Vitamix

Hurray, we've received the Vitamix blender!

Victoria Boutenko recommended us for the company promotion.

That's my  new blender

For those who do not know what Vitamix is, I will just say that it is a powerful blender which can do not only very creamy smoothies but much, much more. You can also check it on the Internet if you never heard of it.

And to understand why we are so lucky see “Dismissal, Introduction…”

With my old blender (the one that I kept in the garage because  of its noise) I made the same recipe again and again – put in some greens (usually one or two varieties) and two bananas for taste.  It was not bad - banana makes the drink thicker and sweeter (actually a little-bit too sweet).  My husband tried once to use oranges instead of bananas – the mixture came out watery and quite acidic.

We got discouraged and decided not to experiment with other fruits - just stick with bananas.

But no matter how I like smoothies and the way they make me feel, after a while, I’ve gotten bored with their sweet taste. On the other hand I really love creamy soups but don't have them too often, because they are usually over-processed. Chefs like to roast or bake ingredients, then cool them, then blend them together and after that heat the mixture again.

Double-cooking leaves hardly any nutrients in the final product, besides there is an opinion that it makes food carcinogenic (see “Paul Bragg and Other Gurus“). So I’ve been thinking about something raw and nutritious, yet yummy (but not sweet for a change!) 

Actually I had an idea in mind for quite a while. In S. and V. Boutenkos’ book “Fresh” I found the recipe of the raw beets soup called “borscht”. Needless to say that I made traditional borsch (that is my spelling of it!) a zillion times in my life. But since in America we somehow stopped eating soups at dinner. 
OK, I became lazy! 

Still you cannot make such a dish in a low-speed blender, for which reason my plans had to be postponed. But when the Vitamix arrived I immediately made my proud announcement.

My husband unfortunately did not share my enthusiasm:

-          Let’s first do our usual smoothie and see how the thing works.

-          But don’t you like something different now when we’ve got the means?

It turned out, he did not. In fact he liked almost nothing I suggested – no spinach soup, no humus, not even salsa. Of spinach, he was particularly apprehensive. It reminded him of something dull and dreadful from his early childhood. 

After bargaining for a while we met each other in the middle - that is, on a simpler recipe of the cream of celery soup. Here it is:

1 medium bunch celery, chopped

3 cups of water

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup lemon juice

1 tablespoon honey

Spicy pepper to taste

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 avocado, sliced

1 small sweet red pepper, chopped

The first 6 ingredients are blended until creamy; others are added to the ready soup. It serves 5.

I made it on Thursday and here is my report on the experience:

The soup was ready in 10 min. This time included washing of the blender before its first use as it is recommended by the instruction, and actual  preparation. It also included: opening and closing the door for cats who first wanted out (one after another), and the next moment, and in the same order – in.

My version  of  raw cream of celery soup - with a dash of dill

What is important - we both liked it!

I expected significant noise from this much larger and heavier appliance  but it was actually quieter than my old blender and even easy to clean.

So, raw borsch is definitely on the menu!

Multivitamins Then and Now

It was a decade ago when I was still in my 40s.

We actually were at a party talking about usual things – weather, kids and diets, when a friend’s wife asked me what vitamins or supplements I was taking. 

-      None - I said innocently, - Why should I?

-      Everyone must, because we do not consume enough nutrients with food.

I made an attempt to explain that for that reason I tried to eat better.

She was not convinced,

-      Oh, you are just too young to understand it, but wait until you hit 50! Believe me, you won't feel good unless supported by vitamins.

This I could not argue.  At that time 50s seemed to me like a still distant milestone and I was not sure if after it people do not fall apart.

Being obviously considered eccentric I had suddenly felt uncomfortable and tried to change the subject... 

Now I see a lot of information supporting my point of view. In fact, this posting is directly inspired by the article by Sarah Mahoney "Should you kick the Multivitamin habit?" (http://health.msn.com/medications/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100265403&gt1=31053) that I recommend to everyone. It confirms the point 100% and explains its aspects much better than I ever could.

What puzzles me is the fact that I knew it then (for additional proof see “The Compulsive Liar”).

In all honesty I cannot remember what made me so settled on the issue when practically everyone around thought differently:

It could be that the concept of eating chemical-laden food and compensating for it by consuming more chemicals seemed double flawed to me.

Or maybe, I was afraid that constant artificial boost would distort my bodily warning signals. So, I would feel OK when I  actually wasn't!

And being unable to trust my body I would become the doctors' dream patient - the one who has no other choice but to completelly rely on their judgment and obediently follow their recommendations.

To this I could never agree.

Back then at the party I was too shy to share my concerns.  Now these very concerns have become pretty much common place.

Or, have they?

How Clean is …Clean?

It seems like a major trend in human civilization that every new generation raises its standards of hygiene. And we do not need history books to prove it.

I am old enough to remember wooden stove in our kitchen and once-a-week bath that my mom and grandma arranged for me by heating water on that stove in a zinc bucket; then - pouring this water into a portable tub mounted on two stools for stability. 

A lot of labor went into this procedure, including the efforts of keeping the room uncommonly warm. So, no wonder, it was not provided too often.

I also remember that keeping myself clean was quite tricky for me.  In my neighborhood  kids spent a lot of time outdoors. We played hide-and-seek behind somebody’s coal shed, built mud fortresses, tasted almost everything that grew around and washed our hands only when were specifically demanded to.



The Chess Match (1902) by Carl Probst (1854-1924)

That’s how our mothers wanted us to be

Mothers were understandably frustrated by the inability to save our clothes pressed and spotless for long. They expressed this frustration quite openly (nowadays it would’ve been considered child abuse). So, naturally, the necessity of staying clean felt like  a burden and quite unrealistic.



That’s how we really were (old post card)



Later, when I was raising my daughter, we had our own bathroom with hot shower in it. I was proud of “taking good care” of my daughter and for a while she was a very neat little girl.

That all had ended when she went to kindergarten. To my surprise she became extremely enthusiastic about dirt. Picking her up in the evenings after work I would again and again find my daughter in a sandbox diligently steering something like a mud-pie. Her hands and feet  were always dripping wet and dirty. As uninformed as I was at that time on this type of behavior, I sensed that she was filling some kind of natural void and let her continue doing it.  

Well, working full time I could not stop her anyway.

For many years my ambitions for cleanliness were much higher than available means. At times we had no heating or hot water in the tap (sometimes, no water at all). These ambitions were completely met only in America, where for the first time in my life I had a washer and drier.

The dignity of daily shower followed by putting on fresh clothes head to toe had a wonderful smell! In fact nice smells were everywhere – of honey-glazed popcorn in a movie theater, of potpourris in friends’ houses, or of elegant perfume in the mall.  

My husband’s allergic cough was one of the first warning signals that made us question the sources of nice smells. With time we learned that chemical fragrances can be toxic and some of them disturb hormonal balance, others are linked to asthma and cancer. I was particularly disappointed to discover that pleasant air fresheners and fragrant candles could actually be poisonous.

To make things worse, the study, published in the Environmental Impact Assessment Review, found that many popular scented products – including those that claim to be "green" – emit numerous chemicals not listed on the label, including some considered toxic and possibly carcinogenic. In many cases out of an average of 17 chemicals per product only one compound -- ethanol – was actually listed on the product labels (ttp://depts.washington.edu/exposure/press_release.html)

This made choosing safe beauty and cleaning products quite confusing: I either had to do an extensive research every time I was out of shampoo or - to go for completely unscented stuff with minimum ingredients (like two or three).

Then new information arrived that put all my traditional ideas regarding cleanliness upside-down. 

One of them I already mentioned in “Dismissal, Introduction...” – some studies say that organic produce is better eaten unwashed because it contains good bacteria beneficial for digestion and immune system. These bacteria are  lacking in our diet otherwise, and water, on the other hand, includes a long list of contaminants. (The last is not theory but everyday life!)

Other studies promote early introduction of babies to natural environment with all its germs. Babies' exposure to germs and bacteria during their first year of life is considered critical for the formation of a strong immune system.

According to the study provided by the University of Wisconsin and published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, having pets in early childhood protects kids from cold later:
      
…young children who grew up with a dog in the home had stronger immune systems that were more effective at fighting off chronic respiratory problems.

And another study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that kids who grow up with cats or dogs may have a lower risk of developing pet allergies as well as other common allergies like ragweed, grass, and dust mites (http://www.ivillage.com/10-health-benefits-owning-pet/4-b-315239#ixzz1Ci1WNHNE). 

Even soap is not good for you anymore: sources say that using soap on your skin too often strips it of important protective elements and makes it more prone to various skin conditions (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/fashion/31Unwashed.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all).

Of course, some of these conclusions may be untrue or exaggerated. However, they all were provided independently and like elements of the puzzle create a quite clear picture of excessively sterile civilized life.

Apparently it makes us weaker rather than stronger and in combination with myriads of new industrial pollutants drastically increases our vulnerability.

Or putting it plainly, in our perpetual struggle to be clean we probably hit the top (or the bottom).