When doing menu planning the key is not to copy but to tailor it to you. My cousin e-mailed me after reading my blog because she couldn't comment on it. (Sorry, I was trying to learn something new on the computer and um...something went wrong.) She said they try to lower the amount of protein in their diet, excellent! Most people should, as the average American eats too much. Especially if you buy your meat, eggs, and dairy products from the store. They are high in bad cholesterol or LDLs. I realize that eggs have been creeping off that list but bare with me. The point I'm trying to make is store milk, for instance, can be imbalanced as much as 14 omega 6's to 1 omega 3. Your eggs and meat don't look to wonderful either. It really isn't their fault but instead improper feeding practices of the chicken, beef, hog etc. The omega's can be balanced in milk if the dairy animal is pasture fed not grain fed.
Don't go all crazy and refuse to drink milk now or join the media in thinking that if only things were just omega 3's everything would be great, for it is those bad omega 6's that are sending everyone to the emergency room with heart attacks and strokes. The truth is you need them both. Omega 3's slows clotting of the blood and omega 6's increases its flow. In plain English, you don't want to bleed out and you don't want your blood flow to stop. You need a balance, your yin and your yang, (I just learned that meant your shade and your sunshine), your day and your night and your butter and your bread. Okay, maybe not your butter and your bread but my husband would differ on that point. He assures me that almost every meal must be balanced with butter and bread.
What's my point? Well, your food source makes a large difference in what's on the menu. Not just what's available but what is its quality and calorie content. Since we do need to watch our waistlines. Mine just keeps getting bigger. I can't believe I ever had a twenty-four and a half inch waist. And that brings me to the point of calories. Grass fed beef has far fewer calories for the same cut of beef as grain fed. So as far as calories go, mine isn't from the store so I get to eat more.
Eighty percent of Americans have malnutrition. Sadly but true, store foods are lower in vitamins and nutrients because of the feeding practices used by the producers. It's shocking but some feedlot fed animals receive a diet of municipal garbage, stale pastry, chicken feathers, and candy. That's what a site told me. So where does that put me? My stale bread is fed to my hogs and chickens. I don't feed municipal waist, I mean waste. I don't think so anyway. I'm not sure what that is. As for chicken feathers. I'm sure I don't do that. And I don't feed them candy. I eat that. Maybe not quite so shocking after all. The point I'm trying to make, if my brain didn't get so side tracked, is the eggs from chickens allowed to roam in a pasture have ten times more omega 3 's than commercial eggs. With beef, the pasture raised has 4 times more Vitamin E and even if the feedlot beef are given Vitamin E supplements, the pasture beef still has 2 times more. Along with 3 to 5 times more CLA or good fat that lowers your heart attack and cancer risks in pasture beef. Sorry, I mean in you not the beef. Simply, eat pasture raised beef when possible.
If you don't raise your own food or buy privately from someone who has a nutritional enhancing feed program, you can't eat like I do. I eat quite a few eggs. The bottom line is, not all of us have the same choices or care to make the same choices in life. Do the best with what is given you. For instance, where I live, there is very little shopping options. Lots of things if I want them, I have to make them myself.
Your menu won't look like mine because of tastes or cultural background differences. So, make your own theme for each night like things that stick to your ribs, things that slim the waist, and things that I really shouldn't be eating. They say save the best for last.
One more point and then I'll hush for now. Each person has there own health issues. Kirk and I have to consume lots of protein to keep our numbers up. At first we had trouble with bad cholesterol and then we changed the way we fed our livestock - chickens, beef, pigs, milk goats - and without lowering the amount of meat we ate, Kirk lowered his cholesterol twenty-four point and mine went down thirty in a little over a year. That put us in the low risk category. Thankfully, since my doctor recommends that I eat lots of protein for my sluggish adrenals. We also eat more kidney, navy, etc. types of beans.
I did finally find the second part of my menu planning paperwork and I promise to share it with you along with a wonderful easy chicken recipe. I'll even let you have a glimpse of my menu when its done. Holler if you want any of the recipes off it.
Have a good weekend!!!
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