create a guide on how to de-junk your diet- some of which I will definitely be incorporating, but the more I learn in my classes, the more I realized that it is so important to eat with the season.

Mother Nature never steers you wrong- but she will school your ass if you don't listen to her.

I knew I should have paid attention in high school

I never thought that I would ever use the public school education I received in high school. We read all this "classical" literature BS... which I never enjoyed. We had to interpret what authors meant by their Old English gibberish... over my head. I learned about shale... still have yet to use my knowledge about that particular rock. We dissected frogs... definitely NEVER going to use that!

The one thing I just started researching that I know I definitely learned about in high school is pH balance and the acid/alkaline scale. Vinegar is acidic and milk is alkaline, but as it turns out it is far more complicated than that because a naturally acidic food can have an alkalizing effect in the body (i.e. citrus fruit). Apparently, this is pretty important when it comes to understanding how well your body can fight off infection/cancer/disease, etc, etc.

Here are the basics from The Body Ecology Diet :

• Just as our normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees F, there are other measures of a normal condition or homeostasis within the body. The levels of sugar, oxygen, and carbon dioxide in the blood must all be stable; and the pH (the balance between acid and alkaline) of the body fluids, including the blood, should be 7.4, slightly alkaline.
• An imbalance toward too much acidity allows yeast, viruses, rebellious (cancer) cells, and various other parasites to thrive. Acidity also leads to conditions such as chronic fatigue, arthritis, and allergies. 
• If you have an acidic condition from eating an acid-forming diet, your body is constantly trying to return to a more balanced state by calling on your stored reserves of alkaline minerals: sodium, calcium, potassium, and magnesium. If you continue eating foods that are highly acid forming, over time it can create a mineral deficiency. 
• The typical American diet is high in foods that cause our bodies to become acidic- sugar, candy, sodas, white flour products, beans, soybean products & tofu, wine, beer, saccharin, NutraSweet, alcohol, commercially refined vinegar, all processed foods containing preservatives and chemicals (ingredients you cannot pronounce)
• There are acid forming foods that we should be eating- animal foods such as beef, poultry, eggs, fish, and shellfish, buckwheat, organic, unrefined oils, and Stevia. 

I bought some pH test strips a few months ago and I have been testing my urine (I know I'm weird, don't judge). I definitely noticed a pattern:

• When I eat a mainly whole food diet (whole grains, vegetables, fruit, with a small amount of animal fat & protein) my urine is pretty alkaline.
• When I feel stressed no matter what I eat I am acidic
• When I drink coffee it immediately makes my pee acidic but then goes back up rather fast
• When I go out and drink on the weekends, on Monday I will be almost off the charts acidic. It takes me about 2 full days to get back to alkaline. By Friday evening my pH is in the optimal range and I am ready to destroy it all over again- old habits are hard to break.

The moral of my story is that by monitoring your pH you can get a glimpse of what is going on inside your body. It is really amazing to monitor what goes in your mouth and what comes out the other end (#1 not #2). Your body is a machine far more complex and intelligent than any computer on the face of this Earth, and it responds 100% of the time to what you feed it. It is not necessary to know the ins and outs of all these complex processes that take place when you put food in your mouth. It is important thought to understand that the quality of the food you put in your mouth makes a measurable difference.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

Taking time to...

RELAX! I have been so exhausted for the past week. I haven't been able to catch up on my sleep, I've been working like crazy to finish work for the Christmas tree business, and I am anxious to start working on our new business. All of this makes for a stressed-out Jessie.

So, in spite of all of the millions of little things I have to do, I am taking the next two days off and doing nothing. Well, by nothing I mean laying in bed and reading or laying on the couch and watching television (something I rarely ever do). I've been reading The China Study by T.Colin Campbell now for a ridiculous amount of time because I read at night before bed and I usually only get about 10 pages in before I can't keep my eyes open. I am so close to finishing! So that is what I am going to do.

Ta ta for now kiddies! I'm getting back into bed...

All in the name of healthy eats

This morning I took my every-other-monthly trip down to the farm that I buy most of my meat and eggs from. It's about an hour drive south west to the other side of Jersey. I can take the interstate or back roads. I choose to take the back roads. Just as much a I enjoy knowing where my animal products come from, I also enjoy the trip. It forces me to get out of my daily grind and slow down, if only for a few hours. The drive is through barren woods and farm country where you get glimpses into a time when farming was something everyone did.

There are barns with old tractors, old pick-up trucks, silos and vast fields that, when harvested, provide food for many, many people. It is also refreshing to speak with Carla, the owner and operator of the farm. She is full of life and truly has an intimate knowledge of all the animals she cares for. I believe that if you are going to eat meat then you should take care to see how they live and how much work it takes to provide for that animal.

Some people ask me 'how can you eat meat after you meet the animals that you will eventually eat?' (tongue twister) I ask them, how can you eat meat that comes from god knows where, is fed who knows what, and is killed, processed, packaged, and shipped half way across the country (sometimes world) and then sits on a shelf waiting to be sold, then it sits in your refrigerator until you are ready to eat it? Gross!

I have done some research on the farming practices in this country. They are not farms, they are factories. I take pride in the fact that I don't feed myself meat that has been raised on antibiotics and corn or soy, or confined to a feed lot. So instead of traveling 3 blocks to my grocery store, I drive 1 hour each direction to get my meat and eggs directly from the source. And I feel good about my choice.

How far would you travel to buy superior food?

I haven't forgotten about you

I swear I haven't forgotten to write. I just couldn't get my ass to sit down in the chair and bang out a post at the end of last week. There has been a lot going on though. I just got my first delivery of raw milk and cheeses. I will be writing at length about this soon, but I have been trying them out (and loving it!). I am going on Wednesday to the farm to pick up some more meat & eggs (including beef liver- yum!). I am going to try out pate and some other recipes involving liver to see if I like it and if I can make it easy and palatable for you all. I also have some information about your body's pH balance that I will be schooling you on.

And on the work front I am starting a dark-green-leafy-vegetable-juice business with my father so you will be hearing all about my trials and tribulations involving getting a business up and running in about 30 days. In a nutshell, we juice the stuff and you get it delivered right to your door. Veggie juicing is a pain in the ass, it's messy' it's time consuming. But oh how healthy it is for you!

So, I have a deadline tomorrow night, and then I will be back to normal... see you on Wednesday my friends.

Who's excited for green juice?

5 Ways: Oatmeal

There is nothing better on a cold morning than a warm bowl of oatmeal. Since I am naturally such a cold person (by cold I mean constantly freezing where my leg hairs grow back extra fast after I shave), it pains me to eat cold cereal during the winter. I don't eat the junky flavored kinds that are loaded with sugar and chemicals either...I make it myself with Irish or steel-cut oats which cook equally as fast.

Oatmeal is also great because you can literally make it like 1000 different ways. These are some of my favorites:

1. almonds & shredded coconut
2. bananas & crushed walnuts
3. garamasala spice & raisins (or just plain cinnamon)
4. apples, brown sugar, & pecans
5. pumpkin puree & chopped Medjool dates

A quick word about Medjool dates. I like regular dates (you can buy them at most food stores) but last night I tried a Medjool date at my father's house and it was like a completely different experience. Medjool dates are softer and have a smoother texture...it was like a flavor explosion in my mouth! I just don't know why people eat the regular kind.

Anyway, back to oatmeal. It is a whole grain. It's quick. It's cheap. Eat it!