Saturday, October 20, 2012

Husbands G.B. Quietly Confident.

I've learned something this week. Or rather, I am in the process of learning something. To be unfailingly confident. I have to tell you that this is clearly a problem for me in general. For one reason or another, I find it difficult to be confident all of the time, In fact, because of my constantly being sick, I tend to be on the 'glass-half-empty-until-some-numbnut-knocked-the-whole-thing-over' part of the scale. I married someone who is positive, or at least much more positive than my negative; and she is good at seeing the good in all sorts of things. I have really needed that the last month or so.

Although generally speaking the GAPS diet allows the body to get better and better, sometimes you can get worse. This has been the case the last 3 or 4 weeks. I have been feeling run-down, nasty and really tired. I have been having day sleeps again, but I am aware that my descent backwards is not terminal. I put this backwards spiral down to a number of different factors: 1. My stomach is not fully healed so really I need to take Biokult every day to help kick it into gear a bit. Unfortunately I have been forgetting. 2. Sugar- I don't eat any sugar, but I do put an exceeding amount of honey in my cups of tea. This is not a good idea, because it feeds the bad bugs in your stomach, and makes your wife say "Do you want some tea with your honey" which causes general grumpiness and unhappiness. 3. I've been adding food too quickly and an excess of it. If I can have something sweet I will eat more than my share of it. 4. My children wake up 2 hours earlier for some reason due to daylight savings and we have inherited a juvenile dog that licks ears at 6:00.

But I have noticed something interesting in my journey these last few weeks, something that children have been teaching me. To be quietly confident. The first instance is my youngest who is learning how to walk. For the last couple of weeks he has been hanging on to everything, taking a step or two towards something else to hang on to. When He feels like he is going to fall over, he bends his little legs to sit down and crawl. He is entirely capable of walking but he doesn't trust his own abilities. His little tentative steps are met with thunderous applause from siblings and parents alike! It has lead him to a point where today he was about to sit down when we clapped and shouted for joy at his walking! Instead of sitting down, he took another two or three brave steps over to a convenient ledge and gave an enormous grin! It's heartening to see his confidence growing so quickly. The other instance was today at little athletics. We have just started doing little athletics (The children, not me. I would rather eat a bucket full of hair). and we have given each of them little encouraging claps and high fives when they do the right thing. But today I saw something which made me smile. One of the more experienced boys stepped up to the middle of the shotput ring. He strode up to the ring like he owned it and you could virtually see his little mind thinking 'this is going OUT OF THE PARK' It didn't. But it was a very good throw and it made me think about quiet confidence again.

Most of the time when I do something good, my wife gives me a compliment, or a thank you, but if I don't get it, I (being silly) compliment myself (e.g. 'I just washed the dishes! Go Me!, or 'I just put the washing on the line, Good on Me!'). I figure if no-ones going to affirm me I may as well do it myself! Yes it's a bit silly but how else is confidence formed? If we can't reward ourselves for the good that we have done, and we can't remind ourselves how far we have progressed, how can we be happy to progress further?

Because of us feeling run down we will have to probably go back to stage 1 for a little while, and stop eating nuts. This will be a challenge, because I like nuts and I will have to give up tea. However I have progressed far enough that I know that I can give up Mr Dilmah for a little while without having homicidal urges.I know that if I have done it once. I can do it again. That's quiet confidence.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

GAPS Coconut cinnamon custard.

When we first brought our thermomix we weren't on GAPS, and one of our favorite recipes was Custard. So when we came to GAPS I really wanted a recipe so that we could still have custard. I have found a few recipes online, but they were more complicated than I wanted, so I thought I would simply have a go at making up my own recipe. So here it is.

Ingredients
5 eggs
400mls of coconut cream
1 tbs of cinnamon
1/3 cup of honey
2 vanilla beans (scrap the insides)


Add all ingredients to the thermomix bowl, on temp 90 degrees, for 8 mins, speed 4. Enjoy!

Now for those of you that don't have a thermomix don't dispare, you can still make this recipe. Combine all the ingredients in a heat proof bowl, and whisk over a sauce pan of water until your custard is firming up.

It will be more firm on standing. :)

p.s. when I work out how to up load pictures on this computer I will post a photo to go along with all my recipes.

If you try it tell me what you think :)

Monday, October 8, 2012

Give Away TIme

Hi all, I have been blogging for quiet a while now, so I think it's about time I have a giveaway. Sorry to say but this give away is only open to Australian readers. I will be giving away I 500ml bottle of Neways Feroxin valued at 52.90 RRP.




Feroxin is a naturally occurring mineral drink. The Neydharting Moor is located within a fertile valley in a remote region of Austria. Encased by non-porous, glacial rock this unique and unspoiled environment has long been praised for the beneficial properties of its biomass.

The ‘Alpine Moor Biomass’ is the result of a complex biological process, uninterrupted since the last ice age, as the hundreds of various types of herbs which flourish along the Austrian alpine lakes are washed into the moor along pristine streams. This plant material combines with the minerals deposited on to the lake floor over thousands of years to produce the rich natural mix of essential nutrients, minerals and trace elements you’ll find in Feroxin.

Feroxin is one of the mineral supplements that I use for my families health. If you have read on of my blog meal plans you will see that we start our day with mineral water. Their are three types I use. Changing habits, changing lives colloidal minerals, King Island colloidal minerals , and Feroxin.

So here is your change to own a bottle and give it a try. All you have to do win is, subscribe to my blog, and leave a comment below to let me know you want to win :)


The winner will be draw at random on the 10th of November.

If your on facebook and want to like my pages, The joy of the home and Mathewson's Cultures Follow the links, Hope to see you there.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Week 7 - Stage 5 and 6

Hi all I hope you are going well, and have lots of success as you move through the diet. I would like to remind readers Ben is still having issues with nuts, so are moving forward with out including nuts, or having them within limits. So if you have no problems with them, don't forget you can include them now, and make nut bread, and pancakes.

We are also hoping to move through stages 5 and 6 this week. Stage 5 includes cooked peeled apples in fat, adding fruit to your juices (no more than 40% fruit) and starting with Raw veggies and salads. Stage 6 includes peeled raw apples, other raw fruits, more honey, and adding baked goods.

This week our local health food shop has got in top quality Gelatine. Which we will use to make jelly, which everyone is looking forward to trying out. :) if you want a recipe for making nourishing jelly cheeseslave has a great recipe for making it.

This weeks meal plan

So we will aim to get juicing in every morning this week, adding our minerals and lemon juice to it, we may even include beet kvass.

Snacks for the week: Activated nuts, Yoghurt with some honey, boiled eggs, pickled eggs, any left overs, sour cream, milk kefir, jelly and ferments.

Monday
Breakfast: Meat Balls, with fried eggs and Sauerkraut.
Lunch: Celeriac Soup and homemade sour cream.
Dinner: Roast Chicken Served with boiled veggies, ghee, gravy and Sauerkraut.


Tuesday
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with fresh herbs and Fermented Tomato sauce.
Lunch: Chicken soup with sour cream.
Dinner: Honey mustard chicken pieces, with boiled veggies, sauerkraut.
Dessert: Cooked apples in Ghee with yoghurt.

Wednesday
Breakfast: Omelete, served with a salad of cucumbers and tomatoes with cherry chutney.
Lunch: Pumpkin soup with Sour cream.
Dinner: grilled steaks with gravy, boiled veggies, ghee, and sauerkraut.
Dessert: cooked apples in ghee with sour cream.

Thursday
Breakfast : Omelete, with mashed avocado, fried onion in ghee, fermented salsa, kefir cheese and Sauerkraut.
Lunch: Leek Soup with yoghurt.
Dinner: Poached fish, in fish stock and lemon. Served with salad, and Sauerkraut.
Dessert: cooked apples with kefir

Friday
Breakfast: Meat Balls with Veggie and Onion Gravy and fresh herbs and Avocado Mash.
Lunch: Onion and leek soup, with salad and sauerkraut.
Dinner: Lamb roast, with boiled veggies, and baked pumpkin gravy and sauerkraut. (I'll do extra pumpkin for pancakes in the morning)
Dessert: Raw peeled apple.

Saturday
Breakfast:Pumpkin pancakes, with fermented raspberry mint sauce and sour cream. Side plate of left over lamb and gravy.
Lunch: Onion and Leek Soup with fermented chutney.
Dinner: Roasted chicken, with baked veggies, gravy and sauerkraut.
Snack: a raw piece of fruit.

Sunday
Breakfast: Meat Balls with Veggie and Onion Gravy and fresh herbs and Avocado Mash.
Lunch: Pumpkin soup with salad and sauerkraut.
Dinner: Butter chicken, with salad and sauerkraut.

Again this is my meal plan, so please adjust the meals to ones that your family will enjoy. Giving new soups a try, like beetroot soup, carrot soup, cauliflower soup, Zucchini soup etc. We really love lamb more than we do beef, so if you like beef casserole, or steaks change to them. :)


Love to hear from you some time about what it working for your family. :)

Fermented Tomato sauce

15 Tomatoes
3 Onions
3 cloves of Garlic
2 tsp of salt
2Tbs of Sage or Basil
½ tsp of chilli powder
2 tsp of sweet paprika
⅓ cup of whey

Blend all together in a thermomix, and then set to cook 100 for 40 mins, on speed 1.
Check for salt, let cool. When finger cool add ⅓ cup of whey and bottle. Leaving to ferment for two days on the counter and then move to cool storage.

Non Thermomix instructions, Put all the ingredients into a blender or food processor, blend well. Transfer to a large pot, and slow boil for around 40 mins. leave to cook, add whey and bottle. Leave to ferment for 2 days on the counter and then transfer to cool storage/fridge.

Husband's G.B. 7: Dealing with Feelings.

My wife hates swearing.

She grew up in a family where swearing was part of her culture. My story is slightly different. My parents rarely swore, but my problem was growing up, through one reason or another, that I found it extremely difficult to express negative emotions.

That's changed now. Sort of.

I think as we had each child, I have realised how weak and emotionally unstable I actually am. Many might say to us "well, don't have any more children then if you can't handle them", but as we have had more children I have seen that I can be a very decent father as well, and my heart has room for more children. I cannot blame anyone but me for my behaviour, but I do think some if not most of the issues I have had with feeling out of control are to do with diet. See, what I think many doctors, and even non- medical people tend to misunderstand is that diet can seriously affect mental stability, and as my sweet wife pointed out this morning 'If your bowels are irritated, why wouldn't the rest of you be?' Quite so. In some cases in America, they have even defended killers based on diet.

Look at this link for example:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/502008-diet-and-criminal-behavior/

In another study (and I will find out who did it if you are interested enough to ask), researchers tried changing the diets in prison from high empty calorie, high transfatty, high carb foods to low carb foods, closer to the natural diet. The change was remarkable. Their aggression levels totally changed. Some admitted that they wanted to pick flowers, while others said they considered entering into social work, and there were a few who wanted to play Kum Ba Yah on their guitars and take up interior decorating (no, not really, I just made that up); but the study did show remarkable results on behaviour.

In point of fact I asked my children when we were sitting at the table whether they thought I was more angry with them before we started the diet or after. They all said "before", after a bit of thinking. In the last couple of months I have seen little flashes of calm emerging, and my patience level becoming higher. I do not endorse swearing but often swearing is a shorthand and ineffective way of saying how we really feel. I am studying counselling right now and according to my book there are right ways and wrong ways of adequately expressing anger. For those not studying counselling let me demonstrate:

Wrong way: You little sh@# What the f@*k are you smashing that jar for you idiot!
Right way: I feel angry when you smash my jar, because I've already asked you to look after it.

For men who like words, here are other ones that can describe your feelings:

affronted, annoyed, antagonized, bitter, chafed, choleric, convulsed, cross, displeased, enraged, exacerbated, exasperated, ferocious, fierce, fiery, fuming, furious, galled, hateful, heated, hot, huffy, ill-tempered, impassioned, incensed, indignant, inflamed, infuriated, irascible, irate, ireful, irritable, irritated, maddened, nettled, offended, outraged, piqued, provoked, raging, resentful, riled, sore, splenetic, storming, sulky, sullen, tumultous/tumultuous, turbulent, uptight, vexed, wrathful

Personally I would use the more common ones as you don't want your wife and children laughing at you when you say you feel "nettled", which by the way will make you feel even more nettled at them laughing at you. A better question is "why are you angry?" are you insecure? Are you sad about something? are you overwhelmed? (which was definately the case for me some of the time) or to misquote Kirstie Alley in 'Look Whose Talking' are you "going through a selfish phase right now". Try that one on your wife. Might be fun. (or not!).

Fermented Cherry Chutney

1200grams of fresh or frozen Cherries
8 peeled and diced apples
3 Diced onions
1 TBS of Chinese 5 spices
¼ cup of honey
½ cup of whey.

Put apples and onion in a frying pan with enough water to stop them burning. On medium heat cooked until soft, add in cherries, honey, and spice, and cook until the cherries are breaking down. Take off the heat and let cool. The mixture needs to be cool enough so that when you put your finger in it isn’t too hot. At this point you can add the whey, and stir through. Put into jars and let ferment for 2 days on the bench then transfer to cool store/fridge.