Bring On The Idea Please

Got an idea for a forum??

There is so much talk of religion in our politics lately.  The USA was founded on the idea of Church and State separation in order to allow for different religions to co-exist in one place.  God has given us a choice to love and follow Him.  I believe that a Christian is a person who claims the name of Christ, has been adopted into the family of God to be called by His name.  We do have a responsibility to uphold the 'family name' I remember a commandment "thou shalt not take the name of thy God in vain"  and I believe this to mean we should not call ourselves Christian unless we are prepared to walk the talk, follow Jesus' example.  If we love Him it is easy to follow Him in any way.  In my prayers, I ask Him to fill me with His love, so I can feel it and even love Him more, and then His love is also shown to those around me, and "they will know we are Christian by our love" 

I realize this entry is not about the calorie counts and nutrition, but I thought he was looking for new ideas/topics?  BTW I understand that vegetables lose nutrient value in any form of cooking, and that is why it is always best to eat our veges raw.  Different methods of cooking veges results in different loss of nutrient, and microwave cooks from the center of anything, and is very high heat resulting in the loss of some nutrient, but not ALL.  However, the vegetable is also high in fiber, which is not altered by microwave, and they are always low in calories unless you are adding high fat substances such as cheeses, etc..    This is how I understand it, anyhow. 

I have been reading through all of the posts and enjoying some of the cooking ideas.  I have purchased (mail order so I have not gotten it yet) a yogurt maker.  Does anyone make their own yogurt?  I am so looking forward to doing this.  I have really gotten into cooking in the last several years and have been trying to be really healthy in the way I cook or prepare food.  So back to yogurt...I am so open to recipes.  Let me know. 

I have made my own yogurt in the past.  I kind of go in spurts -- make it for months at a time, then stop and buy it.  I do like homemade yogurt and made it the most when our kids were still home.  It was always a little more tart than store bought which I like. (Of course you can put more sugar in it if you prefer sweeter).  The only negative was that it never had the thick consistancy of yogurt from the grocery.  If anyone knows how to make it thicker in a yogurt maker, I'd like to know. 

I've been thinking about getting the yogurt maker out again lately.  Something about short days and the pellet stove going makes me want to do more in the kitchen!

According to University of Kentucky Extension Service (http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/fcs3/fcs3106/f cs3106.pdf) 

"If you overcook any vegetable, it will lose nearly all its nutrient value. Most minerals and some vitamins dissolve in water.

Soaking vegetables in water before cooking or cooking vegetables in large amounts of water causes leaching of important vitamins and minerals.

The other five factors that lead to nutrient loss are

• high temperatures
• prolonged cooking
• alkalis (such as baking soda and hard water)
• plant enzymes (which are destroyedby heat)
• oxygen

Some nutrient loss is inevitable, but most can be avoided by understanding how these six factors affect vegetables."

Interestingly, the beta-cartotene in carrots is fat soluable (you'll lose nutrients in butter, oil, or margarine), but not water soluable.

While it's true there may be some nutrient loss with the steaming of most veggies, the nutrients in others aren't available unless they are cooked. Also, for many people with gastrointestinal disease or who have difficulty chewing or swallowing, these foods must be cooked.

All in all, steaming or microwaving covered in a very small amount of water results in a very limited amount of nutrient loss, as long as the veggies are cooked just to the tender-crisp stage.

What diminishes the nutrient value of vegetables is peeling them (most nutrients lie just beneath the skin) or soaking, which leaches out the nutrients into the water. Nonetheless, it's important to scrub vegetables well, especially if they aren't organic, or if they are a root veggie (e.g., potato or carrot).

The article is a 4-page pdf document that contains valuable information. I hope this resource is helpful in understanding that nutrients are still very present in cooked vegetables.

Hello to all,

I love the idea of finding balance in our lives. It seems when life hands out more lemons than we can readily make lemonade the balance goes out of our lives, and with it our ability to take good care of ourselves.  My plan 3 years ago was to change careers, get more fit, walk more, exercise more, eat healthy and drop down to my ideal weight by age 50. Then the lemons came raining down upon me.

I changed jobs, and not for the better as it turned out. I was away even more hours a day, although I did gain great strides in walking more than I ever had before and did lose 40 pounds. But there was still no balance in my life. I had no time to have a social life since my hours with rising early to catch buses to work  and home made for me a 14 hour day for pay of 8. I was miserable.

As I sank into a depression, more lemons rained down. In order to just have one day to enjoy later that evening with friends for dinner I decided to drive to work, pay the astronomical price for parking, but insure that I would be off in time to meet with friends whom I had not seen in months since taking on the new job.

Just 7 minutes away from my work I was severely injured in a car accident on the I-5 Freeway in Seattle.  I had to recover enough from my lesser injuries to be able to be ok enough to endure a 7 hour double spinal fusion surgery 5 months later. With my inability to lose weight further it began to come back on, and so my deeper depression and isolation. My future was haning in the balance while my life spiraled out of balance. My health, employment, finances, etc. were all impacted and my joy for life was sinking fast.

My surgery was a success by a fine surgeon whom we all lost due to his being killed in a small plane crash just 6 weeks after my surgery. I felt even more hopeless as I was counting on him to see me through my recovery.

My juicers came to my rescue, my sisters, my folks, and a dear friend. They could see I was losing my will to live altogether, I was frightened of my circumstances with no resolutions in sight. They helped tip my scale of so many lemons outweighing my ability to cope and make lemonade that with time, support I am begining to come back again slowly. I have gained so much weight, I am so discouraged. But then I watched Oprah Winfrey, not really a fan of hers, but her statement hit home with me to embrace this body that has given me so much even in the state it is in. I am alive, I can make changes and more lemonade if I just buckle down and really start squeezing again to regain my balance in life. It comes in many ways and forms, whether looking deeper within, to wanting to change what is outside. I would like you all to discuss more ways in which we could all do things on a mimimal to astronomical scale to bring about the balance in our lives again.  Please share your thoughts, and stories. Thank you