The Insanity Of Those Opposing Make America Healthy Again

December 30, 2024 Sarah

Social media is interesting, especially when what you see is pushed onto you. Like many people, I have double accounts on Facebook and Instagram (keeping my personal separate from my business side). What the companies push can be the opposite. On my Trail Cooking Instagram account, I only post business photos – hiking, the outdoors, foraging, trail food and such. With little to go on, I am often shown similar content. Normal, you might think..but on my personal Instagram, I post many things, such as cooking, and my thoughts on food safety, food companies, and the Make America Healthy Again movement. I am politically independent, and I live somewhere in the libertarian/leave-me-alone party. As long as no one is harmed, I don’t care what others do. Yes, I am passionate about my beliefs and hope to inspire others, but I also can ignore those who harm themselves and don’t wish to change.

So the thing is…why is Instagram spending its time showing me nothing but reels by people screaming about how happy they are not having kids and how being overweight is positive? Anti-marriage reels. Pro-government reels. Reels on angry women screeching about how horrible “trad wives” are. Reels on how anything they don’t like is sexist and racist.

And I kid you not….this reel confirmed it:

They are “witchy” but believe in science. I’m sorry, but you can’t be a garden witch, a forest witch, or a white witch and be a suckup to the science movement. The two cannot coexist.

And she is pro-parabens. Yikes! And what an odd thing to be pro about, considering the EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have both ruled on the use of, dating back almost 10 years ago for the EU.

They are scientifically proven to be bad for us (parabens in both body products and food eaten give a longer shelf life but come with real side effects).

I thought this was an odd item to be proud of, so I took screenshots of this reel. If you fancy yourself witchy, you can make handcrafted body products from safe, natural ingredients that are sustainably grown and harvested. As someone who has both created recipes for the “crunchy” set and sold many natural body products, I find it horrifying anyone would want to be parabens on their body, much less eat them.

Ah, there it is…. Are you getting sucked into the “wellness to white supremacy pipeline“?

I wish this were a joke, someone trolling. But it isn’t. Even a casual search brings up so much, from people who want to be influencers to magazines like The Atlantic, claiming that if you care about being healthier, losing weight, being self-sufficient, gardening, homesteading, homeschooling, herbalism – you are secretly a white supremacist.

What it feels like is a massive psyop where the US is being led to believe that being inclusive of everything, including really bad habits/ways of living, makes you a good person. That we SHOULD be overweight, even grossly obese, where our bodies are failing us. We should use chemicals banned in other nations, buy processed foods, and support international fast food chains. It’s just an app away for many North Americans to have a meal delivered that is high in sodium, seed oils, and cheap carbs. Add in an HFCS pop with it, and dinner will be served.

But if you dare to question the narrative…you are a closet white supremacist.

And my readers…..

We live in a clown world. The grass is blue, and the sky is green.

Keep doing what you know is best: Be an outlier to society.

~Sarah

Bioengineered Foods · Clean Living

Clean Living Changes That Add Up

December 10, 2024 Sarah

As we approach the new year, it is so easy to think up a massive list of “New Year’s Resolutions” that will overwhelm us—and by the first of February, it is done. Maybe what is better and more sustainable is to make simple changes in our lives that we can keep doing. That will become a habit quickly. I see changes in Kirk and me as we work on our second month of changes.

Before the pandemic, I had a goal and made that first goal. I was pushing an 18-20 size in misses, and I worked out to get to a 14 in pants. Our middle son was in 4th grade that year, and we were going on walking field trips. I didn’t want to embarrass him, so I worked on myself, so I could keep up with the class. I have kept that weight off, but while I had lost so much, I still had so far to go. I went through the pandemic years muddling. I wasn’t eating clean, and my body felt it. I felt like I was aging and aging fast—that feeling where you might need a cane soon. I was also skirting the start of menopause, and it just exhausted me.

I wouldn’t say I liked that feeling. It’s like looking in the mirror at my Mom’s memory.

Maybe vanity isn’t a bad thing.

The past year, I felt it in my muscles and bones, and just standing hurt.

Kirk asked if we could change how we ate. I protested and argued, and when I ran out of excuses, I started trying to do what he wanted.

As we changed how we ate, I could feel a difference rapidly within weeks.

Finally, seeing change matters even if no one else sees it but yourself. It helps confirm in your mind that it is worth it. The journey to cleaner living, while hard, is very worth it.

Waking up to less physical pain, seeing my perimenopause symptoms lessening, my pants less tight: this all matters. Can I prove it has changed me? How I feel is enough for me. It is the thing I hold on to when all I want is junk food. Or to not work out. I ask myself if I want to hurt the next day when my legs will ache.

These are what I keep telling myself:

Clean Living Changes That Add Up

Give yourself the grace to be human. You may fail one day but return to your commitments the next day. You didn’t fail permanently.
Convert to more natural cleaning products for dishes, laundry, and home.
Quit putting nail polish, makeup, perfume, and similar products on your body. They are toxic—all of them. Our skin needs to be able to breathe and function.
Quit dying your hair. It may look cool, or cover grey, but even the semi-permanent ones are so bad for us. Even “natural” dyes sold at natural food stores still carry warnings.
Quit adding more tattoos. I have a number of them—I don’t regret the artwork, but I wish I had known how ink injected into my skin would affect me over time. So I haven’t added any in years.
Use as few OTC medications as you can. It’s not the worst thing if you have a bad headache or are sick, but the key is to use it only when needed, not daily. Some OTC meds our bodies get so used to that you have to wean off them (for example, pain meds and ones for keeping you “regular”).
Start working out, even if you can only do one or two weekly sessions. Just get moving.
Use an app to track steps, sleep, and workouts if it helps you remember. I do.
Go outside daily. Even if it is raining and dreary, natural light will reset your body daily. It would help if you had it, especially in the winter months.
Start or maintain a garden. Even in an apartment, you can have a small one in windows and on a patio/deck.
Learn how to forage for seasonal berries, nuts, and more in your area. Get outside and enjoy in-season foods!
Learn to preserve food, whether through dehydration, freeze-drying, or canning. Unlike commercially prepared foods, you know what goes into the food.
Stop drinking pop/soda, even the “healthier” probiotic ones. Your skin, stomach, and body will thank you—as will your wallet.
Swap to water if you can. I know how hard this is, but your body will thank you.
Stop eating out at fast food unless it’s the only choice. Even then, you can make it work (don’t eat fries, buns, salad dressing, and so on).
Commit to leaving the Ultra-Processed way of life. You will feel left out. I can guarantee that. But eventually, you feel better internally, and this makes it all worth it.
Commit to not consuming seed oils. Use only quality oil (extra virgin olive oil, avocado, tallow, lard, butter).
Start shopping only for raw ingredients—base ingredients. Start in the produce section, eggs, dairy, and meat. Only go into the core aisles if you need rice, flour, or canned unsalted tomatoes – that kind of thing. Otherwise, avoid those aisles so you are not tempted.
When you buy base ingredients, read the packaging. Look for US-made over imported ones. Look at things like yogurt to see what it contains. Avoid adding thickeners (pectin, gelatin), gums, and seed oils.
Try to buy in season and from US producers first.
Avoid artificial coloring, flavors, “natural” flavors, preservatives, nitrites, and heavily added sodium.
Accept that you can eat what you want – IF you make it from scratch with real ingredients. Chances are, you will be lazy, and it won’t happen. And if it gets made, you put in a lot of work and can enjoy it. It’s that. It would help if you were more connected to your food.

~Sarah

Bioengineered Foods · Clean Living

But I Can’t Afford To Eat Healthy!

December 3, 2024December 3, 2024 Sarah

The concept of Make America Healthy Again is polarizing. If I post about it on my personal Facebook page, I get angry strangers screaming. It’s so oddly weird how they want to protect junk food, highly processed food, and bio-engineered/GMO items. It’s great for engagement, and Meta is giving me a few dollars a month for pocket change, but it led me to ponder: Why are they so against eating cleaner? What angers these people so much? Before the Covid years, these same people were railing about how disgusting our agriculture was in the United States and how we needed food that wasn’t poisoning us…but somehow we flipped?

I often argued with Kirk that we couldn’t afford to buy larger quantities of protein and fresh vegetables. Our shopping bills were already high enough. I would rely on carbs to pad out meals so I could feed 5 to 6 people every meal. Stretch the meat and produce, if you will.

I complained bitterly after every shopping trip in the past two or three years. Everything was so expensive. Comparing the prices I had photographed two to four years ago, I could see how prices had changed. It was miserable to shop, to come out with a few bags, and to spend $125 with little to show for it.

But something happened that I wasn’t expecting once we changed how we eat.

I wasn’t paying attention to how many extras went in the shopping cart every trip. It doesn’t matter if it is mainstream brands or organic/non-GMO; it’s a lot of carbs: pasta, rice, tortillas, chips, crackers, pre-popped popcorn, cookies, snacks for lunches, bread, bagels, and granola bars. But once I stopped buying these items? My deal was we could only eat these things if I or one of them made them from scratch. I bought meat, dairy, and produce without raising the bill. Suddenly, I had more money in our budget. I could afford more meat, produce, and eggs in the off-season. We are eating less because of the density of the food. I find I am full quicker during dinner when I am eating grain-free.

When I cook dinner now, it is nearly always keto-friendly, high-protein, low-carb, and focused on fat content (not too much, not too little, and healthy fats only – no seed oils). Some nights, I make a small dish of a complex carb for the boys, or they have tortillas warmed up with dinner. They need enough carbs to grow. I also make bread for them several times a week. I bake sugar-free muffins or cookies using clean-living recipes for their school lunches. Are they always happy? No. But they are adapting. It takes time to change.

This leads to my thoughts on this topic.

Maybe we can afford to eat healthier if we opt out of the system, which relies on us (the consumer) to buy a never-ending stream of processed foods that are often ready to eat.

Why do we feed cold cereal to children before school? When, instead, would two eggs and a bit of meat keep them fueled for hours? Breakfast cereal is quite expensive if it is not on sale. A box for $5 might serve two to three bowls now. And they will crash quickly after the simple carbs wear off. They don’t need that for learning. Eggs, while also expensive (in the western states due to heavy laws recently enacted), are still a bargain due to protein density.

It’s the same for lunches and dinners. Multi-national food companies have indoctrinated us for decades (since the end of WWII) that dinner should look a certain way or that lunch has a sandwich. Portable? Yes, but not necessarily the highest achievement of mankind.

I now spend Sundays batch cooking, so I don’t panic and run to the store to buy treats for their lunches. I make Kirk his breakfasts two times a week. He eats when he is ready, as he is doing some fasting mornings, but it is ready for him.

My big step right now is chopping up, washing, and drying lettuce greens for my lunches. If tucked away, they last in the refrigerator for days, which ensures I make myself a salad many days. If I do the work, I will eat better. Being hungry and not having a solid choice leads to bad decisions.

Another oddity I have noticed?

In the past month, I rarely enter any grocery store aisles. All I am shopping for is the meat, produce, and dairy aisles. If needed, I might wander down the spice aisle.

The other day, I walked into a local grocery store and noticed how oddly colored “food” is in its packaging. We might as well be fish tempted to grab a lure. It’s all colorful; the brighter the coloring, the more entranced you get. It used to be that the “natural” choices had more muted colors, but not anymore. Even brown is vivid these days.

I thought we were an ingedient household for years, I realize now, even that is flawed. Many things I bought then, I wouldn’t buy now. Instead of buying canned vegetables, beans, and even pasta sauce, I have to make it from scratch to stay within how I want us to eat—minimal sugar, minimal wheat, no ultra-processed food, no seed oils, and so forth. I took what I thought was an outlier diet and changed it to a level I wasn’t sure I could do. It isn’t easy, for sure. But I know it’s worth it.

Another thing to watch is eating in season. Do I want blueberries in November? Sometimes, yes, and I will pay for that luxury.

This is forcing me to look at produce when shopping. Buy North America first. Potatoes, apples, onions, and garlic are all US-grown! You don’t need to buy imported all year long.

But maybe I should only use bell peppers in season and not buy grapes from Peru in January.

Because that alone will save me money and allow me to buy more California-grown romaine lettuce!

So yes, I can afford to eat now, but it comes with tight restrictions. Maybe we should all try this: Eat in season, buy as little processed food as you can, and stay out of the inner aisles of the grocery store. You might find your shopping trips faster, more affordable, and better for your body. For me, just eating a lot less has also helped. It’s helping me feel better.

~Sarah

Bioengineered Foods · Clean Living · Recipes

Handcrafted Condensed Cream Of Mushroom Soup

November 30, 2024 Sarah

Thanksgiving and Christmas are troubling holidays—not for what most might think of. For me, it is the food. Every corner of the grocery store is a minefield of highly preserved “food” that most of America serves without blinking. Canned cream of mushroom soup is easy to grab. Just scrape out the can, add a can worth of milk, and in a few minutes, you have green bean casserole ready for the holiday oven.

But what is in that can? There are many ingredients we could avoid. Cheap GMO/BE seed oils, soy protein concentrate, MSG, and yeast. For me, yeast (think nutritional yeast) often causes me to get a niacin flush across my face. It is why I cannot use many ready-to-use chicken broths. I don’t enjoy flushing, for sure.

Ingredients (Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup, 10.5-ounce can)
Water, Mushrooms, Vegetable Oil (Corn, Canola, And/Or Soybean), Modified Cornstarch, Wheat Flour, Salt, Cream, Whey, Soy Protein Concentrate, Monosodium Glutamate, Yeast Extract, Dried Garlic, Natural Flavoring.

The thing is, we can replicate that added MSG with fresh mushrooms, giving the savory flavor – but naturally. Instead of a few tiny dice of mystery black fungi, this soup is full of tasty bits! Enjoy it. And no protein concentrates needed, nor wanted.

If you need dairy-free, use your favorite unsweetened and unflavored non-dairy milk. I wouldn’t suggest coconut though, as it tends to be naturally sweet.

Handcrafted Condensed Cream Of Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
8 ounces button mushrooms, chopped finely
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot powder
1 tsp low sodium vegetable bouillon powder*
¼ tsp fine sea salt and ground black pepper

Directions:

In a large, heavy saucepan, heat the oil over medium. Add the mushrooms and saute, stirring often, until they are fully cooked and have let out all their moisture.

Add in the milk, cornstarch, broth powder, salt, and pepper, mixing well with a whisk.

Continue whisking as it thickens – it will become very thick.

Take off the stove, transfer to a storage container, and chill.

Use in place of one can condensed soup as called for in recipes. To use in a green bean casserole, stir in 10 ounces of milk, then proceed as normal.

Notes:

*Making your own low-sodium vegetable broth powder is easy. Here is one recipe for it.

~Sarah

Bioengineered Foods · Clean Living · MAHA

Make America Healthy Again: The Diet Conundrum

November 21, 2024 Sarah

RFK Jr. is a divisive topic in the United States. The mainstream media is attempting to discredit him, which makes me pause and ask, “Why?” Anytime I see legacy media try to derail a person or a topic that hard, I always question why. It’s not hard to guess the answer, though—legacy media relies heavily on advertising dollars. Two of the biggest are pharmaceutical companies and multi-national food companies. They would rather the USA doesn’t change that much. It’s quite profitable for both sides.

This has caused many liberals to declare how bad he is suddenly. To me, this is odd. Before the COVID years, the Crunchy Mamas were usually liberals. I wrote about this a while back, how it sent them into a fear-driven world where they suddenly wanted the safety of Big Pharma.

So, while RFK Jr may be divisive, he has plenty of good to say. MAHA. Make America Healthy Again. And I have been listening hard. I know we have things I can do so much better with in my life, in my family life. If I don’t put the effort in, who will?

Kirk and I have been working hard this fall to take our clean living much farther. I am not perfect by any means. Living a clean life sustainably and cooking everything from scratch is hard. It takes a lot of time daily, and it requires commitment. I take Kirk’s meal planning and adapt it to feed the boys (low carb/high protein for us, but I add a bit of carb for them). But it also requires me to make them bread from scratch and treats as well, for their lunch boxes. We’ve lived the “homestead life” but not fully. I own up to that. It’s easy to go to the store and buy a box of treats to put in their lunch boxes. To buy bagels to make sandwiches with.

I saw an article on CNN (pretty much anything they publish is bought propaganda these days) about the use of the newer “miracle” weight loss medications and how wrong RFK Jr. is on his stance. Yet, I understood what he was saying. While they criticized him, I wanted to scream, “He isn’t wrong!”.

What it was on was the now heavy use of those medications. Every day I am on social media, I am shown at least a DOZEN ads a day, on Instagram and Facebook, for various weight loss drugs. Touting how I could lose weight with barely any effort. For just $198 to $800 a month, out of pocket. In tiny font, a warning that the medications are made in compound pharmacies that are not FDA approved. That in itself was very troubling. Did I have enough trust in the safety? Where are these pharmacies? India? China? They constantly use the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy in the ads, but you are not getting that.

RFK Jr. said that these medications are not miracles. First, we must solve our problems to get sustainable, clean food in stores. We must help Americans work on their issues with food, learn to make wiser choices, remove BE (bioengineered) and GMO food, lower sodium and sugar dramatically, get rid of artificial colors and flavors, and use heavy preservatives—all the things that fill modern food in stores.

CNN, instead of saying, “Hey, this is a good idea,” doubled down with a quote from a medical professional: “Doctors who treat people with obesity suggest that fixing the food system shouldn’t be mutually exclusive with using weight-loss medications, when appropriate.”

So, instead of saying, “We need clean food and help people detox mentally from how they eat,” they’d rather have people taking medications.

The problem is that those medications are not sustainable. When they started coming out, I did look into them. Even $200 a month isn’t affordable. Even if one is wealthy, can you justify it? Will you change how you eat? How do you view food? What happens when a person taking them can no longer afford it? Or do they have side effects that make it so they must stop taking it?

The weight will come back. That is medically confirmed. Will that crush them mentally?

But you haven’t healed your issues with food.

I know I have a lot of issues with food. I grew up in abject poverty, where we didn’t always have enough food. And when we did have food, it was often dull and bland due to my Dad. So when I taste commercially processed food, it does something to my brain. Is it the high sugar? I often wonder. Or is it the intense flavors that food science creates? I don’t know, but when I eat food like this, I cannot turn off the desire to keep eating. It’s been that way for at least the last 30 years of my life. Chips, crackers, pastries, even lattes. It tastes so good you just want more. I smoked cigarettes when I was in my teens and early 20s, and stopping smoking was incredibly easy. One day, I had my last smoke and threw the pack away. I have never craved them. Same with alcohol. I quit drinking in general years ago. But sugar? Highly processed food? Shopping has become so hard. On a trip this week to the store, all I bought was dairy, produce, and meat. I realized I could not go down the aisles anymore. I will buy things I shouldn’t eat. I felt like a pathetic addict.

I have paid for it by repeatedly gaining weight. In late 2019, I lost three clothing sizes and have kept them off (I did it through exercise). But I am still too heavy. I wear a size 14 in general (it depends on the brand), but I’d like to be a size 10 to 12 to help my varicose veins return under my skin again. So that I don’t have the aches of “getting older”.

It’s tempting to listen to those ads and take the medication. Because I’d get there faster, it would block the cravings. But then I ask myself: Is it worth it? What happens if I get a frozen stomach or nausea from them? Because I HAVE to conquer the addiction part now.

Instead, I remind myself to work out with Kirk, do some cardio, and start weight lifting again to strengthen myself. I also remind myself to keep cooking all our food with simple, clean ingredients.

To opt out of the system.

I won’t judge you, though. If you feel the medication is worth it, I will support you. But we have to heal our food system. It is destroying our country.

~Sarah