Honey Cream

Here is the recipe for the ONLY cream/lotion that I can use on my son's eczema. Nearly every other lotion or cream we have tried either stings or turns his skin red.

My recipe for the cream is very simple:



Recipe

1/3 c Beeswax
1/2 c. Olive oil, cold pressed or Coconut oil
3 T. Honey, preferably raw
20 drops Lavender essential oil


In a double boiler, melt about 1/3 c. beeswax. Add honey. Mix well. Add olive oil. Mix well. Remove from heat. Add lavender oil and whisk all ingredients. Pour into a glass jar and stir/scrape edge until the cream has cooled enough to be a thick consistency and no longer separates. Refrigerate.

Tips:
Using short little extra wide mouth glass canning jars are my first choice. They are easy to stir and get into when you are applying cream.

Eyeball the ingredients since it gets really messy when you try to measure (esp beeswax) when its hot...

Play with  amounts of the ingredients depending on whether you want the cream to be easier to apply or thicker for a better barrier.

Make sure that you continue scraping the edges and stiring until the cream has cooled and thickened or you will get little lumps in your cream. It takes some practice, so give yourself a bit of slack if it doesn't come out well the first few times. Keep trying.

For some reason the cream helps my sons eczema tremendously, but immediately after I apply it, it makes him itchy for a few minutes. Not sure if this will happen for you... After that short lived itch, it is the best moisture barrier!  I also use it on my lips... as a fabulous chapstick!

The original recipe calls for equal parts honey, beeswax and olive oil, but I like it better with the above amounts, but here is the link for the original recipe which I found from Bastyr.  

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Rosemary

Sweet potatoes are great for you!  I hate to admit that I'm not fond of them though...  Well, I wasn't fond of them until I recently tried these Sweet Potato fries with rosemary. I love them!  And... so, so, so much better for you than white potatoes!

3-4 Yams, washed, peeled and cut into chunks
Olive oil
A couple pinches of rosemary
Sea Salt


Toss all ingredients. Bake at 375 for 30-60 minutes depending on the size of your chunks. We broil them for a minute or two at the end to add a bit of crispness!

Love it!

I'm a sucker for picking up a cookbook, but that doesn't mean that I'll like the recipes or try them. But... tonight I found a cookbook that I'm thinking I love. Great, healthy recipes: The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen by Rebecca Katz. Great book. Why wait til you have cancer? There is so much easy-to-digest, valuable information in this book about what food will do for us and our bodies. 
I can't wait to try:
Great Pumpkin Custard
Curry Cauliflower Soup
Middle Eastern Chickpea Burgers
Creamy Millet/Creamiest Buckwheat (if M & BW taste, good I want to know how to do it!)
Cardamom Maple Mini Macaroons
Yum!!!  Although I don't agree with everything she suggests, I still feel that this is a great book for whole eating. Check it out!

Out of Sight, out of mouth...

First off, if you have self-control, then feel free to just skip this post. This is for the rest of us!

My biggest suggestion for surviving healthy eating is.... get the 'foodless' food out of your house. Really, if it's not there, you won't be eating it!  I notice that I'm not inclined to drive all the way to the store to have a treat, but if my husband's baked a pie that is sitting on the counter, I'm in trouble!  Well, the entire pie is actually in trouble....

The easiest way to do this is to stop buying processed food. Make the food that you have in your cupboards and fridge as 'healthy' as possible. As you need to replenish groceries, look for whole foods (ie, veggies, salad ingredients, fruits, etc) to replace processed items.  Find healthy snacks that will fill your cravings! My favorites are Clementines, apples and nuts--almonds, pecans and cashews!

Extreme

I'm not an advocate of extreme. Extreme seems to lead to seeing things skewed and out of perspective.  And when we adopt this type of thinking our boat starts to tip, leading to panic, which then leads to more extremism. Yes, I have it figured out, but yet, I don't always walk the road of moderation. I've spent nearly three years obsessing (yes, that is a form of extremism) fighting my son's eczema.  After hundreds of hours in doctor's offices, wet wraps, and bottles and tubes of every imaginable cream, oil and lotion, from Crisco to steroids, I realized that whole was the answer.  What I put in his body and on his body is whole.  And as much as I dislike the rigid, extreme diet, it works. He's been eating this diet (it's really beyond extreme) for nearly 10 months--with 90% improvement. The results won't allow me to move into a moderate territory, because the moderate territory bring confusion.  So, I will continue down the path of extreme because in certain places in our lives, extreme is best.

After the heart wrenching passing a of good friend's husband, the fragility of life was very evident to me.  My world was shaken, although in comparison to Bri's life, it was just a slight tremor, but I realized that I need to take my health seriously.  So, that began my journey of eating whole.  Although I didn't have any general health problems, I started eating what I call the 'extremely free' diet. Free in every way--gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, processed-free, corn-free, mostly-meat-free--except financially.  I was amazed at the results of extreme... I felt better.  I was really surprised by the side effects of this 'free' diet--more energy, more patience, more culinary enjoyment, unintentional weight loss. Good stuff.  I spent about a month eating very extreme before my idea of 'whole made' was born.  I needed a solution to two problems.  Problem One: Eating a MF/GF/PF/SF/DF diet wouldn't stick  if I was strict, as long lasting and extreme aren't friends, so I wanted to be able to add a few treats and still be eating virtually whole. Problem Two: I want to be able to have meals with friends and family and eating MF/GF/PF/SF/DF is pretty isolating!  So, my solution: I'm eating a whole made diet. And that is how moderation has worked itself back into my eating.  Virtually all my food is 'free', but I have a caveat for 'homemade' food.  If a friend bakes me a cookie, I'm eating it! If I take the time and the effort to make homemade pasta, then I'm eating gluten. This is where homemade and whole meet.  I know what's in my food and where its coming from. I'm enjoying my food and I'm also able to enjoy it with others. I'm loving it!

A journey to whole

Welcome. Whole. Made. Homemade. Wholly Made. Where ever this blog takes me, my intent is to chart a path to a healthier life. There's no better time.