My parents were children of the Great Depression, so leftovers were a regular feature at our dinner table. My mother never threw everything into one pot, like a “hobo stew,” but instead served the drips and drabs on a night we called “Druthers.” It got this name from the question, “Would you druther have this or that?” She believed a little bit of food shouldn’t go to waste if there were children starving in China. We lived far away from China, but her missionary heart invited us kids to consider the plight of others and be thankful for leftovers. After all, we should be glad for the food on our table.
Medically Approved!
Of course, we were children of the prosperous 1950’s, and were brought up on Tang, the drink of astronauts, and Wonder Bread, which builds bodies eight ways with added vitamins and minerals. We wanted interesting food, not recycled food. Yes, we were spoiled. Our parents weren’t having this conversation. Instead, they insisted we remember our humble origins and eat leftovers.
The Jif peanut butter brand was created in 1958
This family drama could have played out in several ways in the next generation. We children could have decided we weren’t going to inflict such indignities upon our own children. We might have done this by “short order cooking” meals to everyone’s taste or getting takeout for every meal. Or by cooking just enough so we had no leftovers (my favorite). If people were still hungry, peanut butter and crackers were in the cabinet and fruit was in the fridge. I also would plan my meals with a soup night in mind, so I could have the leftovers appear as a part of that recipe.
Veggie Soup with Chicken
My traveling nurse neighbor recently went back home to the East coast. She cleaned out her ice box before traveling home. I made a good soup of her “leftovers” and enjoyed it very much. I hope she takes an assignment here next year. She was a delight to have as a neighbor.
Another option is to realize we Americans toss out 30% of our food each year. Repurposing our leftovers is the best way to avoid the greenhouse gasses and economic loss to our pocketbooks. Which brings me to leftover blueberry donuts and bread pudding. I’ve always known how to make rice pudding and stale bread pudding, but donuts are a new favorite recipe.
Leftover Blueberry Donut Bread Pudding
INGREDIENTS:
3 leftover donuts
1 Tbs unsalted butter
2 large eggs
170 grams 5% plain Fage Greek yogurt (3/4 Cup)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup wild blueberries (small enough to get into the nooks and crannies)
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
Lightly spray a small baking pan with cooking spray. Add in the doughnut chunks.
In a medium bowl, mix together the eggs, Greek yogurt, cinnamon, melted butter and vanilla. Mix well. Add the wild blueberries. Pour the egg and fruit mixture over the doughnuts. Press on top of the chunks of donuts to combine. Allow to sit for around 5 minutes so that the doughnuts absorb the liquid. (I didn’t wait and it turned out great).
Cover the baking pan with foil and bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove the foil and return to the oven for an additional 25 minutes, or until the pudding pulls away from the edges and the center tests “clean” when a toothpick is inserted.
This makes 3 servings.
Tasker, William, Artist. Help US Preserve Your Surplus…food . Pennsylvania Philadelphia, None. [Philadelphia, pa.: wpa war services project, between 1941 and 1943] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/98518439/.
My old Nannie, who saw rationing in two world wars, was fond of saying, “Waste not, want not.” As a steward of God’s creation, caring for God’s resources so everyone can be full is one way we can live out our Christian witness. Enjoying leftovers is a plus in my book.
Nutrition Information
Joy, peace, and a Happy Thanksgiving to all my Kitchen family!
Beatrix Potter’s Garden: Inspiration for her Books
When Benjamin Bunny sneaks into Mr. McGregor’s garden at the first of October, he’s sure to find Marigold and Cosmos flowers planted abundantly. These fall colors set the scene for the changing season, even if our Arkansas temperatures still feel like summer time. We’ve been averaging about 11 degrees F above our normal high. At least the marigolds, symbols of creativity, passion, and optimism, are reminding this sweaty bunny cooler days are not far off. The cosmos, a symbol of peace, tranquility, and harmony, will be lovely in a bouquet when I have my first sweater day.
Week 1 of October is Get Organized Week. If this rabbit ever gets organized, it’ll be the end of the world as we know it. Week 2 is Fire Prevention and Pet Peeve Week. As the sun sets earlier, some folks begin to burn candles. Let’s keep them away from flammable materials and don’t go to sleep and leave them burning. I’ve been on some spiritual retreats in which late into the night, the candles caught the stage on fire, not to mention one lingering post Thanksgiving coffee and pie session when the centerpiece burst into flames! Watch those rabbits leap into action! As I approach the “age of forgetting things,” I’m using battery candles, so I have one less thing to concern my rabbit mind.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. ~~ Matthew 5:16
My Pet Peeve is Candy Corn. It ranks about even with Circus Peanuts. I know rabbits who dearly love these two sugar bombs, but give me dark chocolate any day. At least it has flavonoids and some passing acquaintance with “health.” These other two candies are straight sugar without even a vitamin added! Candy Corn was invented in the 1880’s, at a time when American sugar confectioners were molding liquid sugars into different agricultural shapes. At the time, our nation was distinctly rural, with half of workers employed on farms. The candy was first marketed as “Chicken Feed,” because corn wasn’t really a food most Americans considered fit for human consumption.
Vintage Candy Corn Advertisement
When World War I caused wheat shortages, Americans turned to corn flour, corn meal, and cornbread, foods which once were considered “poor folks’ food.” War became a great equalizer, in life as well as in death. Even after World War I, candy corn maintained its association with chickens. Packages of candy corn from the Goelitz Candy Company in the 1920’s displayed a rooster and the motto, “King of the Candy Corn Fields.” After the turn of the century, bunny children bought this candy in bulk for a penny and kept many a dentist in business. In the 1950’s candy corn became a Halloween staple, so much so nearly 35 million pounds are sold every year.
Jim Doran, Circus Peanut, mixed media, @10’ tall, 2010, Baltimore.
Circus Peanuts are 2023’s #1 Most Hated Halloween Candy, followed by Candy Corn at #2. Please don’t buy these for the darling bunnies who dressed up to beg at your door for a treat or a trick. Or you could keep a stash for teenagers who’re too old to be out and about, but then the upcoming “Do Something Nice Day” might be difficult for us. Remember, we rabbits form our habits from an early age, so limiting added sugar to occasional treats and giving little bunnies natural sugar is a better choice for a healthy life. My trainer used to remind me I could never out exercise a bad diet, so most of my benefits were gained in the kitchen.
I’m not sure I could drink this coffee…
International Coffee Day is October 1. As far as this bunny is concerned, every day is Coffee Day, but I do like my coffee. I take mine black at home, and barely treated up in the coffee shop. National Frappe Day is October 7. Don’t confuse the Greek Frappe with the Starbucks Frappuchino: the former is shaken and the latter is blended. Of course, we rabbits don’t need an official day to celebrate with our brew of choice. Every day is coffee day.
The first two weeks of October wrap up National Hispanic Heritage Month plus National Taco Day is October 4. The origin of the word taco comes from the Nahuatl’s “tlahco,” translating to “half, or in the middle” in English. This describes the way we fold this tasty flatbread before eating it. Tacos are made from the crop we know as corn, which was domesticated from wild teosinte grass as far back as 8,000 years ago in Mesoamerica. The maize grown in the Americas (Zea mays) wasn’t eaten fresh like sweet corn, but was allowed to dry on the stalk and then ground into flour for tortillas, corn breads and corn mush. From its origins in central Mexico, knowledge of maize production spread to all corners of North and South America. The first European settlers learned to grow maize from the Indigenous peoples already present in the New World.
Mayan Maize God Statue is a photograph by Philippe Psaila, Figure of the Mayan maize god holding ears of maize (corn). Maize was an important staple food of the Mayan civilisation, which developed around 1800BC and ended with the arrival of the Spanish in the 14th Century AD. Photographed at the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City.
Do Something Nice Day is October 5. Of course we bunnies shouldn’t wait until an official day to do something nice for someone, as 1 Thessalonians 5:15 reminds us:
“See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.”
If we bunnies keep acting like this, we’ll make World Smile Day, October 6, into a daily occurrence. What a concept, we bunnies acting for the common good, rather than what’s merely in our special interest. If we find life too hard to smile, remember National Depression Screening Day is October 8.
The Mad Hatter
Mad Hatter Day is October 6 because the Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland wears a hat with a 10/6 tag. Hatters were known to be a tad loopy because they used mercury in the felting process to make the top hats in fashion during the 19th century. France banned the use of this toxic substance in 1898, but until WWII took priority, mercury was used in American felt hats. Now hydrogen peroxide is used instead. As we consider workplace safety and health, don’t forget World Mental Health Day is October 10. For those bunnies who work from home, paid or unpaid, your mental health is also important. Reach out for help—don’t suffer alone—others have been where you are now. It’s never the end of your journey as long as we keep walking together.
Also happening near mid month is Earth Sciences Week from the 8th to the 14th. This is a week dedicated helping the community understand the earth sciences and to encourage all us rabbits to practice Earth stewardship. Science helps understand the interconnection of species and habitats, while faith helps us understand our place in the great scheme of all things. As Psalms 24:1 reminds us:
“The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it,
the world, and those who live in it;”
Omelette with Butternut Squash, Spinach, and Cheese
World Egg Day is October 13. This is a day to enjoy your eggs sunny side up, scrambled, as an omelette, a quiche, or French toast. Eggs have gotten a bad rap over the years, falling out of favor because of their cholesterol levels. Of course, we also tend to eat our eggs with fried bacon, sausage, and heavily buttered toast or biscuits. Maybe we impugn the egg, when it’s their fellow travelers that bring along the excess fat and cholesterol baggage instead. Anyway, as the ancient Greeks were fond of saying, “Moderation in all things,” and “Nothing to excess.”
To be alive is the strange and wondrous miracle we forget.
Global Handwashing Day and National Mushroom Day are both celebrated on October 15. As a reminder, mushrooms from the grocery store need to be washed before you put them in a salad or cut them up to cook, just as your bunny paws should be washed before you begin to handle food in the kitchen. As we approach cooler weather, we’ll all be inside with our families and friends, as well as with our colleagues at work and our social gatherings. These aren’t well ventilated places, so we’ll need to use good handwashing techniques when we return home, so we won’t bring germs and viruses inside with us.
Bunny K9 Germ Officer
I know I sound like a bunny germ cop, but of the 40% of Americans who’ve had COVID, 1 in 5 of those are still experiencing long COVID symptoms. That’s nearly 9 million adults who’re still affected by long COVID symptoms, as well as over 380,000 children. The pandemic may be officially over, but COVID still stalks us like an ex that won’t let go. This bunny is about tired of all this, but we’ll all get through this hard time together. Sometimes we think our actions only affect us, but when we jump into the great pond of life, our splashes get not only those near to us wet, but the ripples from our entry travel far out to the distant shore.
Actions have consequences
We may not see how our actions or inactions affect others, but rest assured they do. We do well to remember The Golden Rule as Jesus taught it in Matthew 7:12–
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”
Unfortunately, too many little rabbits today live in fear, so they never risk doing good in case they get harmed in return. Better to do nothing, never stick your neck out or get trapped, by entering into the world. In the Golden Rule principle, if you do nothing for no one, no one will do anything for you. Our lives are communal: we live in families, neighborhoods, towns, and cities. We also have counties and countries of which we’re a part, not to mention athletic teams we cheer for and hobbies we practice with other interested folks. As the Buddhist principle of karma understands it, “What goes around, comes back around.” In other words, we get out of life what we put into it. If we want a richer, deeper, more meaningful life, we practice the activities of the heart, mind, compassion, and community to bring us into a more meaningful life. If we want a small life, we shrink within our shell.
Leave No One Behind.
World Food Day is October 16. It celebrates the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) aim to help the lives of people in third-world countries and rural populations, to aid countries in famine, and to contribute to their economic growth. They do this by highlighting the importance of agricultural productivity, helping countries to change their agricultural policies and implement new technology, and providing a safe and neutral space for politicians to discuss agricultural issues. The theme this year is “Water is life, water is food. Leave no one behind.”
World hunger is still a problem. An estimated 829 million people still go hungry every day, approximately 11% of the global population. There was a large increase in the number of people without food between 2019 and 2022 due to war, COVID-19, and related issues such as homelessness and poverty. The continued Russian aggression against Ukraine has diminished their once dominant sunflower oil industry and decreased their wheat production and exports. Although the USA doesn’t purchase these agricultural commodities, the nations in Africa do. With the price increases, the economic instability in multiple countries has led to multiple military coups. Because the African continent has a growing population and is expected to surpass even the Chinese population by 2100, economic and political stability in this part of the world is important to the rest of us around the world.
Week 3 is Pastoral Care Week. Remember, your pastor takes care of the body of Christ, both within and without the church walls, all year long. On the 3rd week of October, I hope the body of Christ takes care of the pastor.
The best candy gets sold out, the least candy goes for half price.
Most of October in my rabbit hollow will be taken up with decorating for Halloween or All Hallow’s Eve as it’s known in the church. Already the front porches and bushes near my own cozy den are overwhelmed with pumpkins, straw bales, cobwebs, scarecrows, witches, ghostly sheets, and other ghoulish creatures. Some of these items will be stashed away come November and the remainder will be Thanksgiving motifs. These will soon be whisked away or trashed if they’ve been too long in the elements (this is an earth science project for you—start a compost pile with your outdoor decorations rather than put them in the trash. Your garden will thank you.)
Nights come early these days
The change of seasons always puts me in a Robert Frost mood. Some can’t resist barn attire, boots, and corduroy jeans, but I’m still wearing sandals and shorts. Still, an October Poem from 1915 by Robert Frost seems appropriate:
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.
Shadows on the Greenway
The harvest season is upon us. May yours be bountiful and the days be sunny.
Dieting is an abnormal way to eat. It may lead to temporary weight loss, but for most people, the weight comes back and then some. This leads to yo-yo weight cycling, and a person’s loss of self esteem. As the years go by, they either give up and gain weight year after year, or put their body through the feast and famine cycle of fad diets. This can lead to disordered eating if the person didn’t have a disorder to begin. In years past, smoking tobacco was a “cure” as was “amphetamines.” No reasonable person today recommends these for weight loss anymore due to adverse effects.
If soap could wash away body fat, I’d stay in the shower till it turned cold.
Diet culture is so pervasive today the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reports 46% of 9-11 year-olds are “sometimes” or “very often” on diets. Back in the dinosaur age, I never heard the word “diet” when I was on the swim team or going to camp. Today 35-57% of adolescent girls engage in crash dieting, fasting, self-induced vomiting, diet pills, or laxatives.
Giacometti: Multiple Sculptures
I’ll admit I often skipped breakfast in high school and cut lunch periods to drive around with my friends. I chose a soda pop and Hostess Frosted Donuts for lunch. I wasn’t crash dieting, but I wasn’t eating properly either. By mid year, I paid for this disordered eating with anemia. My Dad wrote me a prescription for three square meals a day and eight hours of sleep per night. It wasn’t a punishment, but a lesson in discipline for what’s good for my body. I needed to learn this before I went off to college on my own.
The vitamin B1 doesn’t cancel out the fat and sugar. This is called “health-washing.”
While only 9% of the U.S. population will have an eating disorder in their lifetime, this still represents 28.8 million Americans. Eating disorders are among the deadliest mental illnesses, second only to opioid overdoses. 10,200 deaths each year are the direct result of an eating disorder—that’s one death every 52 minutes. The economic cost of eating disorders is $64.7 billion every year. Another sad statistic is about 26% of people with eating disorders attempt suicide annually. Athletes of both sexes and LBTQIA+ persons are likely to present with disordered eating patterns, either to be underweight or to “bulk up.”
Approximately 98% of patients with eating disorders have functional GI (gastrointestinal) disorders. In most cases, the eating disorder comes first, but for a few disease states, where people are either afraid to eat or restrict their food intake because they blame food for their symptoms, maladaptive eating can be triggered.
Botero: The Dancers
We need to change our goal from “losing weight” to “developing healthy habits.” This way we can focus on not only the foods we choose, but also the reasons why we eat, our activity patterns, and our sleep habits. How we manage stress also plays a part in our overall health, as do our friendships and social connections. Finally, our spiritual health needs to be in a positive connection with our “higher power,” and we might find a spiritual guide or certified counselor helpful to keep that positive attitude from month to month. We don’t have to be sick to see a counselor, but a counselor can help us keep our heads tied on straight.
Unless we have a confirmed allergy to a particular food, demonizing certain foods or food groups only plays into the diet culture. Many people are unaware of the advancements in the food allergy space and don’t know they may be able to take measures through a process called oral immunotherapy, or OIT, to minimize their risk for severe, life-threatening reactions. For the rest of us, eating from all the major food groups during the week allows us to get our micronutrients. Eating consistently sized portions of vegetables, grains, meats, fish, and fats in our meals allows our bodies to absorb the foods and not overwork to digest a huge meal.
Everyone’s body is different. Even though I have prediabetes, my pancreas still produces insulin, although I have “insulin resistance.” I can still have ice cream treats on occasions. I choose the best ice cream, since it has fat, carbs, and protein. I find it stays around longer than the sugar free type, which drops my blood sugar quickly. I have a friend who takes insulin injections, and he never touches the stuff. At least not when he’s with me.
It’s the portion that matters. When my mother was being treated for pancreatic cancer, I was at the hospital in my hometown all week long and back at my church on the weekends. I ate cheesecake every day during that traumatic experience. After she died, I grieved hard, but finally came around to taking care of myself. It was difficult, because I put others first.
It’s been a long journey, but I’ve lost 50 pounds slowly. If I keep to the plan I’ve made, I’ll be slimmer and healthier year by year. Making a lifestyle change is a long term commitment and investment in your overall health and wellbeing. Now if I want to eat ice cream, I have two scoops, every couple of months, knowing it isn’t going to kill me. I just have to remember not to add an entire take out pizza along with the ice cream.
Surely, we can reorder our thinking about how we eat and why we eat. If we change our attitude, we can change our behavior, and if our behavior changes, then we’ll get different consequences. As always, food for thought…
This Saturday passed without my seeing the sun once again. No, I haven’t taken to sleeping all day and being up all night like some vampire of the dark. Instead, our neck of the woods, which has suffered from a drought, is now getting all our past due moisture in one fell swoop.
1930’s Vamp with Vampire Noodling on Neck
We did see about 2 inches of rain in October, 1.78 in November, and an extra 1 inch in the first 10 days of December. Today we got another inch in the thunderstorm that rolled through. What’s a gal to do? I used most of my morning to drink coffee and winnow down my disregarded emails from my month long vacation out west. I didn’t read them, but just deleted all that were over a month old. I’m retired, so if anything’s truly important, I know folks will get back to me. Then I gave myself a well deserved pedicure.
Half Caffeine Coffee and Rain
I needed this selfcare, for my life has been chaotic of late. When I get stressed, I get the premonitions of an oncoming seizure. I see floating across my eyes colored designs which look like cut paper snowflakes, doilies, or geometric shapes. I can either pay attention to this early warning system known as an aura, or I can power through and do the things others think I should be doing.
A seizure disorder is one of those hidden conditions which we often can control with major lifestyle changes and proper medication. I may want to be someplace for my own enjoyment and to support and encourage others, but sometimes I’m not able to do that. I regret this, but a lifetime of stressful situations has lowered my seizure threshold. If I start having seizures again, I lose my driving privileges. I’m not ready to give up my independence yet.
Ragged Omelette: a metaphor for my day
Perhaps the slow patter of the rain was good for my soul and my body. I decided the couch and quiet Christmas music would help heal my stress. About 2 pm I began to feel hungry. My technique was off, but my appetite wasn’t. Andouille sausage, spinach, and sharp cheddar cheese with rosemary garlic seasoning made a great, if ragged omelette. Once I was no longer hungry, I could get into other kitchen trouble.
Stress always sends me straight to the chocolate aisle. I have one cabinet shelf dedicated to chocolate, which I usually buy when it’s on sale. Good chocolate is even better when you don’t pay full price for it. I like to chop it up and use it in recipes, as well as eating it as a treat. I knew I was getting bad off when I put the big bag of fun size variety M&M’s in my cart. If the apocalypse comes, I have the chocolate!
M&M’s Variety Packs
This afternoon, as the rain dripped down my windows, I turned my back on the gloom outside. In my brightly lit kitchen—I have enough light now to land Air Force One, but not enough distance—I set my oven to 350F to preheat. Mr. Oven and I would cook up some trouble this afternoon.
I modified a recipe from the Joy of Cooking for a Nutty Sugar Cookie, but I switched out half of the flours and half the sugar. This recipe makes 13 very large cookies. It can also make 6 dozen (72) small cookies, if dropped from a tablespoon.
Plate of Giant Christmas Sugar Cookies
Here are the directions for the Giant Christmas Sugar Cookie:
Whisk together the following flours into a large bowl: 1/2 cup each of oatmeal, quinoa, and whole wheat flours, plus 1 cup all purpose white flour. Add the ¼ tsp salt and ½ tsp baking soda to the sifter too.
In a separate bowl, beat together 2 sticks of melted butter and 1 cup of coconut sugar (brown sugar) plus 1 cup Splenda.
Add into the sugar mix 2 large eggs, 1 Tbs vanilla, and then stir the dry and wet mixtures together.
Stir in 85 grams of plain M & M’s. (64 grams carbs)
Roll out on flour dusted parchment till 1/4 inch thick. Use large jar lid to cut out disks. Recombine scraps to make new slab and repeat. (Wide mouth mason jar lid)
Cook on flat greased cookie sheet for 13 to 15 minutes. Bake till golden brown.
Cool on sheet for 2 minutes, then remove to wire rack till completely cool.
Know your ingredients:
Inquiring minds may ask, “Why bother with the complicated flours? Shouldn’t I just go with 100% all purpose white flour?” My short answer is “No.”
The long reason is the other three flours have more protein and a lower glycemic index than the white flour. By substituting the other flours, we cut 28 grams of carbs from the flours. We also gain 10 more grams of fiber in the recipe, plus 6 additional grams of protein. Spread over multiple cookies, this is negligible amounts, but when we get to the main offender, sugar, we’ll really see a difference. I was out of my almond flour, which I prefer both for its nutty flavor and its lower carb count. The only downside is its lack of gluten, so baked goods don’t rise well with too much almond flour included.
If we used 2 ½ cups of all purpose flour, our carb count would be 230 grams.
By using the ½ cups of the other 3 flours, we take our carb count down to 120 grams for the other flours and 92 for the all purpose flour, for a total of 212 grams of carbs in this recipe. Divided over 13 cookies is 16 grams carbs each, which is a smidge over a standard serving of 15 grams.
Per ¼ cup of flour:
APW—23 g carbs, 1 g fiber, 4 g protein QF—18 g carbs, 1 g fiber, 4 g protein OF—20 g carbs, 3 g fiber, 4 g protein WWF—22 g carbs, 3 g fiber, 3 g protein
When cooking with Splenda, I never reduce the true sugars below half, since sugar affects the texture of your baked goods. The total carbohydrate count, just for the sugars alone, would have been 256 grams for this recipe if I’d used straight sugar. By substituting half of the sugar with Splenda, the sugar content comes down to 152 grams of carbs.
Per 1 cup/16 Tbs each:
Coconut Sugar—128 g carbs, 128 g sugars Splenda—24 g carbs, 24 g sugars
The same reasoning applies here to carb cutting. If I’d made this with two cups of sugars, I’d have 256 grams of carbs added. Splenda, when measured by the cup, rather than by the teaspoon, actually has calories, so it has 24 grams of carbs. This is because Splenda is actually made from sugar. This substitution brings the sugar carb count down to 104 grams of carbs. Over 13 cookies that adds 8 more grams of carbs. Splenda doesn’t turn bitter in heat, so it’s the best alternative sweetener for cooking. All of the other natural sweeteners all have the same carb count as sugar.
Of course, the M&M’s count for 64 grams of carbs, which add about 5 grams of carbs per cookie. Given this is a giant cookie, worthy of a Tim Allen Santa Claus belly, it’s more of a sharing with your best friend cookie.
Nutrition of the Giant Cookie
Advice from Cornie’s Kitchen:
Some of you are probably thinking, “There’s no way I can have a cookie with sugar and chocolate in it. If I take one bite, I’ll eat the whole plate!”
As you begin to think of your New Year Resolutions, may I entreat you to consider a healthy eating plan rather than a restrictive diet? If you put too many “NO’s” before your foods, soon enough you’ll begin to crave those very things. Then feelings of guilt and failure set in, along with the overeating behaviors that caused you to choose this all or nothing diet plan in the first place.
When I was in art school, my roommate and I decided to become vegetarians in our pursuit of higher consciousness. The mysteries of Indian religions were all the rage back then. We did well until we attended a picnic on a hot summer afternoon. Someone brought a huge bucket of KFC. The thicksummer air hung heavy, not only with the sweat of many human bodies playing in the sun, but also the fragrant aroma of fried chicken. My friend and I took one look at each other and made a beeline for the bucket. That was the end of that experiment in enthusiasm.
The experts who study this behavior claim the “best diet is the one you’ll stick to.” It will also include many green plants, plant proteins, lean meats and fish,vegetables, fruits, and little, if any fried foods. The Mediterranean diet and Blue Zone diets come highly recommended. Eat breakfast, lunch, and a light dinner. Walk more.
Of course, I belong to the tribe of Icandoitmyself
I ate one cookie on Saturday when I made them. On Monday, I rotated my queen mattress all by myself, even though the Internet advised two persons should do this. I was in a two year old mood of “I can do it myself!” Afterwards I understood the reason for the extra pair of hands, but I chose to take my one pair into the kitchen to rescue a Giant Christmas Cookie from Jack Frost. I’m feeling pretty proud of myself now, but I can leave the rest in the freezer for an emergency stash. Who knows when I will need a cookie and coffee again? Plus, I need a cookie to leave for Santa, as I want him to know I’ve been a very good girl this year.
Enjoying The Season with My Peeps
I hope each of you have had a very good year. May your Christmas be full of cheer and your New Year be the happiest ever.
In the middle of March, we finally had a real snowstorm here in south Arkansas. We haven’t had one in several years, so of course, the falling flakes brought out my inner child. Because I’m gimping about with plantar fasciitis, brought on by exercising in my cute shoes instead of my sensible shoes, I decided to engage in my second favorite snow day activity: baking cookies. My first favorite is tromping around in the cold and damp until I’m fully ready for a big mug of hot chocolate and the cookies my mom would be baking while we kids were outside having the rare and wonderful time of our lives.
Snow Day on the Lake
It’s almost the Spring Equinox, but the weather doesn’t seem to recognize this calendar moment. The daffodils have poked their sunny faces up above the drear ground and tiny wildflowers hug the new grasses. None of this is visible through the swirl of fat flakes outside my upper floor window. I can’t even see the other side of the lake, much less the mountain beyond it.
The weatherman said, “Look for 1 to 3 inches.”
I thought, “If I bake it, they will come.” And so it did!
If I want a good cookie recipe, I usually turn to the Joy of Cooking. This was my mom’s standby, and it’s never failed me. The newest edition is an ebook, which I find very handy. I modified the Sugar Cookie and the Chocolate Sugar Cookie from the original recipes, because I’m either terminally unable to follow directions or I find “creating variations on a theme” more my style. Feel free to make this your own, as adding chopped pecans would be a good taste too. I’d keep the regular flour at least 3:2 proportions (1 1/2 cup to 1 cup) to keep the rise and crunch the same.
Likewise, the original called for only 2 tsp vanilla, but why are people so stingy with this wonderful flavor? Or maybe as I grow older, my taste buds are less sensitive. You can back this down, if 2 tablespoons are too strong for your taste. I also increased the unsalted butter to 2 whole sticks, quite by accident, but the mix would have been really dry if I hadn’t done this. “Fortune favors the foolish,” in this case, or perhaps it was divine inspiration.
Chewy Chocolate Sugar Cookies, Before and After Cooking
I decreased the salt to 1/2 teaspoon from 3/4 teaspoon. People consume far too much salt and sugar, so we need to accustom ourselves to lower caloric treats.
CHEWY CHOCOLATE SUGAR COOKIES
About 24 to 35 cookies Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease or line 2 baking sheets or cookie pans with parchment paper.
Sift together into a medium bowl the dry ingredients. NOTE: I double sifted these ingredients to get the fine texture. 2 cups all-purpose flour ½ cup almond flour ½ cup (40g) unsweetened cocoa powder. 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon. 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup Splenda
Melt in heat proof bowl in microwave at medium power: 2 sticks unsalted butter
Add and beat to combine: 2 tablespoons vanilla
Beat in: 2 large eggs
Add the liquid to the flour mixture and combine until the dough is smooth.
Add 41 grams white chocolate wafers (cut these in half if they’re large) Add 30 grams dark chocolate wafers Mix in the chocolates to the dough.
Portion the dough by the rounded tablespoon and roll into balls. Place about 1 inch apart on the baking sheets, then flatten the balls with the bottom of a damp glass (prevents sticking).
Bake until set, about 8 to 10 minutes, switching oven racks and rotating the sheets halfway through. Let cool for 2 or 3 minutes on the sheets, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Your cookie might fall apart if you rush this step. Best eaten warm.
That’s the recipe. You can read on for notes on cooking with artificial sweeteners. These are mostly important for people with diabetes and insulin resistance, since their bodies no longer metabolize carbohydrates well. Therefore, we’re all about the cutting of carbs, but no one I know is about cutting the taste, texture, or mouth feel of food.
Spires Vathis: Rainbow at the End of the Road, 2015
“We want our cake and we want to eat it too!” Why can’t this be a fulfilled wish, and not a delayed gratification? Cooking is both an art and a science, so we can bring the both to bear as we explore and experiment along the way. Use your imaginations and take a less traveled path. You can find new life and new joy, and maybe even the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Saccharin (a.k.a. Sweet’n Low): Use it in baking but beware of the strong aftertaste. Not suggested for this recipe.
Sucralose (a.k.a. Splenda): Heat stable for baking; you can also replace half the sugar with Splenda or buy a blend of the two. Splenda also makes a brown sugar blend with 50% brown sugar, 50% sucralose. You can make your own blend by sifting together equal amounts of Splenda and sugar.
Aspartame (a.k.a. Equal or NutraSweet): Not recommended for baking; use this for sweetening beverages instead.
Stevia: You can swap many of the new stevia products for equal parts of sugar in most recipes (always check packaging).
Monk fruit sweeteners can be used in a wide range of beverages and foods like soft drinks, juices, dairy products, desserts, candies and condiments. Because they are stable at high temperatures, monk fruit sweeteners can be used in baked goods. However, a recipe that uses monk fruit sweeteners in place of sugar may turn out slightly different because in addition to sweetness, sugar plays several roles in recipes related to volume and texture, but this varies based on the type of recipe. Use just a tiny sprinkle in your coffee or tea or to sweeten oatmeal, frosting or dessert sauces. • Baking can be a little tricky since monk fruit is so much sweeter than sugar, so you’d use much less, and you’d have to make up for the structure that you’d lose by adding other bulk: additional sugar, nut flour, or ground fiber. • Lakanto Baking Blend (purple bag) combines monk fruit with other ingredients like tapioca fiber, chicory root, inulin, and erythritol to create a substitute that can be used as a one-to-one replacement for sugar without affecting the texture of what you’re baking.
Monk Fruit Baking Sweetener 1:1 Sugar Substitute | Lakanto • Dissolves effortlessly, retains moisture, can control cookie spread, and provides better browning for your desserts. • It’s Not Magic, It’s Next Level Baking: Mix of monk fruit extract and erythritol with tapioca fiber, chicory root inulin, and cellulose gum to bring your baking to a whole new level. • Matches the Sweetness of Sugar: Fill your kitchen with a healthy cup-for-cup replacement for ordinary baking and cooking ingredients. Contains zero net carbs, zero calories, and is zero glycemic; Perfect for baking cookies, cakes, and other sweet, sugar-free treats. • Lifestyle Friendly: Works with ketogenic, diabetic, candida, paleo, vegan, low-sugar, non-GMO, and all-natural diets. • Erythritol can cause digestive issues for some people, but it depends on the dose.
I always suggest using half real sugar and half alternative sugar because of the texture of your baked goods. There’s no sense wasting good ingredients on a nasty tasting product!
Bottom to top: Cake baked with granulated sugar, with Truvia, and with Swerve. Note the difference in rise!
Using sugar substitutes in cooking and baking Sugar substitutes can be used in both cooked items and baked goods, but it’s important to realize that the end result may not be identical to the same product made with sugar. Sugar substitutes, while very sweet, don’t have the same properties or chemical composition as table sugar.
For these reasons, be prepared for the following issues:
A lighter color: Baked goods made with sugar substitutes tend to be light in color. Sugar substitutes don’t provide the same browning effect as sugar.
Flatter product: Cakes, quick breads, and muffins may not have the same volume when prepared with sugar substitutes.
Texture differences: Baked goods made with these sweeteners tend to be drier and denser (almost like a biscuit) than those made with sugar because the sweeteners don’t hold moisture. Besides being drier, products may become stale more quickly. Either eat right away, or wrap in paper towel and microwave on 50% power for 10 second bursts (cookie) or 20 seconds (cake slice).
Taste differences: Some sugar substitutes can impart an aftertaste; some people find this more noticeable than others.
Cooking time: You may need to adjust the time required to bake a cake or cookies made with sugar substitutes.
Cakes Baked Without Sugar Using Only LABLED Substitute Sweetener
Health Concerns
Monk fruit and stevia sweeteners are generally safe for people with diabetes, but always check the labeling to ensure that the manufacturers have not added sugars or carbohydrates. For those who count their carbs, sugar alcohols are a type of carbohydrate. While they’re an alternative to sugar and contain fewer calories, sugar alcohols can cause gastrointestinal side effects, such as gas, bloating, and diarrhea. Examples include:
Enjoy the cookie or cake, but don’t eat everything you baked. Share with your neighbors and friends so everyone has an opportunity to delight in the feast of the day. This way you get celebrated by many people also, and who doesn’t love them some compliments and hugs? Anyway, I’ve always thought the Psalmist was on the mark when he or she wrote in Psalms 34:8—
“Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”
Of course now we ask, “What’s in a pumpkin spice latte?” If you frequent this Kitchen, you already know the answer: Sugar. Of course it has sugar, both the naturally occurring type, but also the added type. Those of us who watch our carbohydrate intake for health reasons have to be aware of the hidden sugars in foods.
First thought on first fallen leaf: pumpkin palooza
It’s not autumn without a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte, the various pumpkin patches, and the harvest items, which remind me of slow moving tractor pulled hay rides under full moons during the autumn equinox. Once these tokens of fall arrived closer to October, but now they sometimes show up unexpectedly in late August, much like house guests who made good time on their travels.
“Oh! Hello, I haven’t finished cleaning my house yet,” we say as we open our door to this early bird.
“Silly potato, I came to see you, not your house. Give me a hug.” These words of grace are a blessing from the angels who enter our homes.
Made according to standard recipe
Whenever I visit my favorite Starbucks, I now look up the ingredients of my favorite takeout items. Their mobile app makes this possible. I no longer order the drinks with huge amounts of sugar in them, for even if those pumpkin spice lattes are delicious, the drink is pretty much just a dessert disguised as coffee. With my prediabetes and need to take off some weight, my doctor and I have agreed I’d limit my calories to 1500 and my carbs to 150 grams. This won’t fit into my food plan. I need to stick to nutrient dense foods, not empty calorie drinks.
Recipe for Pumpkin Pie Spice
According to Starbucks, a grande (16-ounce) pumpkin spice latte made with 2 percent milk has 390 calories and a staggering 50 grams (about 12 teaspoons) of sugar. The Starbucks label doesn’t break out how much of that is added sugar. About 22 grams of sugar probably comes from the natural sugars in milk, giving the pumpkin spice latte about 28 grams of added sugar. The American Heart Association recommends no more than six teaspoons (25 grams) of added sugar a day for women and nine teaspoons (36 grams) for men.
Pumpkin pie
Much of the sweetness in a pumpkin spice latte appears to come from the pumpkin spice sauce. The first ingredient is sugar, after all, followed by condensed skim milk, pumpkin purée and some additives. The whipped cream topping also contains sugar, in the form of a vanilla syrup.
If you’re trying to cut sugar, there are still ways to enjoy a pumpkin spice latte. A regular grande pumpkin spice latte has four pumps of pumpkin spice sauce as well as whipped cream. If you want to cut back on the sugar, skip the whipped cream and try it with just two pumps of sauce next time you order. You’ll get pretty much the same flavor and cut out more than half of the added sugar. This still gives the grande drink 38 grams of carbohydrates, which puts it into the drinkable sugar category.
As an alternative, another way to cut the calories is to order a “speciality” drink at the coffee shop. If you’re special, and I have no doubt that you are, this are the recipes for you:
Iced Pumpkin Spice Latte: Grande iced coffee (order a Venti cup if you want extra ice) 1 pump spiced pumpkin sauce 3 pumps Sugar free vanilla Extra pumpkin spice sprinkled on top Light cream = half and half
Hot Pumpkin Spiced Latte: Tall blonde American coffee in grande cup 1 pump spiced pumpkin 3 pump sugar free vanilla Almond milk steamed Extra pumpkin spice topping (omit whipped cream)
Pumpkin Pie Spice
You can also make your own fancy pants pumpkin spice latte drink at home. The Food Network’s recipe (link below) for homemade pumpkin spice lattes includes espresso or strong coffee, milk, canned pumpkin purée, vanilla, pumpkin pie spices and one tablespoon of sugar (as well as sweetened whipped cream). But you can play with the recipe to cut even more sugar or use a sugar substitute if you prefer.
Bears eat everything in sight before hibernating
While we’re at it, let’s think about why certain weathers and seasons cue our minds to seek out certain foods. Are we primordially primed to “pack on weight” for the long winter, just as bears and other hibernating animals do? Or do we just find the decreasing daylight depressive, so we eat to soothe our feelings? If you find yourself “carb loading” but not getting ready to run a big race, it might be time to look inward at what else you’re “stuffing down.”
Remember what the sainted Mother Theresa said:
The world today is hungry not only for bread, but hungry for love; hungry to be wanted, hungry to be loved.
Fresh Corn and Squash with Onions, Sliced Tomatoes, and Beef
I know, you’ve heard of SHUCKING CORN, the process which removes the protective leaves from the edible kernels, but SWEATING CORN is an altogether other state of affairs, and it’s not good for our back yard barbecues or beach clambakes. I microwave my corn inside the leaves. First I remove only the primary outer leaves. Then I rinse the enveloped cob in cool water, place it on a paper towel, and hit the timer on the microwave for about two minutes per cob. Then I shuck the leaves and add butter, salt and pepper. Very simple and easy to clean up. Plus I don’t heat up my kitchen during the summertime and get this cook all in a sweat!
Corn plants are breaking a sweat as summers in the U.S. Midwest get hotter, threatening crop yields because too much water is getting sucked out of the already arid ground.
Yes, sweating. Lots of crops suck water up from the soil and release it through their leaves and stems. And temperatures above about 36 degrees Celsius (96.8 degrees Fahrenheit or body temperature) can cause the plant to shut down development and not grow properly. This may be a problem this year.
Corn sweat is a term used to describe the moisture that is released from the corn, causing more water vapor to be released to the atmosphere. The corn is able to draw moisture from the soil and into its leaves. At this point, the leaves “sweat,” meaning water is being released from the plant. This mechanism is also known as transpiration, when combined with evaporation, it is called evapotranspiration. This process has more of an effect the hotter it gets. This is because more water can be absorbed through the leaves of corn as the temperature of the surrounding air increases. Evapotranspiration is the main process that causes high humidity and heat index values for Iowa and even parts of Minnesota.
Plant evapotranspiration, the fancy pants name for “corn sweat,” is pretty much an invisible process. Since the water is evaporating from the leaf surfaces, you don’t just go out and see the leaves “breathing”. Just because you can’t see the water doesn’t mean it is not being put into the air, though. One way to visualize this evapotranspiration is to put a plastic bag around some houseplant leaves. This is the principle behind terrariums, or plants growing inside sealed glass jars.
Transpired Water: Humidity in a Bagged Houseplant
As this picture shows, transpired water will condense on the inside of the bag. During a growing season, a leaf will transpire many times more water than its own weight. An acre of corn gives off about 3,000-4,000 gallons (11,400-15,100 liters) of water each day. This is what causes the corn belt states to have high heat index readings in the summers, since the humidity increases the apparent temperature.
Climate Change: Many forecasters are warning about hot weather and drought conditions in key U.S. corn-growing areas. And as climate change continues to result in warmer summers in the Midwest, things may get worse.
The entire United States is likely to warm substantially over the next 40 years, with an increase of 1°C to 2°C (1.8 to 3.6 degrees F) over much of the country. This is a substantially greater rate of change than that observed over the last century, reflecting the accelerated rate of increase in Green House Gas concentrations and temperatures observed during the last few decades.
Much of the interior United States is likely to see increases of 2°C to 3°C (3.6 to 5.4 degrees F), while the southeastern and western coastal areas will experience about 1°C to 2°C degrees of warming (1.8 to 3.6 degrees F). The cooling in the Southeast during the middle of the 20th century is projected to become warming in throughout the 21st century, continuing the warming seen during the last few decades in that region.
Goldilocks found the first soup too hot!
Climate Change and Crops: What this means for crops is both a longer growing season, but also more stress. Like people, plants strive with just the “Goldilocks amount” of stress, not the big bear amounts of stress massive climate change puts on them. Temperature changes affect biomass production levels and rates. Corn biomass production, for example, may increase with increasing temperature, particularly if the growing season is extended; however, biomass may decrease due to temperature stresses as temperatures become too high (Rosenzweig and Hillel, 1998).
Climate Change, Water, and Rice: Another food crop affected by transpiration and heat is rice. This is a primary agricultural product in Arkansas. Ground water supplies from aquifers are also likely to be affected in arid regions, due in part to declining water tables (overdrafts) and increasing pumping costs. In the United States, more than 80% of the rice crop is grown in the Mississippi River alluvial plain. The most intense rice production occurs in the Grand Prairie region of the Mississippi River Delta, where irrigation water is primarily derived from the alluvial aquifer (ASWCC 1997).
However, the alluvial aquifer is not expected to sustain current extraction rates beyond 2015 due to ground water overdraft (Scott et al. 1998; U.S. Corps of Army Engineers 2000). I served a church in the Delta region with a cracking foundation. When I suggested to them their water table was falling and this was weakening the ground underneath the building, they thought I was crazy. I reminded them, “Drought, aquifer, trouble. Try soak watering the foundation. Maybe we can halt it.” At least they tried it. No one wants to spend good money to fix something broken, but they were farmers and knew of what I spoke. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. All you have to do is take a taste of the soup, like Goldilocks. How hot is it?
Increased pumping costs and declining water levels in the alluvial aquifer have caused some farmers to install irrigation wells in the Sparta-Memphis aquifer that underlies the alluvial aquifer. Currently, about 30 new agricultural irrigation wells per year are being drilled into this aquifer (Charlier 2002). This is of concern since the Sparta-Memphis aquifer is the source of drinking water for more than 350,000 people, and it has much less capacity to sustain heavy agricultural pumping rates (ASWCC 1997). Thus, one of the consequences of intense rice production using current, water-intensive production practices is the potential for ground water depletion and reduced agricultural sustainability over the long term. In fact, four Arkansas counties, accounting for 120,000 hectares of rice production, have been declared critical ground water areas by the Arkansas Natural Resource Commission and may be in jeopardy of losing access to water needed for irrigation (Young and Sweeney 2007).
One of the conclusions of the 2013 Iowa report is the “U.S. climate will continue to change during the next century. It’s very likely that the amount of change will be significantly greater and the rate of change more rapid than that experienced during the last 100 years. There’ll be more warm nights and longer periods of extreme heat, and the incidence of both drought and very heavy precipitation events is expected to increase. Continued increases in green-house gas emissions will increase the amount of climate change the United States will experience in the next 100 years. Limiting the increase in green-house gas emissions will reduce the rate and amount of climate change during this period.”
While we don’t have reports like this from the UDSA or the EPA from in recent years, since the voices of climate change were unwelcome, we do have, as required under a 1990 statute, “The Fourth National Climate Assessment.” It was released on the Friday after Thanksgiving in 2018, with expected but dramatic conclusions. They ran counter to the deregulatory policies pursed under President Trump at agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency. The warnings went unheeded.
Chaos Theory: Of course, America doesn’t live under a bubble or isolated from the world. Chaos theory tells us, if a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon River rainforest, we’ll feel the resonance and repercussions in the weather at our far away homes. This new idea was in opposition to the 19th century Mathematician Pierre Laplace’s belief, if you knew all the positions and momenta of all the particles in the Universe at once, you’d be able to determine everything, far into the future, with arbitrary precision. This is just a reminder how the body of knowledge in the world continues to change, for as we discover more, we test our previously held ideas against the old ones. Whatever holds up is now the standard, until we make another breakthrough.
Artist’s logarithmic scale conception of the observable universe.
Climate Changeand Migration: In Central America, in November 2020, Hurricanes Eta and Iota, both catastrophic Category 4 hurricanes, made landfall two weeks and only 15 miles apart, near Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. They were two of the most intense storms of the most active Atlantic hurricane season in recorded history. With winds of 150 mph and devastating flooding from torrential rains, the storms impacted 6 million people, destroyed thousands of homes and displaced nearly 600,000 people in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
With little to no government assistance, many of those displaced are living in shelters with little food. It’s not only housing and food that are in short supply; many people have also lost their livelihoods. The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock in Honduras estimates that up to 80% of the agricultural sector was decimated by the storms — an industry that, as of 2020, provided one-third of the country’s employment.
Migration caused by these climate events doesn’t happen in isolation — it’s often tied to a community’s existing vulnerability and inability to adapt. “Climate change impacts and socioeconomic issues are heavily intertwined.”
Many people in these communities were dealing with chronic poverty, crime and other difficulties before disaster struck.
“Slow-onset events, such as prolonged drought, have been affecting the ability of many people on the edge for years in the region, particularly in the so-called Dry Corridor, which runs from Southern Mexico to Costa Rica,” explained Ober.
The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that 3.5 million people in the region have faced food insecurity in the past 10 years due to recurring droughts, driven by natural climate variability and climate change. The Climate Reality Project does a good job of explaining how these climate shifts helped lead to high rates of migration in 2018.
Why is this region so susceptible to extreme weather events? It has to do with changing atmosphere-ocean circulation patterns near Central America. One of these is the El Niño Southern Oscillation, which makes the region particularly vulnerable to irregular rainfall, resulting in both droughts and flooding, which are becoming ever-more extreme because of our changing global climate.
Organic Farming in North Carolina
As I celebrate a belated Earth Day in Cornie’s Kitchen due to a pollen induced sinus infection, I think how essential and interconnected food and the great community of humanity are on our small blue dot traveling through space. I also think of some goals for our future:
• Satisfy human food, feed, and fiber needs, and contribute to biofuel needs;
• Enhance environmental quality and the resources base;
• Sustain economic viability of agriculture;
• Enhance the quality of life for farmers, farm workers, and society as a whole; and
• Help developing countries address structural poverty causing climate migration.
This dump truck was partially consumed by a sink hole on 14th Street at Spring in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2002. The driver, Buddy Shelnutt, said he was starting to drive after waiting at the light when the back end just sunk. He was deliverying a load of asphalt to a local construction site. PHOTO BY PHIL SKINNER, AJC Staff
With our changing climate, if we do what we’ve always done, we’ll only dig our hole deeper. Now would be a good time to start, for the longer we wait, the steeper the climb out of the hole, and the more expensive it’s going to be. If we want to stop a Mack Truck from going into a sinkhole, we put the brakes on sooner, rather than later. It also has bigger brakes than a 10 speed bicycle, because a big, heavy truck is harder to stop. While you and I can make small “bicycle” changes, we as a society have to bond together to make the Mack truck changes to make the biggest differences.
The Bible has two stories about creation in the book of Genesis. Once we viewed the earth’s resources as inexhaustible, but today we realize if we want to eliminate poverty and bring justice and economic security to developing communities, we need to rethink how we use these resources. The first one in Genesis 1:27-28 tells us how humanity is like God in relation to the rest of creation:
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
We often misinterpret this command to “subdue and have dominion” as meaning “let’s do what we want because God gave us this role to play.” We forget the “made in God’s image” part, a point which the biblical writers were keen to point out not once, but twice. This means God intends for us to care for the earth just as God cares for it: the providence of God for all creation is our guiding thought.
The second account in Genesis 2:4-7 reminds us we are one with the earth itself:
In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
We may want to recognize our common source of being in our Creator as the starting point to recovering our care and concern for our planet and her peoples. This may change our outlook on how we shop, build, innovate, and plan for our future.
Though it might not be clear, this is the George Washington Bridge going over the Hudson River, covered in thick smog. In 1965, a study by New York City Council found breathing New York’s air had the same effect as smoking two packets of cigarettes a day.
Of course no one likes change, especially negative change. If we want clean water and clean air, the way we wish America once was, we’ll have to change our current way of life. We’ll need to accept regulations on business and industry to prevent pollution and encourage them to be energy efficient. Or we could embrace elevated rates of skin cancers, more extreme weather events leading to more property damage, sinking coastlines driving populations inland, and continuing climate migration from Central America.
Maybe we’ll be energized enough to move on this challenge before the Midwest corn crop begins to pop in the fields.
Walthall, Charles L.; Anderson, Christoper J.; Baumgard, Lance H.; Takle, Eugene; Wright-Morton, Lois; and et al., “Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States: Effects and Adaptation” (2013). Geological and Atmospheric Sciences Reports. 1. http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ge_at_reports/1
Cold and grey weather in December makes me want to bake in the kitchen. I must have my mother’s DNA for sure, since some of my fondest memories are of her up to her elbows into a giant mixing bowl as she stirred together the various candied fruits and nuts for the fruit cake cookies and loaves she produced in mass quantities every Christmas.
This recipe also had a significant amount of cheap whiskey in it, so when I was preaching in small towns in Arkansas, I usually let one of the ladies of the church know of my need. “Don’t you worry,” they’d tell me, “we’ll make sure this gets covered.”
A few days later I’d be invited over to this kind lady’s home for lunch. She’d have a Christmas gift for me. Inside the colorful bag would be a small flagon, double wrapped in a brown paper bag. “You don’t have to tell anyone where you got it. That’s a secret, just between you and me.”
I’d nod and smile. Christmas has always been time for secrets. My parents would hide presents up in the attic until we got big enough to pull the rope for the hidden stairs. Then they hid the gifts in the trunk of my daddy’s black Pontiac. I never knew why we weren’t able to find the keys. When we were truly old, my folks managed to keep the Christmas secrets by gift wrapping the presents at the store before we came home from school.
One of the mysteries of Christmas I discovered along the way was Santa could write as elegantly as my daddy, but I never told anyone else. After all, I had two younger siblings and I wouldn’t want to spoil his visits for them! This recipe makes a Spicy Sweet Nut and Seed Mix for snacks. You can vary it infinitely and even use it as a base for a Chocolate Bark recipe. It’s great for a share party.
1 cup seeds (I used pumpkin, quinoa, and sunflower)
1/4 cup agave
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon red-pepper flakes
1 Tbs brandy
227 grams chocolate chips (1 cup)
1 teaspoon kosher salt (divided)
1 teaspoon turbinado sugar
Red pepper flakes from three chili peppers
Step 1
Heat the oven to 325 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, combine the nuts and seeds.
Step 2
In a microwave-safe bowl, combine agave, butter, red-pepper flakes and ½ teaspoon salt. Microwave until the butter has melted, about 30-40 seconds. (Alternatively, you can melt the mixture in a small saucepan on the stove.)
Step 3
Pour the butter mix over the nuts and seeds, and stir until well coated. Dump onto the prepared baking sheet and spread in an even layer. You want the nut mix spread out as much as possible.
Step 4
Bake, stirring occasionally, until the nuts are tacky and look and smell toasted, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and immediately sprinkle over the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and all of the turbinado or dark brown sugar. Let cool on the baking sheet, then transfer to a bowl and serve (or transfer to an airtight container, where they’ll keep for up to 4 days).
Nutrition information for 1 serving (24 total servings)
HALLOWEEN COSTUMES
Have you readied your costume for the annual Trick or Treat event? I saw folks shopping for costumes as early as mid September, for both adults and children. Most of these garbs aren’t scary at all, unlike the one worn by the ghosts and ghouls of ancient lore, by which I mean my neighborhood companions and I.
19th Century Spookiness
We protect children today from such horrors, but back in the 1950’s, ritual exposure under adult protection was considered part of growing up. A very small child dressed as a ghost with a pillowcase over her entire body. Only the eyes and mouth holes were cut out, plus a slit in the front for holding the basket of treats. The shifting nature of the pillowcase was part of the plan—the child couldn’t race to the next house in the dark or the eyeholes would slip and then they’d slip too. I never realized how cunning my parents were.
1950’s Neighborhood Ghost Costume
LET THE HARVEST FESTIVALS BEGIN
Halloween is the official beginning of the harvest festival season in America.
First is the Chocolate Candy season, also known as Trunk or Treat in the church. Then 22 days later is Thanksgiving, a day given over to cooking and eating, with leftovers for a week afterwards. For the next month until Christmas, cookies and homemade treats roll out of our kitchens as if we were our grandparents. Once the New Year arrives, even if we make a resolution to stop this madness, we get an invite to a Super Bowl party on February 3rd, 2019. This is all happening in less than one hundred days (95).
We do this in addition to our regular lives, of course, for we don’t let anything go. No, we merely pile stuff higher and the wonder why it collapses. It’s called the Western Life Style.
TEEN COSTUMES
LIFESTYLE POSTER CHILD
The main negative features of this lifestyle include stress (long-term and continuous, psychological), positive energy balance (excessive energy intake and low physical activity), low-quality food (both high fat and energy dense, and at the same time poor in micronutrients), and disruption of chronobiology(insufficient sleep). What toe have I not stepped on yet? As my old congregations used to say, “At first you were preaching, but now you’ve done gone to meddling!”
WESTERN LIFESTYLE DEADLY
As countries around the world adopt the Western Lifestyle, rates of metabolic syndrome and diabetes are also increasing. For 2017, the International Diabetes Foundation estimated there were 451 million (age 18-99 years) people with diabetes worldwide. These figures were expected to increase to 693 million by 2045. Almost half of all people (49.7%) living with diabetes are undiagnosed. Moreover, an estimated 374 million people are likely living with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and almost 21.3 million live births to women were affected by some form of hyperglycaemia in pregnancy.
In 2017, approximately 5 million deaths worldwide were attributable to diabetes in the 20-99 years age range. The global healthcare expenditure on people with diabetes was estimated to be USD $850 billion in 2017.
DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE
“An acute disturbance in any of the physiological regulatory systems evokes reactions that tend to reestablish equilibrium. When the stimuli, even of moderate magnitude, tend to be repetitive or chronic, change and allostasis in one system impact on the other, and vicious cycles are created and reinforced.” The plain language translation is our bodies tend to seek equilibrium. If we lose weight, our bodies try to regain it. The vicious cycle many of us are most familiar with is losing the same amount weight over and over again.
Homemade Pizza Costume
THE FOOD WE EAT
Does what we eat make a difference? Every day a new diet fad comes down the pike, or at least a new packaging of an old one trots out for us to ride it for a while. Then we fall off that horse and look for another, with more appeal (cookie diet, anyone?).
Our food choices interact with our genetic, metabolic, and environmental factors. In obesity and metabolic syndrome, often dietary patterns are considered of central importance. In these, attention has been focused over calories, amounts, and proportions of macronutrients, and their effects on the energetic balance by themselves, and through metabolic regulators. You recognize this in the shorthand “calories in/calories out” slogan.
However, obesity, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, and diabetes are way more complex operations than mere subtraction. A calorie isn’t just a calorie. That is, not all calories are created equal, although all whole foods have nutrients. Only recently have the acute effects of food ingestion, taking into consideration the type of food, and the specific effects of some nutrients, namely, fatty acids, began to be studied in relation with obesity and inflammation.
INFLAMMATORY ROLE OF FATS
Total dietary fat and saturated fat are associated with insulin resistance and high blood pressure as well as obesity-related inflammation. An immediate postprandial increase in plasma inflammatory markers after a high-fat meal had been shown in abdominally obese men. Consumption of a saturated fatty acid-rich diet resulted in a proinflammatory “obesity-linked” gene expression profile, whereas consumption of a monounsaturated fatty acid-rich diet caused a more anti-inflammatory profile. This means carnivores eating well marbled steaks every day aren’t doing their bodies long term good, but of course they’re too busy being important to have a real doctor test their blood. And they “feel fine.”
MUFA’s are foods and oils with higher amounts of monounsaturated fats, such as Nuts, Avocado, Canola oil, Olive oil, Safflower oil (high oleic), Sunflower oil, Peanut oil and butter, and Sesame oil. Everyone needs some fat in their diet, for it keeps our skin smooth, our hair lustrous, and our appetite satisfied. We don’t need fried foods or animal fats on a daily basis.
LIVER AND FAT STORAGE
The liver has two functions that directly impact the formation of excess fat: metabolism of carbohydrates (sugars) and digestion of lipids (fats). When we consume carbohydrates, our blood sugar rises, triggering a rise in insulin. That rise in insulin signals our liver to begin storing the excess glucose within its own cells. When the liver is full, it begins storing the excess carbohydrates as fat in our body fat. Sometimes that fat begins to accumulate in the liver cells, and the liver becomes fat.
Similarly, when we consume more lipids that the body can use for energy, the liver stores the excess lipids in body fat, and this excess of lipids can begin to accumulate within the liver as well. Whether the excess of food is made up of carbohydrates (sugars) or fat (lipids) —the liver stores the excess energy for future use. Often this results in excess fat accumulating in the liver itself. This is known as Fatty Liver, the first stage of NAFLD and should be viewed as a warning to change unhealthy lifestyle habits and adopt a low carbohydrate and low fat diet that is high in fresh vegetables and lean proteins.
TAKE OUT BOX
We need to eat enough quality nutrients to lose weight. Starving ourselves won’t do it, since this messes up our metabolism. Eating the good food, complex carbohydrates with fiber, for instance, and lots of vegetables full of water (spinach, zucchini, mushrooms) will help us meet our nutritional goals. Foregoing fried foods, highly processed foods, and fast foods will also improve our health. Exercise every day, if just to walk around the block. I sometimes fail on this. But I find a way to move more around the house or do big muscle chores.
Cornie’s Batgirl Costume
Time—we all have the same amount of it. What we do with it is the important thing. If I add an event to my schedule, something else has to go away. I’m not Wonder Woman. I’m not God. I might be Batgirl. I can’t do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me, but I can do all the IMPORTANT things Christ calls me to do in his power.
MORE SCIENCE
Below I’ve made some notes on the role of obesity, free fatty acids, and insulin resistance if you want more information. The link below has an excellent paper if you want to dig deeper. Low grade inflammation and free fatty acids are both implicated in NAFLD, non alcoholic fatty liver disease, which occurs when fat is deposited in the liver.
OBESITY AND INSULIN RESISTANCE
The reason why obesity is associated with insulin resistance is not well understood. Obesity is a condition characterized by an increase of body weight beyond the limitation of skeletal and physical requirements, as the result of excessive accumulation of body fat.
NOT A ROCK BAND
Free fatty acids (FFA) cause both insulin resistance and inflammation in the major insulin target tissues (skeletal muscle, liver and endothelial cells) and thus are an important link between obesity, insulin resistance, inflammation and the development of T2DM, hypertension, dyslipidemia, disorders of coagulation and ASVD.
FAT TISSUE: FACTORY AND WAREHOUSE
Adipose tissue not only stores and releases fatty acids but also synthesizes and releases a large number of other active compounds. According to this concept, an expanding fat mass releases increasing amounts of compounds such as FFA, angiotensin 2, resistin, TNF-α, interleukin 6, interleukin 1-β and others. Some of these compounds, when infused in large amounts, can produce insulin resistance.
However, any substance, in order to qualify as a physiological link between obesity and insulin resistance, should meet at least the following 3 criteria:
0. the substance should be elevated in the blood of obese people;
0. raising its blood level (within physiologic limits) should increase insulin resistance and
0. lowering its blood level should decrease insulin resistance.
So far, only FFA can meet these 3 criteria in human subjects.
Plasma FFA levels are usually elevated in obesity because
0. the enlarged adipose tissue mass releases more FFA and
0. FFA clearance may be reduced
Moreover, once plasma FFA levels are elevated, they’ll inhibit insulin’s anti-lipolytic action, which will further increase the rate of FFA release into the circulation.
The liver is more insulin sensitive than skeletal muscle.
FAT PILLS ARE REAL
Nevertheless, there is convincing evidence that physiological elevations of FFA, such as seen after a fat rich meal, inhibit insulin suppression of hepatic glucose production (HGP) resulting in an increase in HGP (1).
Acutely this rise in HGP is due to FFA mediated inhibition of insulin suppression of glycogenolysis or releasing glucose from carbohydrates.
Longer lasting elevations of FFA, however, are likely to also increase gluconeogenesis, or making glucose from non carbohydrate substances.
Chronically elevated plasma FFA levels, as commonly seen in obese diabetic and non-diabetic individuals, also cause insulin resistance.
GENES AREN’T OUR DESTINY
We know there’s a genetic component linked to the UCP3_HUMAN or mitochondrial uncoupling protein 3 and 2. Healthy pancreatic β-cells are poised to respond rapidly and efficiently to acute changes in circulating nutrient availability to maintain metabolic homeostasis.
CHRONIC EXPOSURE TO OVERNUTRITION
However, it is well recognized that chronic exposure to overnutrition, such as what occurs in obesity, results in a blunting of the insulin response to an acute stimulus.
INFLAMMATION
Whatever its origin, be it or not obesity the main initiator, the chronic low-grade inflammatory condition that accompanies the metabolic syndrome has been implicated as a major player in both the installation of the syndrome and its associated pathophysiological consequences.
WEIGHT LOSS HELPS INFLAMMATION
In good agreement with this interpretation of things, weight loss of obese patients is repeatedly verified to be associated with a decrease of inflammation biomarkers accompanied by improvement of metabolic parameters, namely, insulin sensitivity.
Monteiro, Rosário, and Isabel Azevedo. “Chronic Inflammation in Obesity and the Metabolic Syndrome.” Mediators of Inflammation 2010 (2010): 289645. PMC. Web. 11 Oct. 2018 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2913796/
Breakfast and Lunch in the Kitchen: Spinach and Avocado Duo
This Wacky Wednesday duo is due to my need to clean out the icebox before my next grocery run. My parents grew up during the Great Depression, so wasting food wasn’t on their list of things to do. At least one meal a week was “druthers,” as in “Would you druther have this or that leftover?”
Since I cook for one and measure out my food portions beforehand, I don’t have leftovers. I do have eyes bigger than my stomach when I shop, however. I try to eat my purchases while they’re fresh. Hence a double dose of avocado and spinach on my menu today.
Overstuffed Omlette
When my overstuffed sausage, mushroom, cheese, and spinach omelette fell apart this morning, I stuck the getaway mushrooms onto the avocado toast triangles. After I snapped the photo, I noticed the silly face. To see patterns in common objects is called pareidolia. As a child, my brothers and I entertained ourselves by naming the shapes in the white clouds which floated overhead. At night the shapes in the dark shadows of the vine draped trees were far more sinister than the brightly lit clouds of the day.
It’s a wacky Wednesday all right. Today I read about America’s changing workforce and how the eight hour work day became the norm. At lunch I tossed the chopped spinach with a quarter avocado and some hummus, plus a can of tuna, and a half ounce of walnuts. I tossed in 1/8 C raisins and Italian spices, plus a generous hit of cayenne pepper. I ate this with an ounce of veggie pretzels.
I realize many people have divided food into good and bad categories, or foods for the light and the dark sides of life. Some never eat grain products, meat, beans, or any carbohydrates, ever. Their diets are marked by exclusion, rather than inclusion. Unless a person has an allergy or medical reason to eliminate a food, choosing moderate and/or occasional portions shouldn’t be a problem. Having a variety of foods keeps life interesting and enjoyable.
Tuna Dip in a Bunny Bowl
Another way to enliven meal time is to use the “special dishes.” If you’re still saving the “good” plates for an occasion, why not make today a special day? Why wait for a holiday, birthday, or anniversary? Sometimes I like to eat from my favorite bunny bowls, especially near the end of the month when I’m writing my “Rabbit! Rabbit!” post for the first of the next month. Plus I’m eating backwards today, so I’ll be having yogurt and fruit for dinner tonight, just to keep life interesting.
Tomorrow is another day, and I can go back to being normal, whatever that looks like. Shake up your meal plan every once in a while. Have breakfast for dinner, or dinner for breakfast! Enjoy life!
Cornie's Kitchen 