Raw Egg Yolk for Babies?

So this was supposed to be a post about toddler smoothies, but as I started typing, it digressed into a post about raw eggs. So here you go: a post about why raw eggs are very important to your young child's diet.


Last night my husband and I got into an all out brawl, because he noticed me putting raw egg yolk into the blender and he was all: "um, are you putting raw egg yolk in her smoothie?" To which, I replied, "um, what does it look like?!" Imagine the sarcasm dripping from my lips, because I have been putting egg yolk in her smoothie for almost 6 months. 6 MONTHS! He has seen me make it, many a time, and he is JUST now realizing I put raw egg yolk in it?


Oh, Lord Jesus, save me now,  I just might kill him.


Anyway, so then he looses his mind and says that I should have talked him about putting raw egg in her smoothie before doing it and that he doesn't think its a good idea because she can get salmonella, blah, blah, BLAH.


So then I loose my mind, because he is essentially saying I am putting her in harms way, and here I am busting my ass to give Penelope 100% perfection, in regards to her nutrition, AND I can't freaking STAND IT, when people make fear based decisions and have not done any research whatsoever to back up their purely emotional reaction. The argument ends with me stamping me feet (seriously) and yelling, "I am RIGHT and you are WRONG!"


I know, I'm so mature, right?


Once I calmed down, I apologize and say I should have known that he would like to have a say in what goes in her smoothie (I love him, but good grief, the man has to have a say about EVERYTHING) and that he needs to do his research and back up his statements and then we can have a civilized conversation about what is best for Penelope later.


So now I have to gather my research and present my argument to Peter and all of you get to come along for the ride.


First off. Know your eggs. I would never in a million years give Penelope conventional, industrial raw eggs from the grocery store. Not even regular organic, "free range" eggs. I only give her eggs that I go and pick up myself from the farmer. In a pinch, I will buy farmer eggs from New Leaf, but that rarely happens anymore.


Here's a quote one of my favorite blogs, Nourished Kitchen:


"Raw egg yolk tends to get a bad rap – and it’s unfortunate that consumers have become so fearful of their food. While everyone recognizes potential dangers of food borne illnesses, like salmonella from raw eggs, what they don’t consider is that only about one in every thirty thousand conventional eggs is infected and the incidence is even less among pastured eggs in which hens are kept in optimally healthy conditions: on grass with free access to consume the foods most natural for them. Raw egg yolk, are a potently rich source for two nutrients critical to health: biotin and choline.  They are also rich in omega-3 fatty acids, lecithin and enzymes."


Here are a couple of links from the Weston A Price Foundation website: 


This one has some information about egg allergies (usually kids are allergic to the egg white, not the yolk) and how many eggs to give a child per day (as many as they want!).


This one talks about how egg yolk supplies cholesterol needed for mental development as well as important sulphur-containing amino acids. Egg yolks from pasture-fed hens or hens raised on flax meal, fish meal or insects are also rich in the omega-3 long-chain fatty acids These fatty acids are essential for the development of the brain. Parents who institute the practice of feeding egg yolk to baby will be rewarded with children who speak and take directions at an early age. The white, which contains difficult-to-digest proteins, should not be given before the age of one year.


This one says that eggs have been a highly valued foods since the beginning of time—eggs from chickens, ducks, geese, turtles and fish. Egg yolks are the richest source of two superstar carotenoids—lutein and zeaxanthin. Not only are bright yellow yolks loaded with these fat-soluble antioxidant nutrients, they are more bioavailable than those found in vegetables, corn and most supplements. While these nutrients have a reputation of combating macular degeneration and cataracts and supporting overall healthy vision, they have a long list of other benefits, including protecting the skin from sun damage and even reducing one’s risk of colon and breast cancer.


Another quote from of one my favorite blogs, The Healthy Home Economist, from her post about The Right Way To Feed Babies, she says:


"Children who receive sufficient omega 3 fats in their diet tend to speak clearly and understand verbal direction from the parents at a very early age.    I just went back and looked at my children’s baby books and all 3 of them (even the boys) spoke short sentences by 15-17 months of age (with first words at around 7 months).   While these sentences were very simple (“Get that”, “Don’t want that”, “More of this”) I have no doubt that getting ample omega 3′s from their diet played a big part in their ease of communicating at an early age with clear enough diction to be understood by even those outside the family."


This is a quote from a local personal trainer and nutritionist: "raw eggs are soooooooooooooooooooooooo good for you!"


I mean really, do I need to say anything more after that?


Penelope is right on par with her verbal skills, which is pretty awesome, considering almost everyone (professionals we worked with when trying to get her to nurse) told me she would have speech problems from her tongue tie and TMJ.  And she astounds me by how much she understands.  Pretty much everything I say to her she understands completely.  Her perception of what I am saying is 100% right on.  Now, I do spend a fair amount of time talking to her, reading to her, doing baby sign language and other things to build her verbal skills, but I really think the egg yolks play a huge part in how smart she is.


I feel that good nutrition is so important in general, but even more so, the first 3 years.  What she is eating now is setting her up for the rest of her life.  Maybe its a little fanatical, but I think egg yolks are going to make a major difference in her mental success later in life.  I have no doubt in my mind that Penelope will be smarter and more emotionally balanced because she got enough omega- 3's in her diet early on.


Ok, ok, but why RAW EGGS you ask?


Heating the yolks destroys some enzymes, reduces certain nutrients and destroys cysteine (amino acid) which helps make glutathione, which is the master antioxidant (and p.s. Protandim also increases glutathione). They are also just plain easier to digest raw.  Raw egg yolk is the perfect complete protein.  Notice I said PERFECT, nothing comes close.


I found this analogy on another blog and I think it explains the difference between raw egg yolk and cooked well:
 
"Imagine a delicate crystal vase. Now imagine someone smashes it with a hammer and then tries to convince you that it is the exact same vase as before they destroyed it because, hey, all the pieces are still there. Well, obviously it's not the same. It not only looks different, but it can't perform the important function of holding fluids or displaying the beauty it had prior to being smashed with the hammer.
Well, an unheated egg yolk may seem similar to a cooked egg yolk, but it is far more complex and precise. We just don't appreciate that as we can't see it at the molecular level. If we could, the picture would be just as clear as with the vase."

So, to my dear husband, while I appreciate your concern for our daughter's health, and yes I should have asked you first,  please stop acting like I was putting a rice krispy treat and some goldfish in her smoothie.  I have this area of her life under control.  Not only do I have under control, what Penelope is eating is very close to absolute perfection.    You can thank me now, or thank me later,  as in, when she has a full ride to Standford Medical school.


And Mama's, if anyone gives you shit, just print this out and stamp your feet!!


Or on Facebook!

This Moment 1.27.11: Babydoll Fun

She is all about her stuffed dolls this week! She wants to carry them around in her sling, and she lines them up and brings each one to me for some "na-na milk". Then she puts them each in yoga poses, first Warrior, then Down Dog and lastly Kicky Kobra.

Oh, how I love this girl.

Current Giveaway: EIO Sippy Cup!

I came across the EIO Sippy Cup on a random google search and immediately fell in love.  I am ga-ga for mason jars and the concept of a safe, mason jar cup with a lid was just too awesome to not make an immediate purchase.

Penelope got another one for Christmas so now she has two, purple and green.  She is still a little young to use it by herself, but I love that this cup will actually help teach her how to use a regular cup without a lid, unlike other sippy cups.  I think she likes that it's more like a grown up cup too.

They wash easy, store easy, carry along in the diaper bag easy (although don't turn your bag upside down or anything crazy, because it's not spill proof).  This is my new diaper bag these days (which is freaking awesome and my favorite PPB so far) and it has 5 million pockets and the EIO cup is the perfect size for the pockets and I never have any spillage.

I agree with this Mama blogger, who also reviewed the EIO sippy cup and said: "there are so many new products on the market boasting that hey are BPA free, but they are still plastic."  I know its nearly impossible to go completely plastic free but I like to do the best I can.

So do you want to do the best you can?  Enter this giveaway and you could win a EIO Kids Cup!!

MANDATORY ENTRY
Check out EIO and tell me what you think in the comment section.

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EXTRA ENTRIES
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* Tweet about this giveaway for 1 entry per day! Please include Mama and Baby LOVE in your tweet and leave me the permalink.

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* Send an email to one of your friends about Mama and Baby Love, just leave me a comment saying you did, as an additional entry. Each friend you tell is additional entry!

Good luck everyone! Giveaway will run until 2.14.11! I will use random generator to pick a winner and will email the winner and announce it here on the blog. The winner will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be announced.

DISCLAIMER: I was not paid for this post.  Thank you, EIO  for allowing us to review your products and for the awesome giveaway. If you are interested in having me do a review and giveaway for your business or product, or about our advertising pricing, send me an email at info at mamaandbabylove dot com.

Unconditional Parenting: Chapter 4

Here the quotes that stood out to me from Chapter 4: Punitive Damages.

"To punish kids, very simply, is to make something unpleasant happen to them-or prevent them from experiencing something pleasant-usually with the goal of changing their future behavior. The punisher makes them suffer, in other words, to teach them a lesson."

"Announcing how we plan to punish children ("Remember, if you do x, then I'll do y to you") may salve our conscience because we gave them fair warning, but all we've really done is threaten them.  We've told them in advance exactly how we'll make them suffer if they fail to obey."

"In Punishment Lite, also called "natural consequences", when  a child leaves her raincoat at school, we are supposed to let her get wet the next day. This is said to teach her to be more punctual, less forgetful or whatever.  But the far more powerful lesson that she is likely to take is what we could have helped-but didn't."

"It's hard for kids to sort out why someone who clearly cares for them also makes them suffer from time to time.  It creates a warped idea, which children may carry with them throughout their lives, that causing pain is part of what it means to love them.  Or else it may simply teach that love is necessarily conditional, that it lasts only as long as people do exactly what you want."

"Why Punishment Fails:
-It makes people mad
-It models the use of power
-It eventually loses its effectiveness
-It erodes our relationships with our kids
-It distracts kids from the important issues
-It makes kids more self centered"

What To Do if Your Baby Won't Nurse

If you are reading this and trying to find information you have come to the right place, but I am sorry you are here.  Having a baby who wont nurse, when you desperately want them to, is a cruel, cruel joke and honestly it feels like grieving a death.  So treat it as such and give yourself permission to grieve fully.

You will get through this.  It is totally possible to get your baby to nurse, it may only be comfort nursing, but either comfort nursing or full nursing are absolutely possible.  And if its not in the cards for you and your baby, Exclusive Pumping gets easier and easier.  You can do it!

If you haven't already, read my previous post, Make Your Boobs a Happy Place.  Once you have made your boobs a happy place, THEN you can read this post and try these ideas.

Like I mentioned before, I am not a IBCLC or an expert of any kind.  I do have background in childbirth as a Doula and Childbirth Educator, but I have no certifications in lactation counseling at all.  This is simply a list of things I did to help Penelope figure out how to nurse.

Also, please note that Penelope is a comfort nurser.  I never was able to stop pumping or stop giving her a bottle.  From various scale weighing attempts, she can get anywhere from .5 to 2 ounces in a nursing session.  The ones where she has gotten 2 ounces, she was nursing in her sleep for two straight hours.  She probably could have survived if I stopped pumping and cut the bottle out, but I am more concerned with her being in 100% perfect health than I am about stopping pumping.  As much as I HATE pumping, her getting as much milk as she wants is my priority.

And honestly, comfort nursing was enough of an success for us.  All of my friends kids breastfeed, and she acts just like they do, in the way she nurses.  I know that even though she doesn't get a full feeding from nursing at all, she is not lacking in any way by having a bottle, or her bubba, as she likes to call it, in addition to her comfort nursing.

Ok, so this is what we tried, in no particular order, once I made made my boobs a happy place (and fixed all her physical problems that were impending her ability to nurse, more about that on another post).

First and foremost, do not give a pacifier to your baby!!  Offer a finger or your boob, NOTHING else. A week after we stopped finger feeding and went to bottle feeding, I gave in and gave her a paci.  I felt like all hope was lost when we gave her the bottle, so I thought, what the hell difference does a paci make now?  Well, it makes a huge difference, trust me on this one and don't do it.  Taking her paci away at 12 weeks was a huge turning point for us (although it made for a very stressful two weeks).

1. Try a Medela nipple shield.  Sometimes baby can have a hard time latching because of flat nipples, if flat nipples are the only problem, nipple shields can be an easy fix.  Be warned, that although they may make it easier for baby to latch, they can actually make it harder for some babies to get the milk out.  As was our issue.  So when we used the nipple shield, it caused her to get even less milk (when she was newborn and still latching and I wasn't pumping yet).

2. If you already have tried a nipple shield with some success, you can try and put the nipple shield on the nipple of the bottle, when ever you bottle feed, or on your finger for comfort sucking, to get them more used to the nipple shield and more likely to latch on and stay latched.  Be warned, this is very cumbersome for the babies, so they may not want anything to do with this technique.  For us, this helped Penelope not to have a negative association with nipple shield and she would actually latch on a bit with the nipple shield after doing this a couple of times.

3. When you bottle feed, or bottle nurse, as I like to say, make your baby "latch" on to the bottle.  So put the nipple on the area in between the nose and top of the mouth.  Make baby open up real wide and then press bottle nipple down into their mouth, towards the top of their palate.  Once they feel the nipple at the roof of their mouth, they start sucking, just like regular nursing.  Then as they are sucking, you "pace feed" them.  So that means, they suck, suck and swallow. Suck, suck and swallow, just like nursing.  A bottle feed should take 15 to 20 minutes, just like nursing.  You tilt the bottle up for them to get a little milk and then back down to give them a break.  They learn they need to keep sucking to make more milk come out, that they need to work for the milk, just like they do if they are nursing.  Several people ask me,  "well, doesn't baby get more air that way?"  I don't really know the answer, but I don't really give a shit.  The pace feeding is more important than a little gas or burping.  Just burp your baby very well and do a little baby yoga to help pass gas, this is the least of your worries right now.

4. Hold your baby like you would if you were nursing.  Once I made my boobs a happy place and took care of Penelope's TMJ (it actually made it painful for her to even lie on her side, let alone open up her mouth) I held her in a cradle position with her cheek on my boob, kind of like a little pillow.  Her cheek was high up on my boob, because that was most comfortable position to hold her in with one hand and feed her the bottle with the other.  Later, I found out that I needed to have my nipple be right by the corner of her mouth.  So I had to lower her position down and turn her more towards me so that we were more belly to belly.  The IBCLC that gave me that tip, described it like this: "imagine that that they are leaping from point A to B.  From bottle feeding to nursing.  Right now it is a HUGE leap for her, so do everything you can to make the leap as SMALL as possible by making bottle feeding as much like nursing as possible."  She also told me to bottle feed lying down on my side, like side-lying nursing, again, just trying to make bottle feeding as much like nursing as possible.  This had never occurred to me before she mentioned it and it was so nice to be able to lay down.  I had been doing all our feeding times in my piece of shit rocking chair.  Next baby we are going to get the Cadillac of rocking chairs, learned our lesson the hard way!

5.  Once I got the hang of the belly to belly, nipple-in-the-corner-of-her-mouth position, she would often un latch from the bottle and turn towards me.  It was pretty amazing actually.  She could smell the milk inside me! Their rooting reflex and desire to nurse is so STRONG!  If she turned towards my nipple she would get lots of positive reinforcement (Yay! Penelope! You can do it!) and I would offer my nipple.

6.  The Bait and Switch technique works best in the middle of the night when they are half asleep.  You start out with the bottle, and super fast, ninja-like, you pop your nipple in and pray to God they latch on and nurse.  Sometimes this worked for us, if only for a moment.  Instead of getting discouraged that she would spit my nipple out and want the bottle back, I saw each little thing as improvement. As in, "OMG she latched for 2 seconds!!"  Each new milestone was baby steps toward our goal.

7. Contraptions (if anyone ever tells me breastfeeding is free, I just might slap them):

• We used almost every single one on the market.  As far as supplemental nursing systems goes, I liked Lact-Aid much better.  I think if I had tried that when she was newborn, she might have got the hang of full nursing.  The Medela SNS is great for good nursers, but Mama's supply is low. The Lact-Aid is what you need if you have a baby who has trouble nursing and baby can't get the milk out.  I wish I had introduced the Lact-Aid before we did finger feeding. Our IBCLC we were working with, at the time, did not recommend this to us for whatever reason, but I think it's what we should have done.  I feel like if we had done that, if we had kept her at the breast at all cost, she might have figured out how to really nurse. (Lact Aid did not pay me to say that, I have purchased a Medela SNS, a Medela Starter SNS AND a Lact-Aid and this is my honest opinion).  Ease into using it a couple of times per day, at times when baby is very drowsy - either going to bed,  waking up, or down for a nap - whatever combination works for you.  I got that tip from  a fellow blogger who, amazingly, had a very similar experience as us, but she was able to get her baby to fully nurse.  Her blog is a wealth of information as well.  Here is a link to a video of her showing how to use Lact-Aid.  And here is her nursing saga. 
• Like I said before I tried a Medela nipple shield.
• I also bought this nipple extractor thingy called the Evert It Nipple Extractor (don't laugh!) to draw out my nipples to try and make it easier to latch.  On top of ALL of Penelope's physical problems that made nursing nearly impossible, I have flat nipples.  I really like this product, if flat nipples are your only issue.  Pumping first to draw out nipples and induce let down are something else we tried too.
• I also bought this syringe bulb type thing, called the SuppleMate (seriously, who came up with these names!) from the same company.  The idea is to drip a few drops of EBM into their tongue to get their rooting reflex turned on. Then to drop some on your nipple so there is milk on it to encourage them to latch or to suck once latch.  Then you can also slip it in the corner of their mouth to encourage them to keep sucking, and not have to wait for milk let down.  You can use actual syringe, which has a smaller tube, but this was the easiest to maneuver for me.  And its kind of like a bottle, in the way that I could set it on the counter for a few hours (gotta love BM!) and use it when I needed it/felt like it, instead of having to set something up every time I tried something.
• I also tried Medela's nipple extractor thingy, called Soft Shells.  They really didn't work for me, but maybe it works better for other people.  In fact, they really stressed me out, putting them on and wearing them.  I think skin to skin is more important and you have to wear a bra or tank to keep them in place.  And if you are pumping, and have flat nipples, the pump will draw them out eventually.  Mine are still not pointy, little, erasers like a lot of women, but the pump has broken down the hard tissue and they are very malleable now and easy to sort of mush/pull into an erect nipple.  Here is another link with info about inverted nipples.

8. In the mean time, should you finger feed, bottle feed or cup feed??  Click here for a link of more info on all options.

• We finger fed Penelope with a syringe for three weeks.  Then one day it just broke.  We had been using disposable ones from our IBCLC.  Looking back, I am sure she just thought we would have gotten the hang of nursing and was trying to save us money, but I wish I had bought the Medela Starter SNS right from the get go.  Because we would have finger fed her longer with it, since it holds several ounces in the bottle.  It was a NIGHTMARE to finger fed with a syringe.  Every 10 cc's you had to fill it back up.  There are 30 cc's in one ounce. So to do a 1.5 or 2 ounce feeding, it took FOREVER. And she would scream her head off every time we stopped to fill up the syringe, so it was really stressful on both of us.  So if I could do it again, I would have finger fed her for at least the first 12 weeks, because finger feeding is more like nursing than bottle feeding, in the way it develops the jaw and mouth muscles needed to be an effective nurser.
• If you do go to a bottle, use the Breastflow one.  We first used Medela bottles, because I figured, "Hey, its Medela!" They must only sell the best bottle for breastfeeding success for moms and babes.  And they had glass bottles which I liked. Nope. I was wrong.  Medela makes some great products and some shit products.  Their bottles are some of their shit products (more about the ways Medela is not as great as everyone thinks here).  The Breastflow bottle requires a compression and sucking movement more similar to nursing than other bottles and it has a wide base and short nipple to feel most like mama (although no bottle can compare, this one comes the closest).  Then later once Penelope was latching, the IBCLC we were working with at the time, told us that plain old, Even Flow nipples (they fit on Medela pump bottles) are good too.  Whatever you buy, get the shortest nipple possible and the slowest flow possible.  Then you must also pace feed.
• We never tried cup feeding, but it is also an option. 

 9. Sort of in line with the Make Your Boobs a Happy Place post, do everything you can to be very attached and in tune with your baby.  Wear your baby, sleep with your baby, take lots of baths with your baby, do EC with your baby (it will help you learn all your babies cues faster and be more in tune with your baby)...and the point of all of that, is to catch your baby rooting and to be ready to quickly offer the boob, in calm, detached manner.

10. Do exercises for jaw/mouth muscle development.  Throughout the five million appointments with lactation people, chiropractors, cranial sacral therapists, physical therapists, speech therapists, etc several recommended doing things to Penelope's mouth to make sure she was developing mouth/jaw muscles properly.  Such as:

• Tap around baby's mouth in a circle.  This stimulates their rooting reflex and helps create muscle tone.  
• Then take your finger and draw a circle around their mouth, with enough pressure like you would if giving a massage. Then do the same thing on her actual lips.
• Then take your finger (wash your hands first and use a brush to clean under your nails) and "swipe" your fingers along the inside of the their cheek.  Once up top, once in the middle and once along the bottom of her cheeck.
• Then press your fingers along their gum line, top and bottom.  You are trying to get her tongue to move toward your finger for this one.
• Then try and press your finger to the top of her palate and try to get her to suck on your finger.  Have her finger suck as long she can.  Try this several times throughout the exercises and try to notice any changes in her sucking.
• Also massage the outsides of their jaw.  In a circle motion, all around the cheeks and jaw bone.  
• And lastly, introduce all sorts of textures to baby's mouth.  She needs oral stimulation that is she lacking from not nursing, to have her mouth nerves develop properly to make sure speech is not impeded later.

I plan on doing a third post that explains all of Penelope's physical issues in detail and all the types of professionals we went to see.  It may take me awhile to get that post done, so the short version of the story is: take your baby to a chiropractor and cranial sacral therapist as soon as you can.

Phew!  Are you exhuasted? I sure am.   If you have any other tips and techniques that you have tried with success, please let me know in the comment section and I will add another section for tips and ideas from other people. I would love for this to be an all-inclusive resourse page for Mama's trying to get their babies to nurse.

And as always, send me an email if you have any further questions, I am always here to help.

Breastfeeding and Protandim

I signed up to be a distributor to sell Protandim, and started my home business, back in the summer, even though I hadn't tried it myself, because I was so impressed with how it helped my father.

He had something called peripheral neuropathy in his toes. Basically, the nerve endings were dying off and he couldn't wiggle his toes. After three weeks of taking one pill a day, of Protandim, he got all movement back! His and other stories I heard, of how Protandim made a huge difference, moved me enough to want to share the news and be apart of LifeVantage.

I didn't start taking it at first, because LifeVantage's official statement on taking Protandim while pregnant or nursing, was that you couldn't. I was told it really was ok, but it was a liability issue, and the company couldn't come out and say that it was. Kind of like how they slap, "consult your doctor first if you are pregnant or nursing" on EVERYTHING.

Later, they changed their official statement and said that it was ok, as long as you had approval from your Dr. So I showed my doctor some information on Protandim (and got the thumbs up from him), and also did a ton of research on my own-on each individual ingredient of Protandim (Milk Thistle, Turmeric, Ashwaganhda, Green Tea and Bacopa) and found out that all the ingredients are OK to take while breastfeeding. In fact, Milk Thistle and Turmeric are known to actually increase your milk supply!

I started out with half a pill because I wanted to monitor Penelope and see if she had any reactions to it. And sure enough, she did! Her Eczema got better! We have been battling eczema for months and months. I have tried every natural remedy and product out there, including taking her to acupuncture doctor to clear her of any food allergies that may or may not be causing her eczema and nothing was really helping. I even caved and put some topical steroids on it a couple of times, and that was the only thing that helped her until I started taking Protandim. I have since upped to one pill a day, and have also noticed a slight improvement in both Penelope and I's overall sleep. She is sleeping slightly longer stretches and I am having an easier time falling asleep, staying asleep and sleep deeper. All very good things in my book!

I will be at the Tallahassee Fitness Festival this Saturday! Come by and say hello! 

Also, I will be hosting an informational meeting at my house on Feb 10th at 6p. Your invited!  Bring a friend! And please pass this link along to any mama's you think might be interested in learning more about Protandim.   If you have any questions, please send me an email at info@mamaandbabylove.com


This is not medical advice, I am simply sharing my experience.

Recent Freezer Meals

This week I am going to cook it up with my friend Lauren and build up my freezer meal stash, and I remembered that I hadn't posted some of my freezer meals from November.

I made Chicken Enchiladas from Nourishing Traditions, Beef Empanadas and homemade tortilla chips and everything came out ah-mazing. 

Here's the Chicken Enchiladas recipe:

Meat from 1 whole chickens (save bones to make stock!)
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 red pepper, seeded and diced
1 green peppers, seeded and diced
2-4 jalapeno peppers( I actually omitted this, Peter doesn't like spicy foods)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or lard
1/2 cup tomato paste
1 cup chicken stock
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon cumin
.5 teaspoon red chile flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic, peeled and mashed

Saute the onions and peppers. Then add tomato paste, stock, oregano, cumin, red chile flakes, salt and garlic. Cut up chicken and stir meat in. Simmer for 15 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Serve up with the usual garnish sides, like avocado, shredded cheese, sour cream, etc.

Then I fried up my own tortilla chips and they were the bomb.com.  I bought sprouted tortillas and then sauted them in bacon grease. I have since also tried it coconut oil and it tastes almost as tasty as the bacon grease, but come on, its bacon grease, so nothing really can possibly taste better.   I am going to try and do it in lard next.  Yes, lard!  Lard is good for you! Isn't it awesome?  Check out this post to learn more about the awesomeness of lard and how to fry  tortilla chips in it.

Then, I made up some empanadas. These are such a BITCH to make, but they are so tasty.
Cooking up the inside is not such a big deal, it's the rolling every little empanada that takes forever. This is the recipe I use, but I tweak it a bit and add a couple of chopped up boiled eggs, because that is the way Peter's mom makes them.  Also, that recipe calls for cutting out circles from pie crust pastry, whoever thought that was a good idea was nuts.  So I have Peter's mom bring me loads of pre-cut empanada pastry from Miami every time she comes to visit and I keep them in our beloved deep freezer. 

Empanada freezer warning.... do not smooch them all into a container like I did. They will not pull apart. They will still cook up tasty, but you will have a one big glob of empanada. So next time, I am going to wrap the each with freezer paper or freeze them on a cookie sheet for a few hours first (kinda like blueberries) and then add them to a container already frozen.

Wish me luck for Wednesday! We are only doing 6 different recipes, but it's still gonna be a handful!

This Moment 1.14.11: Bye-Bye Baby Shoes

Saying bye-bye to some too-small baby shoes. :(

Is anyone else deeply attached to their child's shoes/clothing? I don't think I will ever be able to part with a single shoe or outfit. I will have to get a storage unit for all her clothes. I want to keep them all. Forever. Is that weird?

Current Giveaway: Berkey Sport Water Bottle

Remember this article that came out a few weeks ago?  "Tallahassee tap water allegedly contains the cancer-causing chemical that made Erin Brockovich famous."

Awesome.

We have a filter on our fridge that I have been using since we moved here...but now that Penelope is here I want a better filter.  Specifically one that filters out EVERYTHING.

I came across this blog post and after reading it start looking into the Royal Berkey Filter  with this additional filter for fluoride.

When I read the Democrat article, I immediately emailed Jeff from Berkey Water Filters to see if could do a giveaway for us and he has generously offered a Sport Water Bottle, Portable Water Filter to one lucky reader!!!

The Sport Berkey Portable Water Purifier Eliminates or Reduces up to 99.9% of:

• Unpleasant taste and odors, cloudiness, silt, sediment and chlorine.
• Toxic chemicals: Trihalomethanes, VOCs, detergents, pesticides, etc.
• Harmful microscopic pathogens: Cryptosporidium, Giardia, E-coli 99.99999% and other pathogenic bacteria.
• Heavy metals: Aluminum, Cadmium, Chromium, Copper, Lead, and Mercury.
• Radiologicals: Radon 222

I am hoping to purchase a new water filter soon, so I will keep you all posted on how I like it.

MANDATORY ENTRY
Check out Berkey Water Filters and tell me what other products you love.  If you have any questions let me know and I will have Jeff answer them.

You must be a Mama and Baby LOVE Google Follower to participate.

EXTRA ENTRIES
Must include email address if not listed in profile. Each entry must be a separate comment.

* Tweet about this giveaway for 1 entry per day! Please include Mama and Baby LOVE in your tweet and leave me the permalink.

* Follow Mama and Baby LOVE on Facebook

* Blog about this Giveaway on your blog and provide post URL.

* Post about this Giveaway on Facebook and tag Mama and Baby LOVE.

Good luck everyone! Giveaway will run until 2.20.11! I will use random generator to pick a winner and will email the winner and announce it here on the blog. The winner will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be announced.

DISCLAIMER: I was not paid for this post.  Thank you, Berkey Water Filters  for allowing us to review your products and for the awesome giveaway. If you are interested in having me do a review and giveaway for your business or product, or about our advertising pricing, send me an email at info at mamaandbabylove dot com.

How to Make Homemade Cream Cheese

Making your own cream cheese is so freaking easy to do. And it's one of the first things you need to learn how to do, in order to have your own supply of liquid whey, which is needed to make your own fermented drinks and food.

First off, watch this video to get a good idea of what to do. This video is where I learned how to do this, she gives you everything you need to know.  She's my guru.

You MUST only do this with RAW MILK. It will not work with regular, pasteurized milk. Raw milk sours and is still very good for you to consume, pasteurized milk goes bad.  Check out this page for more info about the benefits of drinking raw milk.  If you are local, you can get raw milk from New Leaf Market.  You must ask for it and they go and get it for you from the back. It has a sticker on it that says For Pet Consumption Only.  Do not be alarmed, its the farmers way of not being held liable to the FDA.

First you pour your sour milk into a container, or just leave it the milk container it came in, and set it on the counter to clabber (it's your vocab word for the day!) for 24 to 48 hours.  If your milk is not sour to start out with, it will take much longer.  Keep your eye on it.  When it's thick and chunky, it's ready.

 

Then you pour the chunky, clabbered sour milk into a clean (with non-toxic detergent), rag and tie it up with a string or rubber band. Then you hang the rag up somehow, I just hooked the rubber band over a cabinet door knob, and let the liquid drip out into a bowl.  In Nourishing Traditions, they have a crazy picture of the rag tied to a wooden spoon held over a glass pitcher...but this is MUCH easier.

What drips out is whey. Once the dish rag is done dripping, you open it up and you what's left over is cream cheese! Every time I do it, the cheese tastes a little different and the consistency is different, so don't be alarmed if yours doesn't look like mine or Sarah's. 

You can eat it plain, but its a little too different than store bought for me to eat it straight, but I like it with strawberries or nuts and a little maple syrup with a slice of bread. I also use it plain in baking and cooking when a recipe calls for cream cheese or ricotta cheese. Delish!

Then you bottle up the whey, I use a mason jar, label it and put it the fridge.  It will last about 6 months in the fridge.

This post is apart of The Healthy Home Economist's Monday Mania.

 

Sunday Surf 1.9.11

 

Its' been almost three weeks now since I quit coffee!  This is the post that inspired it all.

Great parenting post from another local mama blogger, titled No More IF/Then Statements.  As in, "IF you eat your broccoli, THEN you can go outside and play."  "IF you behave well in the restaurant, THEN you can have some candy.  The post was inspired from reading Unconditional Parenting with us in our virtual book club.  So proud!


Sweet, sweet post about older toddlers and what they say their mama's milk tastes like.

Genius idea to add probiotics to your netty pot if you suffer from runny nose/sinus issues.

Cute project for some scrap fabric and that extra mason jar you have laying around.

I haven't talked about it too much here on the blog yet, but I am IN LOVE with Labyrinths.  They have been apart of my yoga/mediation routine since I was in college and then I learned about them more when I did my Birthing From Within trainings years ago.  I can't wait to share my love of Labyrinths with Penelope and this is the perfect way!

Fantastic article about how to lose fat and stay healthy! This is a great beginning explanation to what Weston A. Price and Nourishing Traditions is all about.

And lastly, great post from Code Name: Mama, with ideas, in line with Unconditional Parenting, about how to stay patient with your toddler.


Have a great Sunday, ya'll!!

For more Sunday Surfing, visit Gems of Delight, Enjoy Birth, Breastfeeding Moms Unite, Domesticated Women, This Adventure Life, Maman A Droit, Hobo Mama and Baby Dust Diaries.

Unconditional Parenting: Chapter 3

Click here to learn about this book and our book club, check out Chapter 1 and Chapter 2

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Chapter 3, Too Much Control.

"Conditional parenting can be the consequence of control even if it wasn't the intention, and, conversely, control can help to explain the destructive effects of conditional parenting."

"The dominant problem with parenting in our society isn't permissiveness, but the FEAR of permissiveness. We are so worried about spoiling our kids that we often end up overcontrolling them."

"The way many kids are treated suggests a lack of respect for their needs and preferences-in fact, a lack of respect for children, period."

"It's easy for most of us to observe Bad Parenting on Parade, to watch people who are much more controlling that we are, and to take comfort from saying, "At least I'd never do that." But the real challenge is to reflect on the things we have been known to do and ask whether they're really in our children's best interest."

"The kids who do what they're told are likely to be those whose parents DON'T rely on power and instead have developed a warm and secure relationship with them."

"There may be times when some control, in the usual sense, is unavoidable, and here the trick is indeed to avoid overdoing it. Bu rather than just trying to find a happy medium between "too controlling" and "not controlling enough", we need to think in terms of an approach to parenting that's fundamentally different from control."


This chapter really made me think of all the times, as a Nanny, I got into power struggles with the girls over what they were wearing, how much they ate, etc.  I remember thinking, "Danm, I am such good Nanny!", because I usually always got them to eat what I wanted to or wear what I wanted.  I thought I was some master toddler negotiator...but really they were probably just so worried about upsetting me ( not that I ever yelled or screamed at them, but I think even getting frustrated and in a bad mood is way of love withdrawal) and wanting to please me than anything else...that all I really accomplished was breaking their spirit.  Sigh. 

So what did ya'll think about this chapter?  What were your "ah-ha" moments for this chapter?

MBL's 2010 Top Ten Blog Posts

A slight twist for today's Sunday Surf! Here is a list of my most viewed blog posts.  Enjoy!


1. Make Your Boobs A Happy Place
2.  Can you Teach an Older Baby to Breastfeed?
3. Petunia Pickle Bottom Sojourn Sling Giveaway
4. Ten Minute Onesie Dress
5. Homemade Growth Chart
6. Fanatical Breastfeeder Part 1
7. New Possibilities, New Business
8. Gonna Eat My Placenta
9. Let's Just Call This a Learning Experience
10. Why We Use Cloth Diapers

Let me know what your favorite blog post was of 2010 in the comment section and you could win a bottle of True Science skin cream ($70 value!!)