Kick Pasteurized Milk To The Curb And Make Your Own Healthy Nut Milk

February 28, 2013 | By admin

Karen Foster, Prevent Disease

Waking Times

Sure, we can all buy our favorite store brands, but how many of us dread those nasty complement ingredients such as emulsifiers, oils, starches, artificial or even natural flavors we know have no place in a healthy beverage? If you make your own nut milk, you’ll also save yourself from the toxic chemicals which line the cartons of more than 80 percent of brands. Instead of feeling limited to what’s available at the market, making your own nut milk is easy and you’ll get to decide exactly what goes in it.

Today’s processed milk is far from healthy and is essentially a dead liquid, devoid of any real nutritional value. What’s a better alternative? Nuts!

Brazil nuts, almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans, and hemp seeds all make nutrient dense, great tasting milks and they’re all essentially made the same way.

WHAT YOU NEED
Organic nuts or seeds. A general rule is a ratio of at least 2:1. Two parts water to 1 part nuts or seeds.
Half-gallon mason jar or glass pitcher. Use this for soaking the nuts and storing your final product.
Blender of food processor. You don’t need a high-speed blender or anything fancy to make nut milk.
Nut milk bag, cheesecloth or fine-meshed sieve (optional). Use if you like your milk smooth instead of pulpy.

SOAK nuts, seeds, or grains by placing in a bowl with filtered water and a pinch of sea salt. Different foods require different soak times.


- Place the desired nuts or seeds in a glass bowl and cover them with warm distilled, purified or filtered water with a teaspoon of Celtic Sea Salt dissolved in it.

- You will want to use a ratio of at least 2:1. Two parts water to 1 part nuts or seeds.

- Keep the bowl at room temperature and cover with a flour sac cloth or thin tea towel that breathes, and then drain and rinse every few hours to remove the nasties.

- The soaking water will contain all of the toxic enzyme inhibitors which we are trying to remove to improve digestibility and nutrient bioavailability, and helps everything blend more easily. So proper rinsing is really important. Make sure you do a final rinse until the water comes out clear. Some people recommend doing a final rinse with a diluted solution of apple cider vinegar in order to remove any remaining bacteria.

- You want to try and soak the nuts for the recommended amount of time to make them as digestible as possible.

- As a general rule with nuts: the harder the nut, the longer you need to soak. Long soak nuts such as almonds, pistachios and hazelnuts are best soaked for about 12 hours. Common medium soak nuts are walnuts, brazil nuts and pecans. They require less soaking time as they swell more quickly as they are oilier. Short soak nuts are cashews, macadamias and pine nuts. They require the least amount of soaking as they do not contain inner skins, and therefore not as many enzyme inhibitors.

Nut Soaking Time (Hrs)

Almonds 8-12
Brazil Nuts 3
Cashews 2-4
Flaxseeds 1/2
Hazelnuts 8-12
Macadamias 2
Pecans 6
Pistachios 8
Walnuts 4


BLEND with filtered water. A high-speed machine like a Vitamix is preferable to really pulverize the mixture. A 1:3 ration of nuts/seeds/grains to water generally yields good results. I start with 2 cups of water and gradually add more water until I get the taste and consistency I like. Blend for about 1 minute. This can warm the mixture. Chill in the fridge, or blend with ice to consume immediately.

SWEETEN the milk to taste with pitted dates, stevia, maple syrup, honey, coconut sugar, etc. You can also add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract to boost flavors, and 1 tablespoon of coconut butter to emulsify ingredients. You can also jazz up your milks with raw cacao, fruit, cinnamon, nutmeg, or anything else that tickles your fancy.

STRAIN Some foods like cashews, macadamias, and pecans yield smooth milks. However, with most other foods, like almonds, you will get some texture. You can enjoy this fibrous milk, or strain it for a smoother, more commercial-style blend. Place a nut milk bag over a large container, pour the milk in, and gently squeeze the bag until all liquid has passed through. You can repurpose the pulp as a body scrub by mixing with some coconut oil, or dehydrate it for use in cookies, crusts, and crackers.

Here are five ideas for your pulp (if you don’t want it in your milk):
1. Nut Flour. The pulp can be dehydrated or placed in a 200 degree oven until dried. Grind the dried pulp in a spice grinder or high-speed blender until fine.2. Raw cookies. Blend the pulp with some dates, nut butter, shredded coconut and sweet spices. Roll into balls and roll in shredded coconut or raw cocoa powder.

3. Soft, raw cheese. Blend the pulp in a food processor with a little nutritional yeast, garlic, lemon juice, fresh herbs, and salt. Serve with crackers.

4. Cereal. Combine the pulp with your fresh nut milk, dried fruits, nuts and sweet spices for a porridge-like cereal.

ENJOY Most milks will keep in the fridge in a sealed container for two or three days. Freeze any leftovers in ice cube trays for use later. Homemade milks can separate when stored. Just shake or blend again before drinking.

Sources:
antonhealth.com
vegetariantimes.com 

About the Author

Karen Foster is a holistic nutritionist, avid blogger, with five kids and an active lifestyle that keeps her in pursuit of the healthiest path towards a life of balance.

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What's cooking at school? Chef Kevin's specials

Article Photo removed by Newspaper...

Chef Kevin Fonzo is greeted by students of the Orlando Junior Academy. Fonzo is a celebrated chef, but when he learned about a small private school that didn't have any cafeteria service this year, he volunteered to cook for the school and work with their small budget. Now the kids are eating butternut squash lasagna and Portobello mushroom burgers. (Ricardo Ramirez, Orlando Sentinel / February 23, 2010)

By Linda Shrieves, Orlando Sentinel

February 25, 2010

At most schools, lunch is the kids' favorite time of the day.

But at Orlando Junior Academy, lunch is everyone's favorite time of day now – including teachers, administrators and parents, who show up regularly hoping to get a taste of the school lunch.

And no wonder. The menus include portobello mushroom burgers, butternut squash lasagna, grilled eggplant sandwiches and whole-wheat quesadillas topped with caramelized onions, tomatoes, black beans and guacamole.

The reason? The man working the stove in the cafeteria is Kevin Fonzo, acclaimed chef behind two well-known College Park restaurants, K and Nonna Trattoria ed Enoteca.

"School lunch has become very popular," said principal Nicole Agbonkhese. "The hospital chaplain brought his staff to a lunch meeting here. The pastors come and volunteer now."

And the kids – who are usually most finicky - rave about the food.

"It's all great," said eighth-grader Wesley Jordan, 14, as a plate of spaghetti, served with a Caesar salad and baguette came out of the kitchen. "See that? Now that's just delicious!"

The story behind the marriage of the chef and the school of 220 kids is a tale of one man trying to create change – and a school that needed help.

"I'm a big believer that we shouldn't be feeding our kids crap," said Fonzo, 45. "I wanted the kids to eat real food, including as much organically grown food as possible – not just the empty carbs and sugars that kids get in most school lunches."

So when Fonzo learned from one of his customers – a parent at the school -- that the small Seventh Day Adventist school had a cafeteria, but no food service, he volunteered to help out.

The former cafeteria cook retired last year, leaving principal Agbonkhese with no hot food service – and parents who wanted healthier options for their kids. Even though Seventh Day Adventists follow a vegetarian diet, not all the lunches were healthy.

Brad Jones, one of Fonzo's regular customers and a school board member, and Agbonkhese asked Fonzo if he would help the school develop a healthy menu. Even better, perhaps he could teach a new employee how to make dishes like grilled eggplant sandwiches?

Instead, Fonzo volunteered to cook the food himself. Now he cooks most of the food in his restaurant kitchen and brings it to the school Monday through Thursday (Friday is pizza day – sacred even to these kids). Fonzo doesn't earn anything on the deal – the $4 that each student pays provides for the food and the cost of a dishwasher.

What he gets back, he says, is a break from the pressures of the restaurant business and a chance to hang out with kids, even the preschoolers who call him "Baldy."

"I love kids," said Fonzo. "I think that if I ever leave the restaurant business, I'd like to become a teacher."

From parents, the praise is effusive.

"Kevin is basically doing this out of the goodness of his heart," said parent and board member Denise Butler, who spent lunchtime on Wednesday dishing up Caesar salads and manning the window where students pick up their lunches. "Can you imagine having a James Beard-nominated chef cooking in your school cafeteria?"

But the best reviews come from the diners.

"One day I forgot to bring my lunch and I had to get a Chef Kevin lunch," said Jonathan Dobias, 11. "It was chili and all I can say is: It was good, awesome, delicious and scrumptious."

For Kahlil Josephs, 10, nothing compares to Chef K's interpretation of "haystacks," a vegetarian version of taco salad.

"It's a pile of wonder," said Kahlil. "That's the best way to describe it."

Linda Shrieves can be reached at lshrieves@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5433.
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Source: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-chef-cooks-for-school-20100225,0,1578712.story

My opinion on Chef Kevin Fonzo's menu:

Chef Kevin Fonzo is doing a formidable job; But, "Portobello Mushroom" burgers? Does Chef Fonzo know that a mushroom is a fungus, and has no notable nutritional value? Sure, for the trained epicurean palate that enjoys such things as Sushi (raw fish) or escargot (snails), it might be a treat; However, growing children need not be exposed to such creature comforts or whims. By the way (as stated in article) most Seventh day Adventists are vegetarians, some are specifically 'vegans'. Why would the chef offer pizza on Friday? Cheese is a product of cow's milk that possesses all types of hormones and diseases that humans, or their young would be better off not consuming.

If a lactating woman were to offer you a cup of her own (human) milk; Would you drink it? Yet, you drink the milk intended for a cow's calf?

Chef Fonzo reminds me of the saying: "Beware of strangers bearing gifts".

He's doing an altruistic duty..feeding ..The Children.

But, at what cost?

Could he be perverting the Health Reform that the parents of many of these youngsters instill in them; Or, that the SDA movement has as one of its fundamental pillars: Health Reform.
You are what you eat! Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; Therefore, keep it holy (wholly).

Arsenio.

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Do Grown-Ups Really Need to Drink Milk?

By Ari LeVaux, AlterNet. Posted July 22, 2009.

Despite what the food pyramid says, we don't need milk after we're babies. Maybe it's time to wean ourselves from cows and grow up

Should grown-ups be drinking milk at all, much less the milk of another species?

Mammals are named after the milk-producing glands that developed as a way to feed babies, but only humans continue drinking mammary secretions after infancy -- and no other species drinks the milk of another. Today, dairy consumption is at the center of several interconnected social, economic, and health crises. Maybe it's time to reconsider our relationship with dairy.

"Every time the milk truck pulls in, more money leaves the farm," says Philip Ranny, a seventh-generation Vermont dairy farmer so in debt he's decided to sell his herd. Across the country, farmers are going bankrupt, cashing in their IRAs, and selling their herds to slaughter because a crash in the price of milk has left them earning less for their milk than it costs to produce it.

And while wholesale prices have dropped by half, retail prices have remained relatively steady. That's been good business for distributors like Dean Foods, which controls about 70 percent of the milk production in Vermont. Its dairy subsidiary reported $182 million in operating income in the first quarter of 2009, 39% more than it earned in the first quarter of 2008, when wholesale milk prices were strong.

Increased supply and decreased demand are both weighing on the price. One factor that affects both sides of the equation is rBGH, a genetically engineered hormone that increases milk production when injected into cows. While rBGH has helped increase supply by boosting production, it's hurt demand by shutting export markets like Canada and the EU, which don't allow milk from rBGH cows for health concerns.

So controversial even Monsanto got out of the business (selling the patent to drug maker Eli Lilly), rBGH causes increased levels of carcinogenic Insulin-like Growth Factor (IGF-1) in milk. Due to domestic consumer rejection of rBGH milk, many retailers, like Starbucks and Chipotle's, have pledged not to use rBGH in their products. When large distributers pool milk from rBGH and non-rBGH cows, it disqualifies the whole lot from export.

Public fear of rBGH has helped sales of organic milk, which is required by law to be rBGH-free. But organic dairies have problems of their own.

About 20 large industrial dairies, milking 1,500-7,000 cows each, produce roughly 40% of the nation's organic milk. Under the Bush administration, USDA repeatedly looked the other way as large corporate agribusinesses violated federal standards while jumping on the organic bandwagon.

The poster child for this regulatory failure is Aurora Farms, which operates five factory farms in Colorado and Texas and supplies the store-brand organic milk to Wal-Mart, Target, Safeway, Costco and other national chains. In 2007, Aurora was found to have "willfully" violated numerous organic regulations by USDA investigators, but the company appallingly mild sanctions -- including zero dollars in fines -- from USDA appointees who rejected staff recommendations calling for revocation of Aurora's organic certification.

On July 16 in West Salem, Wisconsin, nearly 200 organic dairy farmers and supporters gathered at the La Crosse County Fair to grab the attention of one of the fair's marquee attendees, USDA chief Tom Vilsack. They urged Vilsack to take action against factory farms that are saturating the organic market with non-organic milk, taking advantage of organic's price advantage without incurring the expenses associated by following the rules -- like feeding certified organic grain to their cattle.

"I commit to you that we will enforce the rules," Vilsack told the crowd. But even if Vilsack becomes the guardian angel of organic dairy, the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about will continue farting its dairy-fueled stink-bombs.

A recent episode of the Diane Rehm Show, a nationally broadcast left-leaning radio program, assembled a politician, a dairy industry advocate, a farm advocate, and a USDA undersecretary to discuss problems facing dairy. Most of the conversation focused on federally-funded bailout options for the dairy industry, but one caller made a futile attempt to frame the problem in a larger context. Voicing concerns that milk isn't good for adults and that dairy production creates a lot of greenhouse gas, she was disconnected mid-sentence.

After a moment of audible snickers among the guests, Ruth Saunders of the International Dairy Foods Association gave a limp response: "the dietary guidelines for Americans have always had as one of their key recommendations three daily servings [of dairy]."

Saunders didn't mention that these recommendations largely exist because of intensive lobbying efforts by organizations like hers. But scientific research that's not in the pocket of Big Dairy tells a different story. According to the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, "approximately 75% of the world's population loses the ability to completely digest lactose after infancy." And Harvard researcher Ganmaa Davaasambuu, M.D., Ph.D., has found that dairy intake correlates with ovarian cancer, testicular cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and other so-called "hormone-dependent" tumors because of the high levels of estrogen in cows' milk -- especially in milk from pregnant cows, which are routinely milked in large dairy operations.

Meanwhile, the disconnected caller had a valid point about the cattle industry's greenhouse gas emissions, which constitute 2% of the national output. When fed soy-rich diets, as most large dairy herds are, cows belch methane, which traps 20 times more atmospheric heat than carbon dioxide.

While the lifestyle-changing crisis afflicting dairy farmers is creating heartbreaking stories, perhaps for the greater good this is an opportunity in disguise. There are other ways to make a living off the land, and instead of federal price supports, maybe that money should be spent on re-tooling dairy farms. Despite what the food pyramid says, we don't need milk after we're babies. Maybe it's time to wean ourselves from cow tits and grow up.

If not quitting cold turkey, perhaps we should turn it down a notch or two and consider limiting dairy products to special occasions, rather than as a daily staple. If we return the dairy industry to it's small-scale, alfalfa-fed roots, where producers have personal and respectful relationships with their animals and make fine artisanal products like cheese or yogurt, perhaps there's a place for such delicacies. A splash of cream in your coffee, or a pad of butter in your mushrooms, might not kill the world. But maybe the days of standing in front of the open fridge chugging milk from the bottle will come to an end.

Source: http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141469/do_grown-ups_really_need_to_drink_milk/?page=entire

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