Herb Time

I use a lot of herbs in my cooking which makes it important for me to take tender care of my herb garden. Ha, actually I mostly neglect them all year long except for early spring and late fall when I clean their beds and perhaps the Z Man gives them a fresh coat of mulch. Herbs are very forgiving and are the easiest thing to grow.

Well, except for cilantro! I have the hardest time growing cilantro which really stinks because I use a lot of it in cooking and when canning my salsa.

In the early spring I always have some pop up in the garden voluntarily but it doesn’t last long.

This year the Z Man transplanted some of it into pots for me and they are looking pretty good (for now).

All the other herbs (rosemary, thyme and mint) made it through the winter and are growing nicely.

I’ve already made the first round of cuts on the herbs and have hung them to dry. I like to try to get 3 cuts dried for winter use. Especially the sage, I use quite a bit when we grind our pork sausage in the fall.

My oregano is going crazy this year, the first cut didn’t even make a dent in it. I’ll need to do another cut this weekend.

The sage is a little slower growing, but I managed to get two good size bundles hung.

Here is a picture of the sage before I cut it. This sage plant is probably 5 years old now.

To dry my herbs all I do is cut them, wrap a rubber band around the base and hang them in the kitchen for a few months. Looking at them hanging during the summer months gives me this kind of old day medicine woman feeling. Which reminds me I want to share my rose toner with y’all when the roses start blooming.

I once saw Jamie Oliver on a cooking show going nuts over finding some dried oregano that was still on the stems in a little specialty food store. Look at me having that in my kitchen all summer long… 🙂

Herbs are good for you and add so much flavor to meals, you may even find yourself using less salt in place of fresh (or dried) herbs.

If you are new to gardening or perhaps have limited space, try growing herbs. You can make your flower beds multipurpose by planting herbs in them. And, think about all the money you’ll save by doing it yourself.

Have fun and have a great day!

Till Next Time,

Lori

Proton Pump Inhibitors Linked To Kidney Disease

This is the article from MSN – Medical Daily

Taking OTC Meds For Heartburn, Acid Reflux May Just Lead To Other Problems

Common over-the-counter acid reflux and heartburn medications may be causing kidney failure in its users.

Every year, doctors prescribe medications to patients who complain of heartburn, acid reflux, or ulcers, and roughly 15 million Americans are given a class of drugs that can cause some serious, long-term damage to their kidneys. Researchers at the Clinical Epidemiology Center at the VA Saint Louis Health Care System and Washington University in Saint Louis zeroed in on proton pump inhibitors (PPI), one of the most widely sold and over-prescribed drugs in the world, to not only confirm from previous findings that it leads to kidney disease, but that it also led to renal failure at an alarming rate.

The results emphasize the importance of limiting PPI use only when it is medically necessary, and also limiting the duration of use to the shortest duration possible,” said the study’s lead author Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, in a statement. “A lot of patients start taking PPIs for a medical condition, and they continue much longer than necessary.”

For the study, researchers selected 173,321 new users of PPIs, 20,270 new users of histamine H2 receptor blockers, which are in another class of medications that are also used as an acid suppressing regimen. They spent five years following up with the patients, who were selected from the Department of Veterans Affairs national databases. Their findings, published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, reveal PPIs have the propensity to increase the risk of chronic kidney disease by 28 percent and developing kidney failure by 96 percent. They found the longer the patients took the drugs, the greater they put themselves at risk for kidney damage.

Recently, researchers from Johns Hopkins University published a study in JAMA ’s February 2016 edition that found the same risk exists between PPI use and chronic kidney disease. Not only do the results from Al-Aly and his team confirm the cause-and-effect between PPI use and chronic kidney disease, but they took their study a step further and found the medication also drastically increases the risk of developing kidney failure. To make matters worse, PPIs are also available over the counter.

“You or I could go to Walgreens or CVS and get Prilosec or other PPI medication over the counter and it has the same risks as prescription,” Al-Aly told Medical Daily. “We all assume that what we get over the counter is absolutely safe, I don’t have to worry about it because the FDA must have done their due diligence. But we’re finding with these medicines there is quite a negative effect and it should not be ignored, cannot be ignored.”

Medications like Prilosec put users at an elevated risk for developing kidney disease and renal failure. © Photo courtesy of Mario Villafuerte/ Getty Images Medications like Prilosec put users at an elevated risk for developing kidney disease and renal failure. PPIs are a relatively new class of drug with highly limited long-term studies until now. Previously, patients with acid reflux relied on H2 blockers for acid reflux, however PPI drugs were seen as the more powerful and effective option for treating acid reflux. PPI drugs can be both prescribed and purchased over the counter — in strengths that both cause the same level of damage to the kidneys. Researchers recommend PPIs should be avoided, especially when acid reflux or the like can easily be treated with kidney-safe H2 blockers.

“Since PPI inhibitors are associated with this effect but the H2 blockers are not, I think that’s a useful control and gives legitimacy to the finding,” Dr. David Goldfarb, the clinical chief of nephrology and professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, told Medical Daily. “When they are able to look at another group of drugs used for similar indication and see that they don’t demonstrate an effect on kidney function; that makes their findings incredible.”

Researchers aren’t quite sure why PPIs have such a negative effect on the user’s kidneys. Al-Aly and his research team can only speculate it may have to do with patients who were at a higher level of risk because they had acute kidney injury or interstitial nephritis, which is inflammation of the kidney tubules, both of which could lead to renal failure.

“This is really the subject of ongoing investigation now so I cannot determine definitively. We’re just scratching the surface here,” Al-Aly said. “Next, we need to determine if there are any genetic markers that could predispose a patient to kidney disease progression with PPI use.”

Source: Al-Aly Z, Xie Y, Li T, and Balasubramanian S. Proton Pump Inhibitors and Risk of Incident and Progression of Chronic Kidney Disease and ESRD . Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. 2016.

I’m not sure why it states in the article that PPI drugs are a relatively new class of drug, because I’ve been taking Prilosec or the generic version of it for about 20 years. However, I’m not at all surprised about it’s “highly limited long term study” It’s about money people!

Honestly, who can you trust?

Trust yourself, do the research, buy organic, eat clean and eat real food. Read labels, make sure it’s ingredients you can pronounce and understand and keep it to five or less ingredients.

Cook your own food as much as possible, and buy foods as local and with as little packaging as possible.

I hear people all the time saying organic is so much more expensive. My response to that is you’re either going to pay for it now or pay for it later with poor health and medical bills.

We have got to get off of these medicines, NOW!

You can follow along with my “Weaning Off Of Omeprazole” by clicking on the Omeprazole tag and it will take you to all of the post detailing the process I’m using.

Take Care, Friends!

Lori

Friday’s Frugal Five & What’s Cooking 4/8/16?

My hours at work changed this week, which means I go in earlier and get out later. It also means I work six days a week from now until the end of September. It doesn’t leave me a lot of time to get all the things done that I “want” to do, but I do look forward to the over time income. However, I’ve learned that if I don’t plan well and stay organized it’s easy for the extra income to get sucked up into little emergencies like what’s for dinner and such. Gotta have a plan!

Friday’s Frugal Five:

I purchased a new router for our internet service so the provider we use would stop charging me $10 a month to rent theirs. Got my first invoice after installing the router, and the $10 charge was still on the bill. So annoying! But, I called and had the charge removed. I swear I think they do this on purpose in hopes that we wont notice it or they know some people wont take the time to call and have it removed. Either way it’s frustrating…. I’m guilty of getting so annoyed with all the questions when I’m just trying to speak to a customer service person that I hit the “0” button on my phone like 1,000,000,000 times. It seems to work after about the first 5 questions and you’ve reached a moderate level of frustration.
I’ve set up my direct deposit savings for my overtime income to be automatically deposited. If I don’t see it I wont miss it and won’t be tempted to spend it.
Checked out 2 books of interest from the library prior to purchasing them to make sure they are what I wanted. I did buy the books as they are cook books geared toward the direction we want to go in changing our diet. Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Nourishing Broth by Sally Fallon. Both very good books that I’ll use for years. Yes, I could’ve continued to check them out of the library, but I’m sure over time these books will show much use with many food spots and dog eared pages, not something I would want to do to a library book.
I’ve been saving my used deodorant containers waiting to make my own deodorant. I’ll be making it this weekend, so I’ll let you know how it turns out. The true test of how well it works will be when I’m lifting 50lb bags and buckets at work this spring. I’m going to use a recipe of coconut oil and baking soda. I’ll keep an open mind because the goal is to get away from all the chemicals I’ve been putting in and on my body as much as possible. The recipe looks easy to just mix coconut oil and baking soda together well and put it in a used deodorant container. I may need to put it in the fridge to get it to set up quicker, and then of course store it in a cool spot.
Eat Dirt by Dr Josh Axe is another book I checked out from the library. It is a good book with a lot of valuable information in it about gut health. It is his opinion that we have become a germaphobe clean freak anti bacterial nation which has done us no favors for our overall health. And like the title says, he mildly suggest that we should “Eat Dirt” meaning for example don’t be afraid of the vegetables at the farm stand that still have dirt on them, because those are the ones that will provide us much more nutrition than those that have traveled thousands of miles. It’s a good read, and I suggest it to anyone interested in getting (back) to real food and good health. It also gave me fond memories of working in the garden with my Dad and remembering how he sometimes would pick a vegetable and take a bite out of it right there on the spot, then convince me to do it too. Dirt don’t’ hurt 🙂

As always, meals came from the freezer and pantry, except for those hamburger buns on Wednesday night. There were no meals eaten out or taken out this week, lunches were from leftovers, bills are paid, money is in the pickle jar and still breathing fresh air and loving it.

What’s Cooking 4/8/16?

Breakfast: overnight oats with dried cranberries, walnuts, sprinkle of cinnamon and a drizzle of maple syrup
Lunch: the last of the stir fry veggies with jasmine rice
Dinner: homemade pizza night

Here is a picture of yesterday’s (and today’s) lunch.

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How about you, what frugal fun things did you do this week.

Till Next Time,

Lori

March Madness Grocery Challenge – The Score

This is it, the last day of the month. The last day of the March Madness Grocery Challenge.

As of last Friday I had a balance of $5.50 remaining in the MMGC fund, and guess what… Go ahead, guess. I’ll wait… Did I make it? What do you think?

Yes, I made it! As of right now I still have $5.50

You know what the crazy thing is? The crazy thing is that I didn’t think about it all week. I wasn’t stressed about it. I didn’t worry about it. I just didn’t go to the grocery store. That’s it, I just didn’t go. No big deal.

At the beginning of this challenge I allowed myself $20 a week for groceries. I also thought it probably would not be horribly difficult because the pantry and freezers were full. Actually, had it not been for the gallon of maple syrup and the dinner items purchased when we were returning from our out of town trip, both of which I am completely ok with, I would’ve done even better. The Z Man would interject here that (ahem) “we also haven’t had a loaf of bread in the house the entire month” That probably has more to do with me wanting to make real bread instead of buying highly processed junk from the store.

What I take away from this challenge is that, if I’m being honest, I have a grocery store habit. It probably stems from too much Food Network, but I truly enjoy cooking. I enjoy the entire process of planning, shopping and cooking a nice meal. There is something about chopping vegetables and putting them into a pot to cook, having the lovely smell of it cooking wafting through the house and then sitting down to enjoy that meal. Well, for me, it’s more than just getting dinner on the table. It’s nice. It gives me joy.

On the other side of the coin, I hate the grocery store. Even more so now that I’m researching better ways of eating because more often than not what you think you are buying isn’t at all what it really is. Bread is not bread, cheese is not cheese. It’s mostly highly processed ingredients that are unpronounceable and indigestible.

As for the MMGC, yes I stayed in budget, and we ate from the freezers and pantry. That’s great. But, that too all comes with a price of hard work. It’s taken us several years to see our homestead flow in full cycle like it is now. It’s also taken me a long time to learn the cycle and use it as it’s meant to be used, the benefit of the price we pay. That is to say, it is time to start the process of breaking my habit with the grocery store. Or have I already started it unknowingly with this challenge?

Putting in perspective this challenge and that what I’ve learned isn’t so much about the money but more importantly about why we do the things we do, and to understand that perhaps it’s more about the habit that can be changed, and recognizing the pleasure of doing it differently.

She Goes Up… She Shoots… And… She… Scores!!!

Till Next Time,

Lori