11.27.08
Great Oatmeal Porridge
Many, many people just hate porridge. They think it’s lumpy and gluey and yucky. It is if you don’t know how to make it.
First, do not use instant oatmeal in little packets. The flavours are creepy, the porridge like babyfood. Maybe that’s what you like, but it’s gross.
Second, don’t get quick-cooking oatmeal in the bag or box. This becomes glutinous almost immediately.
Third, don’t make it in the microwave. The microwave is an evil necessity. I avoid it as much as possible, even though there is one here. God meant food to be eaten raw or cooked over heat, not boiled from within.
Buy good-quality oatmeal. I get mine from my favourite store, Bulk Barn. It sounds like they sell laxatives, but it is a great place to buy fresh binned foods in the amount you need. All the Bulk Barns I’ve visited have been clean, well-organized and diligent about food safety. Stuff doesn’t sit for weeks or months. If you are traditional or sentimental, or there’s no good bulk foods store near you, buy it in that box with William Penn smiling at you (Quaker Oats).
You need the flaked or rolled oats, stuff that looks like real oats crushed flat. Oats have to be crushed or cooked to be digestible to humans. Oats (avena sativa) is a naturally healing herb. It is good for those who have been through emotional trauma, suffer from shingles or other nerve-involving illness, and is soothing to the digestive tract. Many of us have irritated stomachs and bowels from coffee, soft drinks, fried foods, white sugar and stress-induced acidity. While cutting back on these foods, eating nourishing porridge will help heal the damage.
Take equal amounts of water and oatmeal. Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan. Add the oats slowly, trickling them in from the measuring cup. Stir constantly while cooking at low temperature. You can add a little salt, too, if you like. I don’t. It doesn’t take more than about five minutes before you have a thick porridge, and you can take it off the heat, since it will continue to set and thicken. If you like thinner porridge, use more water. I don’t recommend using less water, or you get a substance like gritty concrete.
Now add your favourite flavourings. I use cinnamon and nutmeg. Dried fruit, whether raisins, cranberries, blueberries, apple chips or banana, is added now, not at the beginning of cooking. Serve with honey, brown sugar, or maple syrup, and milk if you like that. Don’t let it sit on the stove for more than a few minutes.
Oatmeal is cheap,plentiful, and very nourishing to the body. I recommend we eat more of it, rather than the sugary, salty, fatty, expensive, nitrate-filled breakfast foods we seem to prefer.
Breakfast foods containing oats are just not the same, including that popular O-shaped cereal. The oats are probably overprocessed and a lot of their healing qualities are lost. The packaging is expensive, the promotion is expensive, and unless you are about six years old, they are disgusting eaten dry. Rolled oats are cheaper, better, and take up less room in the cupboard. They are closer to their original state, meaning that extra energy costs haven’t been committed. If you can, buy rolled oats at a local mill (there are a few traditional mills scattered throughout the continent.) You’ll find the flavour is incredible when the oats are really fresh.
11.24.08
Drug-free Sleep
I have been plagued with insomnia all my life. It is an unusual night if I’m not awake between 2 am and dawn. I simply can’t take most over-the-counter sleep nostrums because of sensitivity to a key ingredient (acetaminophen) and constant chemical bombardment of your body is not a healthy thing, anyway. Why I don’t sleep, I’m not sure. It’s just how I’m wired, maybe. I’m a busy person who waits until things are quiet to do the heavy thnking, and that means at night. So part of the sleeplessness is anxiety and part is fatigue, which should mean I could sleep better. Physical pain contributes to some of the exhaustion.
I have used quite a few natural remedies, but often they are just substitutes for pharmaceutical solutions. Tinctures of valerian, passionflower, California poppy, hops, and skullcap have all helped, but I began to feel medicated. Friends referrred to the “potions” I concocted every night. And it got expensive.
I had to seriously work on my sleep disorder. This seems to be the best solution so far:
Have natural, freshmade oatmeal in the morning instead of sugary cereals, donuts or fatty bacon and eggs. Add honey, real maple syrup, and fresh fruit. I flavour it with nutmeg and cinnamon. Don’t use instant sugared oatmeal. Oats have principles that sooth the digestive tract and the nerves.
Avoid caffeine after noon. I like coffee, but I can’t have more than two cups. Likewise, I have to avoid chocolate in the evening. It’s probably the combination of a small amount of stimulant and a lot of sugar.
Don’t drink much alcohol, and limit it to the supper hour or early evening. It’s tempting to have that glass of wine, or bottle of beer (with the effect of the hops) to unwind and feel relaxed, but it is counter-productive because the alcohol takes water from your body and you wake up somewhat dehydrated.
Stop eating with the evening meal, and eat early. Your body doesn’t really want to lie down and digest. If you eat refined sugar, do so earlier rather than later. The big bowl of ice cream is merely comfort food for your inner child, not nourishment for your adult body, and it will definitely remind you of its presence in the middle of the night. Sweeten foods with honey, preferably natural, unheated, local honey. This is real food.
Check for food allergies and lactose intolerance. Are you eating something which you really shouldn’t have? My husband had an unsuspected corn allergy. Cut corn products from his diet, and he feels more active and energetic, and doesn’t have unpleasant gastric symptoms (which he thought were from overeating, or eating fats.) I have a long-standing lactose intolerance, and have to watch the amount of milk product I ingest. Need I say that most processed snack food is full of weird, unexpected ingredients?
Get active. I really need at least a full hour of exercise outdoors to feel a healthy drowsiness in the evening. Again, early is better than later. Active people who take sit-down jobs often suffer insomnia; I raised sheep for ten years, and usually after a full day of work and farmcare, I was just the right kind of tired. In these sedentary years, I have more trouble falling asleep and staying asleep.
Make the home a haven. Your home is your sanctuary from strife and anxiety. If it isn’t, then start to change it. If you have to drive a lot, work with the public, or make snap decisions all day, you’ve had enough stress. Don’t let the household become another point of tension (as so often it is.) I will write more on this later. At least, your bedroom should be free of clutter, anxiety provoking projects, and arguments.
Make the bedroom dark – curtains, shutters, blankets over the windows and a rolled towel against the gap at the bottom of the door – and avoid LED and LCD displays and nightlights. You are wired to start waking with light stimulation – in the natural world we call that dawn. Most municipalities are in a perpetual daylight state. Our last apartment was next to a parking garage that was lighted with – get this – a huge floodlight on a seven-story building. The light shone directly into our windows. It was like living in a maximum security environment. Nothing would keep out that intense blue light except plywood over the windows. We moved.
Stengthen your immune system with natural products. Use echinacea for 2-3 weeks, then stop for the same period of time. (It works better if not used continuously.) Eat lots of fresh, raw fruits and vegetables, preferably locally grown. (Vitamin content goes down when produce is shipped and stored, or it was never developed because the food was picked green and ripened artificially.) Best picks: dark vegetables and bright colours. Eat less meat and fat, and eat more whole grains, such as brown rice.
These are tea formulas to help you relax and to strengthen the body with vitamins and minerals.
Peaceful tea:In equal parts, or in any combination that suits your taste – rose petals, lavender buds, lemon balm (melissa officinalis), catnip (nepeta cataria), green oat tops (avena sativa). Steep in a china teapot, covered, for ten minutes or more. This is very good for shingles, chicken pox, or any herpes-related pain, as well. Use it regularly during the day and evening for a week or more. It’s a very pretty tea, like potpourri. You can get organically grown catnip in a pet store.
Good Sleep tea: My husband calls it knock-out tea. Equal amounts of lemon balm, nettle (urtica diotica – buy it dried), peppermint and chamomile. Add a sprig of fresh rosemary if you have it, or a half-teaspoon of dried rosemary. Steep in a china pot, covered, as above. Have two cups (6-8 oz, each) before bed. This tea will help build healthy nerves if you have been under a lot of stress.
Maybe you have some solutions of your own you would like to share, or you may have some questions. Please use the comments section to let me know!
