An Experiment: Making My Own Whey and Cream Cheese-Part 2

Yesterday I started my experiment making whey and cream cheese. By this morning, the yogurt had defnitely become smaller and more compact, and plenty of why was left in the bowl. jarred up the whey and put the cream cheese in a container. But we also had some of it with our breakfast this morning on our gluten-free toast.

So the big question is, how did it taste?

The cream cheese was sweet and tangy at the same time with a very smooth texture. My husband declared it to be fantastic-he can be a tough cream cheese customer-so I think that's it. I'm going to make my cream cheese from now on, now that I know it's so easy. Aparently, it's supposed to be good for a month, but I highly doubt it'll last that long.

As for the whey, well, I'm making beet kvass, which is a medicinal drink from Russia. I figured since I had the beets, I might as well. I'm sure I'll find some other uses for the whey, but since that will last up to 6 months, I have time to figure out what I'll do with it.

An Experiment: Making My Own Whey and Cream Cheese-Part 1

I'm still fairly new to the Traditional Foods-style of eating. I've overcome my lingering fears of animal fats by being a stickler for the highest quality of ethical animal products that I can find and afford thus far. Processed foods are farly minimal, but I'd eventually like to take it further. I'm gluten-free, for now anyway, though I'd like to bring wheat back into my diet, albeit on a very limited scale, and then either my grains will be sprouted or soured.

But there are a few sectors of TF eating that I have yet to embrace. One of them is the world of lactofermentation. But why would I want to do this? We're coming into the colder season, and whey, the main agent here, is a preservative. It would be great to preserve the remaining harvested vegetables for the winter. Not only that, but lactofermentation encourages the growth of good bacteria and enzymes, as well as increases the sheer amounts of vitamins and minerals in the vegetables. This post from the Lost Arts Kitchen gives a fuller explanation that I can give: http://lostartskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/02/lacto-fermentation-ancient-process.html

So back to what I'm doing today. I'm starting with the frst step: making whey. The process I'm using is from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. I have two cups of whole plain yogurt (from Jersey cows, who produce a fattier milk, complete with more protein and calcium) being strained over a colander lined with cheesecloth. After a few hours, I'm going to tie up the cheesecloth in such a way that will drip into a glass bottle. Since I've just started it, I don't know how long this first batch will take, but it could take as long as a day or two. But I'll have whey, which will last up to 6 months in my refrigerator. I'll also have my own cream cheese! Who needs Philly cream cheese when I can make it so easily at home! I can't wait to try it!

Part 2 will come when I'm done making it. see you then!

"You made that with BUTTER? That's why it tastes so good!"

I get this comment a lot, like butter is this decadant ingredient, like it's bad for you or something. We can't eat that all the time, else we get fat and our cholesterol will go up.

When I was trying to go lower fat, I did buy margerine for awhile, though I went for either the Smart Balance or Earth Balance. I often was making vegan dishes, and these were the only alternatives that I knew about. Plus, they don't have hydrogenated oils, so I thought they were okay. And maybe they are...but I'd rather enjoy my butter. It has health benefits that the others just don't, unless these nutrients are added synthetically, which I don't think works as well, honestly.

Good pastured butter (I usually buy Kerrygold or Organic Valley pastured, though I wish I could get local raw butter, which would be even better) is yellow for a reason: Vitamin A. It also will have K2 in it, which helps us utilize vitamins A and D properly. It has CLA, an optimal ratio of Omega3s to Omega6s....it just goes on and on. Does it have saturated fat? Yes, but as I've said before, I'm convinced that saturated fat is not a demon. On the contrary, our bodies need it for so many functions, not least of which helping us metabolize fat-soluble vitamins like A and D.

I still cook vegan food from time to time, but instead of using margerine, I use coconut oil, grapeseed oil, or olive oil, though I'm not a fan of heating the latter that much. Being a monounsaturated fat, I don't want to destroy it by heating it too much, which would ruin the oil by turning it unwittingly into a trans fat. Coconut oil is much more stable and can take the heat, as it were.

So yes, I will continue to use butter in many of my foods. And not only will it taste really delicious, the butter is actually a health food, so it's not something to be feared or thought of as sinful. (Unless of course, you have dairy intolerances, in which case, ghee might work for you! But that's another post.)

I'm joining Kelly the Kitchen Kop's Real Food Wednesdays! You can see it here: http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2010/10/real-food-wednesday-10610.html

Oh, Stop N' Shop....

I'm sorry that I haven't been too active in updating this blog. I've started teaching again, so that's been taking up most of my time.

But as I saw this ad again last night, I thought that I really needed to update on here.

It's a Stop N'Shop ad, featuring a woman who reminisces about growing up on a farm and getting all the fresh produce she could want. And she says she thinks about her childhood when she goes shopping in the produce aisle at Stop N' Shop, even continuing a tradition. I wish I had the exact quote, but I don't.

No doubt Stop N' Shop gets its produce from somewhere, presumably farms of a sort. Maybe some of it is even localish. But really, a woman who grew up on a farm thinks she's continuing the tradition of her childhood by going to a supermarket?!? Seriously? How about going to a farmstand or a Farmer's Market? Or, I don't know, growing her own produce in her backyard?

The commercial makes me want to throw things.

Speaking of Farmer's Markets...because my normal one is closed in lieu of Natick Day, I will be headed to the Hopkinton Farmer's Market tomorrow. I haven't been there yet, so I'm wondering who will be there. I'm pretty sure that at least some of the vendors will be familiar.

This post was included in the September Just Posts:

Quick question...

My daughter and I were at Chipotle last night, giving my husband some requisite quiet time to finish his inventory for work. I ordered her meal, and was presented with a couple of options for her drink: water, juice, white milk and chocolate milk.

Now I love Chipotle, and I'm so glad that they only serve organic milk, but why oh why does it have to be low-fat? This isn't necessarily Chipotle's fault, but Organic Valley who makes the shelf-stable milk boxes. My point is that if we're so afraid of our kids getting fat, why are we making pre-made chocolate milk? It's the added sugars that are tipping the scales, as it were, and not the milkfat. The milkfat is crucial for the proper absorbtion of the vitamins and minerals, and the brain, being made of mostly saturated fats, needs it to come from our dets, especially in these crucial developing years.

But my guess is that even Organic Valley, who brags about its cows eating fine grasses, listens to the low-fat hype by the USDA. Sigh.

b.good in Boston...good, but could be better.

I've eaten a few times over at b.good at the Dartmouth Street location now. It's basically next to Back Bay Station, which is where I get off the commuter rail, so it's very convenient for me to get lunch there.

The good parts:

I really appreciate their commitment to small farmers. Their potatoes come from Iowa, but their meat and vegetables are coming from New England. They grind the hamburg, cut the chicken breasts, and form their veggie patties in-house.

b.good has a low-carb option, wherein you can get extra vegetables (broccoli, carrots, and red peppers) instead of a bun for $1.29 extra. If I wanted to, I could get a gluten-free bun. I'm thinking of trying that next time.

The food is absolutely delicious. Evan thinks they use too much salt, but since I really like salt, this doesn't bother me.

The not-so-great parts:

I asked where they get their "local" ice cream, and the server didn't know. Why not proclaim where they get that from? MA has lots of great ice cream, so I was very puzzled as to why I couldn't get a simple answer to a simple question.

Their drinks are distributed by Coca-Cola. With all of their focus on healthy, local food, you'd think that they'd steer away from the normal soda fountain fare. There are so many kinds of sodas that don't have HFCS in them; why not choose some of them?

I do plan on sending my concerns to them, and hope that I can get a reasonable answer. Still, as far as fast food places go, this place isn't bad.

Fat: good or evil?

I suppose it depends on who you ask, right? We've been indoctrinated for years that low-fat diets are the way to go, yet look at our nation. Obesity rates are climbing, and drug companies are working on how to market statins for kids.

So is low-fat the way to go? For awhile there was a huge low-carb craze, with Dr. Atkins and South Beach. I admit to trying South Beach before my wedding, and I lost 9 lbs in two weeks, which was enough to look good in my wedding dress. But that seemed to fizzle out, and low-fat was back in, at least, so it has seemed to me. I couldn't do South Beach again, even though I tried that.

I've tried Weight Watchers, at least in principle, except I didn't go to meetings, and failed miserably. I was always starving. I did Slim-Fast, wherein I lost 60 lbs, but now I yo-yo around the bottom half of that, and could never commit to it again (I tried). What on earth was I doing wrong?

I've flirted with vegetarianism. I never got there completely, but I was eating vegetarian/veg*n about 50% of the time, sometimes more. I thought that maybe if I ate more vegetables and less meat, I would do better weight-wise and be a healthier person. When Evan and I went on vacation, we tried a week-long detox wherein we ate mostly vegan except for an omelet we made one day. Bsides the relaxation, you would have thought I would have lost weight and felt great. Hah! No.

Then I applied for life insurance. Rhea was about 6 months old, and we wanted to be responsible adults. So they sent the nurse to come weigh us and take some blood. But when I got my results, I was floored! My cholesterol was through the roof, and a whole bunch of other things were off too. What on earth was wrong with me? I had been eating healthy in preparation for Rhea's arrival, starting with when we were planning her up until that point. I went to my new PCP, who wanted to test my thyroid, which had been slightly wonky before, but not enough for red flags on the part of MDs. When those results came back, we knew why I was such a mess: my thyroid was failing. Not just a little, mind you. I truly think that if I had waited much longer, I would have gone into a coma from lack of thyroid hormones.

So what happened to me? I'm not entirely sure, but certainly a combo of things. Besides the added stresses to my body and soul in my personal and work life, pregnancy and nursing (the latter still ongoing) take a lot out of a person, and can leave a woman undernourished. And undernourishment can cause a whole host of problems, including a crashing thyroid, I believe. My cholesterol was high because of the crashing thyroid and to support the needs of my daughter during pregnancy and nursing.

Fast forward some time. I'm on thyroid meds, but I'm still not quite there. I did start exploring the idea of Traditional Foods, through a forum on MotheringDotCommunity, the natural parenting website I've been a member of since way before Rhea was conceived. They have influenced quite a bit of my thinking on parenthood, and now diet, too. Anyway, one of the big deals with Traditional Foods is to no longer fear FAT*. I had been drinking skim milk, and using Smart Balance or Earth Balance instead of real butter, and not going too crazy wth the cheese and animal fat (I couldn't give up on chicken skin, though that was a rare indulgence), and I thought I was doing all the right things. Well, I don't think so anymore.

So since I've been embracing Traditional Foods, though I'm definitely still a novice, I've started to feel better. I've lost a little weight, too, though only about 7 lbs thus far, though I defnitely have to watch my grain intake also and keep that to a minimum (a discussion for another post). But here's the crazy part: I use tons of animal fat, and when I'm cooking vegetarian, I use coconut oil and full fat coconut milk. If fat was truly the problem, I should have ballooned by now. But I often have eggs and bacon for breakfast, or full fat Greek yogurt. Mayonnaise often makes appearances, and that's full fat, too. I always eat chicken skin, especially crispy.

Now mind you, I do try to get my meat, milk, and eggs from the best sources I can find. Unfortunately grain fed cows and chickens are not only not optimal from a nutriton standpoint, but their fat is more toxin-filled. I'd like to avoid toxins and support sustainable agriculture. How nice that it all works together so nicely.

The true test will be when I get my cholesterol looked at again. If it goes down, and I've continued to lose weight and feel better, then I will be absolutely thrilled.

*Future posts will cover what kinds of fat I mean. But for now, trans fat (except naturally occuring CLA) and polyunsaturated fats are still not good in my opinion. But saturated fat is not the demon it's made out to be in the media.