Science Experiment, the actual experiment

Ok, so the part you've all been waiting for.

Well after doing my preliminary research on Saturday, I decided to immediately cut out coffee.  I couldn't pull the caffeine plug all at once though and so I switched to tea until yesterday, when I realized that black tea is just as bad as coffee.  I also promptly ordered some ph test strips so that I could try to determine how acidic I am.  Well these weren't coming in until Wednesday, and I had to go grocery shopping before then because we were out of food.  So as I wandered the aisles (because I went shopping without a list, which I do not advise), I kept thinking ooohhh, that's got a low pral value, etc. etc.  I ended up buying 3 bags of spinach, apricots, prunes, and chocolate covered plum bites impulsively.  I also decided that I was going to try to eat spinach and some dried fruit every day.  I don't particularly like dried fruit, but the kids like apricots and I can make the babies eat the prunes, so that's what I went for.  I am afraid to try a date for some reason, but my mother and another friend both love them, so I'm working up the nerve.  At any rate, I grocery shopped emotionally.

So I spent the next couple of days reading on some more foods and just kept getting lots of conflicting info but I finally came to some conclusions as far as what I myself am going to do.  I couldn't do anything too radical, because I am after all still nursing twins.  I have to eat a whole lot to be able to do this (nurse, that is).  I'm unfortunately not one of those people who can nurse and not eat much and just have pound after pound fall off.  I have to eat and eat and eat or I won't produce milk, and well, the weight just sort of takes it's sweet time coming off.  This is an aside here, but I remember when my cousin nursed her twins and almost whittled away down to nothing.  She had to safety pin all of her pants to even keep them up.  Somehow, I had visions of grandeur that this would be me.  It was not.  So, all of that to say, I can't cut out anything too radical in my experiment.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for my test strips to come in, trying to decide what dietary changes I'm going to make, and thoroughly enjoying my chocolate covered plums.  I went so far as to ask hubby to look up the pral value for chocolate, which he graciously did.  Then I asked him to look it up for plums.  I was so excited to discover that the plums are more negative than the chocolate is positive, so I'm satisfied that the net is negative.  I even went so far as to pick the chocolate off of a few plums to try and determine the chocolate to plum ratio.  I was pleasantly surprised that it seems to be almost equal.  Finally after reading numerous lists and wondering what waffeolo cereal is because it's one of the worst offenders, I decide to go for the big numbers - dried fruit and spinach (since it's the only leafy green that I really enjoy eating).  I'm going to eat spinach daily, and add a serving of dried fruit.  And maybe another serving covered in chocolate.  I'm also cutting out coffee and tea daily. I only have one soda a week - it's a little guilty pleasure.  I haven't decided if I'm giving that up yet.  I'm also cutting back on my milk consumption.  I realized that I probably drink between 4 and 5 cups (8 oz) of milk daily.  This is excessive.  I drink two at breakfast, two with dinner, and usually at least one more during the day.  All of the reading I've been doing (before this even, when I got fixated on sheeps milk a few weeks ago), suggests that all of the real nutrition in milk is in the cream of non pasteurized and non homogenized milk.  So I'm also going to start getting 2% milk from my local farmer people and drinking a little of that every week.  Incidentally, I'm cutting down to 3 cups a day. I also am going to measure out my water for the day in a little sports bottle - I need to drink 2 full ones.  Because I know I don't drink enough water.  Finally, I'm going to try to cut my portion size down for meats at all meals, and if I feel like I need to eat more make it up with veggies (except corn).

So, satisfied that I am changing the daily pral values of my diet sufficiently, the ph strips came in and I started testing.  I combined a bunch of different suggestions into my own, which is what I do with most things I do in life.  One suggestion was that you test for 5 days, then average it.  I am going to do this.  The other was that you test in the morning and at night, because the morning one will tell you what your body's baseline is, and the evening one should tell you how what you've eaten that day affects your numbers.  So I'm doing that, too.  Then another place said that any dietary changes needed to be made for 6 weeks in order to affect your baseline, and then retest.  So I think I'm going to do that.  I really only want to do it for 5 weeks, because unfortunately for me Thanksgiving falls on day one of week six.  Now, for the past 8 years, we have spent Thanksgiving day with my in-laws, and then the day after Thanksgiving at my Uncle's house with my cousins and more recently parents and siblings.  This means I enjoy two straight days of pure gluttony because there is just no other word to describe it.  My m-i-l normally smokes or brines her turkey, my Uncle fries his.  They are both wonderful.  And I love stuffing, and sweet potatoes, and mashed potatoes, and the cheesy corn that one of my cousins makes.... and the desserts.  You get the picture.  I'm not sure how that's going to affect my experiment.  So I am wondering if 5 weeks will be enough?  I guess even if I stop at the 5 week mark, I'd have to test over Thanksgiving, so either way, Thanksgiving is going to be a most inconvenient wrench in my experiment here because I might have to show some restraint. Well, I'll just cross that bridge when I get to it.

At any rate, I'm on day 3 of my testing. This was initially just a little frustrating because I couldn't find any consistent opinion on where these numbers should be coming in.  Regardless, I think my urine (which I also tested, and of course the kids had to get in on it, so I tested theirs, too) is normal.  My saliva may or may not be normal.  I *think* my baseline for my saliva is around a 6.75 which is either slightly acidic or on the low end of normal.  My strips came in Wednesday night, so I tested then, and then twice yesterday, and twice today.  Yesterday morning and today I had a 6.75 reading.  Wednesday night I also had a 6.75 reading.  Last night I had a 7.25, and tonight I had a 7.25.  At this point, the only conclusion I've drawn is that Zaxby's is probably not helping the acidity in my body at all.

So, I'll be interested to see how this turns out.  After I do my initial testing, there should be a long enough span  of time to where I would normally have a break out.  I am ending one right now - the remains of one of the whoppers are still in there, but almost gone.  So, if this works, I'll just plan on skipping out on dental school and just writing my dissertation.  I'll keep you posted.

Science Experiment Part 2 - The Research

So, to continue my previous post, I have been a faithful student at the University of Google for some time now.  I really ramped up my hours while I was in the hospital, and have tried to maintain my full time status since.  So while researching acidic foods I made all sorts of important discoveries.

One has to do with the ph content of foods and your own body.  Well, I am not a scientist at all and so I'm not going to try to explain in detail what I don't fully understand. Not to mention there are a host of inconsistent articles out there on the topic.  However, here is what seems to be simple and consistent:  The ph scale goes from 0 to 14, 7 being neutral.  Values greater than 7 are base (alkaline) and less than 7 are acidic. Your body and its fluids all have a reading.  The foods you eat are considered one or the other based on what your body does with the food after consumption.  Being acidic is bad in a whole lot of ways.  It can cause mouth ulcers, kidney problems, arthritis, osteoporosis, heart disease and cancer to name a few.

The inconsistencies come when trying to determine what the normal ph reading should be (you are generally testing urine and saliva), and the values of foods. I also stumbled across something called a PRAL value for food which is some number that's supposed to tell you the alkaline or acid load of a food.  It gets a little confusing here because using these numbers, the lower number is alkaline and the higher number is acid.

And then there is this one website called quackwatch which basically discards the whole theory.

SO, you could really spend all day on the internet looking up this sort of thing and you just have to draw the line somewhere.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go brush my teeth.  I'll tell you about the actual experiment in Part 3.

Science Experiment - Part 1, Back Story

So many things happen during the course of my day that I think would make wonderful blog entries, but since I don't even have time to brush my teeth most days, you guys are just going to have to miss out on most of these little gems.  However, this was one thing I had to document for posterity.  It may take me a few days to write it, but the public must know about this.

So, back story:   Most of you who know me very well, and some of you who don't know me well at all but just happened to catch me on a day when I was telling my life story know that I get these nasty ulcers in my mouth from time to time.  I've had them my entire life - as long as I can remember anyway.  My mom gets them, my brother and sister also get them, and alas, my kids get them.  I think given all of that it must be hereditary to some degree, but I get them worse than anyone else I know.  I have asked every dentist and doctor about it for years because I suffer with these things.  I mean suffer.  I have dubbed them my "thorn in the flesh".  Most people who get them get one, maybe two or three at a time, and they are fairly small.  When I have an outbreak, I will get at least 5, usually around 10 or so, but at time upwards of 20 in my mouth at the same time.  Some of them are the size of my thumb nail, and at least half of them are all over my tongue making it near impossible for me to talk or eat without being in excruciating pain.  If I've ever been rude to you, there's a good chance that it's because I was at the time afflicted with these things.  I normally just clench my jaw for about 3 weeks because that's typically how long it takes for them to run their course.  Sometimes I'll have a week or two off before I get another outbreak.  They make me very tired, and irritable to say the least.

I have stopped eating tomatoes for the most part, because I thought the acid in the tomato was causing some of the outbreaks.  Then I did a little research myself and found that SLS, which is found in almost all toothpastes can irritate, so I buy this expensive toothpaste online called squiggle, which hasn't reduced the outbreaks, but at least when I have the sores it doesn't feel like I'm scraping the inside of my mouth with razor blades when I brush my teeth.  So I keep using it.  Then a few years back I got my wisdom teeth out.  The doctor prescribed me a steroid afterwards, which I guess is routine, and every sore in my mouth went away almost overnight.  Unfortunately, I cannot convince anyone to prescribe me a steroid just whenever I feel like it.  I went to see a doctor who did give me a special mouth rinse that has some steroid in it, but you can't get it at a pharmacy.  It's some concoction that I have to get from a lab that mixes chemicals and medicines for animals.  This costs about $50 a bottle, and although it helps, it doesn't prevent the sores.  It makes them go away in about a week rather than 3 weeks. Oh, and the bottle lasts a couple months.

Ok, so it's taken me three paragraphs and two days just to tell the back story, but it's important to understand the monster that is being dealt with here. So my dad was here last week and he just happens to mention that he  has cut back on his coffee consumption to 3 cups per day because coffee is acidic and he has acid reflux. Never in my life had I heard or considered that coffee was acidic.  I love coffee.  Things start to click... I seem to have a mild reprieve when I'm pregnant, don't drink coffee when I'm pregnant (don't worry, I get my caffeine elsewhere I just lose the taste for coffee for some reason ).  So I think to myself, I need to look up which foods are acidic because I clearly don't know.  End back story.

By the way, I know some of you are wondering how I have time to write this if I don't have time to brush my teeth.  Let me just assure everyone that on the days I type, I also have time to brush my teeth.

Never stop learning

I learned so many new things last week that I've already started forgetting them.  Nothing completely earth shattering, but interesting nonetheless so I thought I'd share my newly acquired useless information with others.  Some of you might need one of these little trinkets in Trivial Pursuit one day.

1)  Sheep's milk is more nutritious than either cow's or goat's.  It is not widely consumed because sheep produce less milk that either cows or goats, and because the solids (therefore, fat) is roughly double the other types of milk. But this means that so are the other nutrients because they are found in the fat.  I actually learned a whole lot about sheep and their milk, but I'll stop there for now otherwise this will turn into a blog about sheep.

2) Grass fed animals are healthier for you to eat than grain fed (even if the grain is organic) because all of the cancer fighting thingys are found in grass fed meat, not in grain fed.  

3) A Quetzal is a South American bird.  Let me tell you I cannot wait to get a "Q" and a "Z" at the same time in Scrabble, or Words with Friends.  I was so excited to learn this word thinking I might finally have an advantage over the 3 people that seem to continuously amaze me with their vocabulary.  You know who you are.  

4) When finishing a butcher block, if you are going to use it as a cutting board then you would oil it.  If you are not going to cut on it, merely use it as countertop space, then a urethane finish would be just fine (as long as it's still food safe - like a salad bowl finish).  Good luck finding one.  

5) When you do oil the previously mentioned butcher block, wear gloves.  Otherwise your hands will stick together similar to the effect that glue might have on ones skin.  It's pretty hard to get off, too. 

Hopefully this week will be just as educational.  

Rappin'

So, most of you would be surprised to know that my husband makes up these bizarre songs to sing to the kids all the time.  They are truly original, and we joke that he's going to make a cd one day.  Even though it's a joke, quite honestly when you listen to some of these kids songs, he probably could make one and it would sell trillions.  They're catchy, and they get stuck in your head.  At any rate, I thought for the longest time, that a particular "rap", if you will, was his own creation.  It was not until recently that I realized that it was an actual song from the 80's.  "Song" and even "rap" are used in the loosest possible sense here.  My kids love it. And since they will never perform when I ask them to... I just couldn't resist.

The original, in case you have no idea (like myself) what you missed out on in the 80's.

Saturday Farmers Market

We've had a busy last few days and there is so much I have an opinion on that I just can't decide which to talk about.  So I'll just start rambling and see where this goes.  At any rate, school just started back for Russ on Thursday, which means it started for us on Thursday, and which means I am by myself with all 5 kids all day for the first time since the beginning of summer.  I did remember that I have done this before (for a couple weeks before school was out) and so I got less concerned.  I also have been praying a lot about it lately, and the Lord has answered those prayers in that the last few days have actually been great. The kids are excited about doing school, we've had some pretty positive days, and I think we're all going to be just fine.  I even almost took all 5 kids grocery shopping.  Maybe next week.

Well I was going to go off on a highly opinionated topic having to do with why I have so many kids and how much I enjoy being at home with them.  Slightly related to what are people thinking when they say some of the crazy things that come out of their mouth, but instead, I'm just going to write about today.

We went to the Farmers Market today, mainly to let the kids play in the fountain, but also to check out the produce that is down there.  For those of you who live in town if you do not have the opportunity to do this, you can also purchase items from the same local farmers online.  I really wish we could go down there more often, because it's such a cute little market and lots of fun things going on there.

                                                    

We spent most of the morning at the fountain, while 3 kids played, and 2 kids hung out in the stroller.  Russ chatted with a former student, and visited lots of the food vendors on our behalf, and  I met another mom of twins and visited with her, and took pictures, and watched a young man make some pottery.  I  am always fascinated by the whole pottery making process. 

We always get homemade lemonade and usually try some of the ethic foods that are cooked there.  Today we had filipino street food, i.e. pork and beef kabobs.  They were very tasty - the kids ate most of it.

We topped it off today with some homemade peach ice cream.  I don't even like peach ice cream, but this was tasty.  If this is any indication of the rest of the school year, I think it's going to be a good one!

True Confessions

So, I sometimes feel like I do a lot of confessing on this blog, granted most of it trivial.  At any rate, I have a new confession.  It's sort of a long story.  I have to preface it by saying that I admire and am slightly envious of the Pioneer Woman.  People, I don't even remember who at this point, had told me about her many years ago, and that I needed to go visit her blog.  Well this was back in the day when we had no internet service, so I didn't rush out to the local library to check her out.  I truthfully didn't even keep it in the back of my mind.  But so many people kept telling me about her, and then my mom bought me her cookbook (autographed, no less), which I have thoroughly enjoyed.  I became an instant fan (and eventually visited her website).  Well, I just happen to have a friend who is friends with a friend of Mrs. Drummond. So in some respects, we practically know each other. Now, right after I became a fan, I was in awe of this woman (I mean, who can really do all of that stuff anyway). Well, my friend tells me, bursting my Pioneer Woman bubble, that she (she being the PW) has a nanny and two housekeepers.  Or two nannies and a housekeeper.  There were 3 people that helped her out regularly at any rate.  So I instantly felt justified and less inept having this piece of information.  The confession in this whole story is that she also fell a couple of notches in my esteem of her.  This was back when I had only 2 kids. I have been humbled since this day.  I now have someone clean my house.  If this did not happen I cannot imagine the utter filth that we would be living in.  I can barely get our laundry done most of the time.

I was reflecting on this quite a bit today because my only daughter turns 4 this weekend.  I wanted to surprise her with a cake from the movie "Tangled" because when some friends from church lent us their copy of the movie, she watched it daily for a few weeks (that's why it took us so long to return it).  She and Colin practically have the whole thing memorized, and some days will play "Tangled" in which they quote the movie verbatum almost in it's entirety.  So I started looking on the internet for "Tangled" cakes and found lots of food blogs with excellent photography, which is another passion that I share with the PW and probably what I envy her for the most (except for maybe that she lives on a ranch, which has been a secret dream of mine since childhood), in that she has fabulous lenses and an incredible photo-editing software.  Well, I took some pictures, and since the ideas were not originally my own, but my cake was just a modification of what I saw others do, I felt like I should give credit where credit was due.  Starting with my mother - if she had not been here making lunch for my older three children, and holding one of the two babies when needed for about 6 hours today (so I again was reminded that I was an idiot for ever thinking ill of PW for having a nanny, or two or however many she has), not to mention consulting on the entire project, it would never have happened.  I love my mother, she knows almost everything there is to know about something crafty (I love her for other reasons, too).  And then there's the supermom, and this other lady whose cake ideas I tried to copy for the most part.

Ok, so here's the cake!
We couldn't find pecan rolls at the grocery store, oddly, but found these mini french crullers, which actually worked awesome and (I think) looked better.  We also used two pyrex bowls, a medium and small one.  The medium one was the base, and then the small one was the top.  Plus we cut the little "hump" off of the medium one and put it on top of the small one to make the top of the tower. I did do a platform, like one of the ladies suggested, and I hot glued the dowel to the cake base because I didn't want another disaster, like last year.

 I had a grass/hair icing tip that was so easy to use....

 And the leaf tip for the vine...

 Plus a waffle cone from Brewsters for the roof, a couple of chex for the windows, and a broken pretzel for the little thingy that she throws her hair over.  The hair was the only non-edible thing, it was just braided yarn.

 Oh yeah, and a little flower tip with pearl non pareils that my mom had...

 Voila - Rapunzel's tower!

 I was so proud of it.  Most of you don't know about last year's cake disaster.  It was probably the worst cake I have ever, ever made in my entire life.  It was horrible.  It was really just embarassing.  Ansley could have made a better cake for herself.  Here is a picture.

What you can't see is that the dowels are not doing their job in an already ridiculously ugly cake, and so the entire back of the cake is falling off, and I had to prop it up with cardboard, and some heavy candles.  You can sort of see the back of the cardboard behind one of the turrets.  This was a low moment in my cake decorating history.  Hopefully I've redeemed myself (a little maybe?).