We recovered from MCS

We left multiple chemical sensitivity behind and here's how:

Click here to visit Dynamic Neural Retraining System.

Monsanto Exec Given World Food Prize? Just say NO!

Can you believe this outrage? Help me to spread the word so this doesn't happen....

Where do you get your nutrients and enzymes?

I'm writing this post to see if there is a market for corn-free dehydrated sprouts. I am growing sprouts for our personal use and wondered if anyone would be interested in buying dehydrated sprouts from a corn- and chemical-free producer.

One of the main obstacles in our efforts to recover our health is the lack of chemical-free and corn-free produce. I fear the produce we can tolerate tends to be lacking in essential vitamins and minerals which have been depleted from the soil. In our quest to add more raw veggies to our diet (to combat acidity), I found sprouts. I believe that sprouts are the answer for the chemically sensitive and corn allergic community, but there is no source (that I have found) for sprouts that have been grown using only Berkey water and packaged to be corn-free. I'm designing a process right now that would allow me to grow and dehydrate sprouts (at a low enough temperature to preserve enzymes and nutrients) on a fairly large scale.

My question: Is there any market for the product I want to sell? Please take a minute to complete the poll in the sidebar.

Cry Me a River

I am starting to have a new and very distressing reaction to environmental chemical/corn exposure these days. I cry uncontrollably in public and feel horribly depressed and overwhelmed for hours after. My last trip to Sam's Club (and I do mean my last trip because I'll never go back), I had a hard time even making it to the parking lot before I burst into tears. I know you're thinking I should wear a mask, huh? Well, I had my mask on the entire time.

I am not only distressed that my reactions are increasing in intensity and frequency, but that they result in such emotional distress. This is the new pattern: I gradually get more and more exhausted as I walk around in the store, then I start feeling very sad and overwhelmed. Then I start struggling to keep it together, but the horrible feelings of depression and crushing anxiety don't stop. Before I know what's  happening, I'm crying in public and feeling so overwhelmed that I can hardly pick up my arms to drive home. The last two times this happened, I was unable to drive until I sat in the car for a while with the air conditioner on high (recycled air only so outside fumes don't get in the car). With experimentation, I've found that compounded diphenhydramine doesn't help at all to mitigate these reactions. Generally, after I somehow get home, I crash hard and sleep for a few hours. After I wake up, I'm still groggy and feel drugged for the rest of the day. Oh yeah, my feet are too sore to walk on by late that night and on into the next day, too.

I just can't describe how horrible I feel when this reaction is underway. I just feel so hopeless and overwhelmed. I start feeling as if I will never be able to cope with the huge list of things I struggle to do every day and that it will never get better. I am normally a very optimistic and upbeat person so these feelings are too much for me. Now that I can't shop at Sam's, I'll have to buy those few safe items I was able to get at a bulk discount from Kroger at a higher price. I guess I just need to be thankful that I can still tolerate Kroger with my mask.

Cure a Tooth Abscess - Corn Free

I am finally over a recent tooth abscess and I have a few tips to share. The pain was almost unbearable and I had to have some ways to combat the pain so that I could treat the abscess. Swishing was excruciating but it helped me kill the infection. Here's my story:

When I first noticed the tooth ache, it was already getting too sore to brush, swish or oil pull. I have a Sonicare toothbrush and I highly recommend it, but this abscess came on like a freight train. I wasn't sure what the problem was since the pain was all over my upper and lower jaw on one side. It was Friday afternoon (of course) so I couldn't get in to see the dentist until Monday unless I called the emergency number and I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. My first course of action was directed at managing the pain. BC powder stopped it in it tracks early on, but it was a short-lived relief and five hours is a long time to suffer before I could take another one. Then I read about cloves. I will forevermore associate the taste of cloves with sweet relief. I can't believe how effective it was - I just crunched on a whole clove and then held it between my cheek and gum on the sore side.

I suspected this tooth pain had some element of infection even though there was no swelling or redness visible. I might have been a little feverish (with frequent environmental reactions that include an inability to control body temperature or tolerate heat, it's hard to tell). I started cutting raw garlic and biting on a piece on that side of my mouth - being sure to allow the garlic juice to pool in that part of my gums before swallowing any of it. I had a lot of raw garlic and it even helped a little with the pain. I just got my latest MRH (Mountain Rose Herbs) order and I was so glad that I remembered to order steam distilled tea tree essential oil. I warmed up some water, added plenty of safe salt and a single drop of tea tree oil and then swished. It was excruciating - I think I even moaned aloud and that is NOT like me (I tend to suffer quietly). The pain held on for a few minutes after the swish (just long enough for me to scream in my head, "Oh no, what have I done?!"), but then it felt better.....MUCH BETTER. I believe that's when I turned a corner and was on my way to recovery. I made a run to the local health food store where I purchased clove bud oil and continued to swab the area around my tooth with a cotton swab saturated with two drops of the oil - this was more convenient and comfortable than the whole cloves. This miracle in a tiny bottle deadened the area and kept me sane between BC powders. I alternated the tea tree oil with the clove oil because I believe the tea tree oil works better against infection even though the clove bud oil deadened it better.

As soon as it it was possible (pain-wise), I started brushing with the Sonicare toothbrush and a single drop of tea tree oil. I also added a drop of the tea tree oil to a spoonful of Tropical Traditions gold label virgin organic coconut oil and used it to oil pull twice a day. We practice oil pulling instead of flossing at my house, so it seemed natural to add a drop of tea tree oil to the coconut oil and I think it made a huge difference. I am still adding a drop of tea tree oil to my toothbrush for one brushing each day and I am still oil pulling. I'm happy to be over the need for BC powders - they helped with pain and the relief was immediate, but I don't like caffeine. One tip: time meals around the BC powders because pain is inevitable after eating regardless of choice of food. I made sure to eat only once it was safe to take another BC and I tried to hold out as long past the recommended six hours as humanly possible.

If this ever happens again, I will immediately start swishing with tea tree oil in salt water. I don't think there is any way around the deep, excruciating pain it causes so there is no need to wait. (I also believe that deep pain is just an indication that the war has begun and the tea tree oil is winning.) I believe that's what sent the infection running, so it makes no sense to put it off. I will chew lots of raw garlic (elephant garlic has a milder taste so it doesn't burn as much), raw ginger (lava hot but effective - cut into tiny pieces). I will never be without clove bud oil or tea tree oil again, either. I suggest everyone buy some and keep it in the house for tooth emergencies - no one wants to try to track it down once a toothache hits. Mountain Rose Herbs is sold out right now, but you can sign up for an email notification when it is available again.

By the way, my friend Erica did all the research on essential oils and it was on her recommendation that I bought the steam distilled tea tree essential oil. The "steam distilled" part is very important. MRH is so helpful that they list what method of extraction is used for each of their oils. It's probably harder to find out that information from other retailers - yet another reason that I love Mountain Rose Herbs.

One word of warning: Even though I firmly believe that herbal remedies are safer than prescription drugs, essential oils are riding the line between them so they need to be taken with more caution than an herbal tea. I believe too much of either the clove oil or the tea tree oil could damage your liver.....same with the BC powder. I was very judicious with the essential oils and BCs but used the coconut oil, raw ginger and garlic liberally for this reason.

Help Cut Corn Subsidies

We all need to get involved and work to get corn out of our lives. The first step is to sign this petition to cut back on crop subsidies and support local food growers. Right now it is estimated that 74 percent of that subsidy money goes to wealthy agribusinesses, not to small-scale family farmers who grow actual food.

When you sign a petition at Credo Action, you will be automatically subscribed to future notices. This makes it easy to stay informed about new relevant petitions and allows you to sign them with one click. You can unsubscribe at any time, of course.

Corn is Overused

It can be so hard for a parent to come to terms with this allergy. It's just so shocking to realize that there are so many products out there that will make our kids sick and no one else seems to have to worry about them. Avoiding any food because of allergy can be difficult, but when the allergen that needs to be avoided is corn, the problemS can seem insurmountable.


None of us knew that meat, veggies and dairy were making us sicker every year because we didn't realize that corn was used in processing every one of them. Our government has been busy keeping corn a major economic powerhouse and industry has been busy looking for ways to replace expensive products and processes with cheap corn substitutions. That wouldn't be a problem except that we took it to extremes. Now, more and more people are starting to react to corn every day, but it's too late. Our economy is dependent on corn and most products would not make it to the store shelves without corn of some kind now.

Corn allergy is very much like any other allergy except that corn is overused in our society. Most nut allergic individuals cannot tolerate even breathing in the dust from nuts. People allergic to bees can't take six stings before they start reacting - they react instantly to the first sting. Dairy allergic kids can't eat some cheeses but avoid all milk......they can't do any dairy products of any kind. For some reason, people would rather categorize us as crazy, extremist, hypochondriac conspiracy theorists instead of thinking about our allergy the way we are all taught to think about peanut allergies. Why is it so far-fetched that we can't tolerate any corn at all?

If you don't believe that corn is in everything, just a tiny bit of research on food manufacturing is all it will take to convince you. Wild ocean-caught fish is generally iced down below deck immediately in citric acid-laced ice. That's corntanimation before the fish even reaches the shore! What about the glue that holds any safety seal to the top of a jar? What is it made from? Maybe it's corn just like all the other adhesives out there (especially any adhesives that will be used near food). How much of a pre-ground spice would have to come into contact with that residue on the top of the jar before it caused a corn reaction? How much corn do I come in contact with when I open a cardboard package from Amazon? How much corn is in my house that I still don't even know about yet? It's to the point that I truly dread researching something because I always find corn involved somewhere down the line.

For further reading, the helpful people in the corn business have several publications online that will give you a better idea of how prevalent corn is in our society.
Uses for Corn from the Texas Corn Producers
National Corn Growers Association Corn Uses Poster
Corn Refiners Association pamphlet about "Tapping the Treasure" that is corn.

More information about the myriad ways corn is hidden in our food and other products can be found at Glenda's new Hidden Corn blog.

Corn-Free Basics

When coping with a new corn allergy, many people try to depend on packaged foods from the corn-free list at first. That can get you through the first few days if you live in a large metropolitan area with Whole Foods and Trader Joe's stores. Because of the limited list of foods that are corn-free, most people will get desperate fairly quickly for easy meals. "Easy meals" is a relative term, as you'll soon find. It's really important that you learn to cook at least a few basic things for yourself now that most convenience foods are out of the question. Here is a list of things I would put at the top of the list to master (youtube is a rich source of cooking videos):

1. Dried Beans: refried beans, bean dip, hummus, bean soup, cold bean salads, red beans and rice, fried bean patties, etc.
2. Brown Rice: Spanish rice, chicken and rice, rice cooked in broth, fried rice, rice and eggs, rice pudding, etc.
3. Eggs: scrambled, fried, boiled perfectly, deviled eggs, omelets, baked eggs, egg salad, homemade mayonnaise, egg drop soup, egg noodles, quiche, frittatas, poached, etc.
4. Wheat: muffins, quick bread, pancakes (can be used for sandwich bread), waffles, fritters, fried dough (make bread dough and pan or deep fry, roll in cinnamon sugar), rolls, buns (roll out a circle and fill with meat or bean mixture, close up and bake), crackers (a million variations possible), pies (there are tons of pies that can be made if you learn to make a simple pie crust in the food processor - it's a snap), bread sticks, garlic bread, toast (baked or fried), pasta, dumplings, cake, and on and on....
5. Chicken: whole boiled chicken and broth (cook soups or rice with the broth and pull meat off bones to use in chicken salad, etc.), broiled chicken pieces, roasted whole chicken, chicken cut up and fried, etc.
6. Salad Dressings: oil and vinegar, mustard vinaigrette, green goddess (avocado), ranch, parmesan, homemade Italian, etc.
7. Vegetables: basic roasted veggies, dishes too numerous to list.....

Most of the ingredients needed for the dishes listed above are pretty easy to find. Here are the ones that I've found even with our limited shopping options (no Whole Foods or Trader Joe's here): 

1. Beans: Pretty much any brand of dried beans including lentils and garbanzos from the local Indian market and Adzuki beans from the local Asian market. I can buy Eden canned beans from my local health food co-op but they are prohibitively expensive.
2. Brown Rice: Lundberg organic from Kroger or Unenriched white rice from the Asian market.
3. Eggs: farmers market - two of the five vendors carry safe eggs for me. One of them even has duck eggs. Look for organic eggs that haven't been washed in corny detergents or local eggs from farmers you can question. My eggs come straight from the farm dirty so I know they've not been corntaminated. I actually do better with duck eggs and I believe that's because they have an entirely foraged diet without corn or soy.
4. Wheat: Private Selection organic unbleached, unenriched wheat flour. Many do well with King Arthur organic whole wheat flour as well.
5. Chicken: I get pastured whole chickens and livers from a vendor at the farmers market. Empire chicken seems to be widely available and corn-free (I've never tried it because I seem to be in an Empire-free zone!).
6. Salad Dressings: I buy Filippo Berio extra virgin olive oil in glass bottles from Kroger (refined oils contain citric acid), Gold Label virgin organic coconut oil from Tropical Traditions, Bragg organic apple cider vinegar, Eden Brown Mustard, Daisy Sour Cream (full fat - lite version contains corn), local pasteurized but not homogenized or fortified cow milk from a vendor at the farmers market (fortified milks contain corn)
7. Vegetables: amazing veggies and fruit in season at my farmers market, Birdseye Deluxe Frozen vegetables from Walmart (NOT Steamfresh or ones with sauces or seasonings. I get a friend to pick up that one thing for me because we can't go in that store without a reaction).

As you can see, if you pick up the things on that list and keep a good supply of a few others*, you can have a huge variety in your diet as long as you learn to combine them creatively. *safe butter (Kerrygold salted butter), salt (Redmonds Real Salt or Morton canning salt), EVOO, cheese (Kerrygold from Sam's Club or Costco or Organic Valley from Kroger or the health food co-op), and seasonings (organic herbs and spice from Mountain Rose Herbs), Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, organic sugar (Private Selection from Kroger), onions (Kroger sweet), garlic (Elephant garlic - Kroger), celery (unbagged conventional celery - Kroger), peppers (farmers market only - dehydrate or freeze extras for winter), and citrus juice (Santa Cruz organic lemon juice and lime juice from Kroger).

I found it helpful in the beginning to look for recipes for specific things I had that I knew were safe. Try doing a google search for "egg recipes" or "cabbage recipes" or whatever safe ingredients you have accessible. This opened my eyes to many dishes from other cuisines and we've incorporated them into our diet. Sprinkling Indian or Mexican or Asian dishes in with your tried and true recipes will make your diet much more exciting.  

I love looking for dessert recipes on All Recipes by excluding the ingredients you can't have....for instance: I would do an ingredient search and put in the keyword "cake" then put eggs, milk, flour, sugar in the "Ingredients to Include" column and put corny things like sweetened condensed milk, cool whip, cake mix or evaporated milk in the "Ingredients to Exclude" column. If you start reading the recipes and the top few contain another corny ingredient, you'll want to revise your search to add that to your "Ingredients to Exclude" column. It will help to broaden the scope of possibilities because it will bring up things you've never had or didn't remember existed. There are tons of simple corn-free desserts that can be made as long as you can eat wheat, sugar and dairy. In the end, I may not even use the recipe from Allrecipes.com, but it will point me in the direction I want to go with dessert. I can then look for "traditional" or "homemade" recipes for the dessert I want to make. 

It'll soon be spring and you can shop for fresh peppers, tomatoes, lettuces, cucumbers and such at the farmers market so you'll have an endless supply for fresh salads. It will require washing (remember not to use prewashed baby carrots or salad greens), but you can learn to wash large amounts and store it for combining at meal time. Plus you can just saute onions and peppers in butter before adding eggs and shredded cheese to the pan for fancy scrambled eggs.....if you have safe sausage or bacon, all the better. Imagine whipping up a batch of biscuits to eat with your Western omelet cheat or just toasting some homemade bread. It's easy enough to make biscuits or bread for the freezer so you can bake only what you need at one time or bake the whole pan and freeze in individual portions. You can make several batches on your day off and put them in the freezer for later (freezer = essential longterm solution). 

I would say that most of my meals take slightly longer than just opening a can or package and reheating and I spend far less time and money shopping. Also, I cook in bulk and freeze portions for later or we eat the leftovers for a cooking break. I really enjoy my cooking much better than anything I could buy, anyway. I would never be able to just reheat a can of store bought beans and be satisfied with it. The only time I ate the Eden canned beans I had to saute garlic in EVOO and stir the drained beans into the pan to reheat while adding salt, pepper and a dash of vinegar. Once you start to enjoy your own cooking, you'll see things like canned beans as something you keep for emergencies like a power outage for several days.

Cabbage with Onions

Delicious Cabbage with Onions

A question on the Avoiding Corn Forum got me thinking about one of my favorite "tried and true" recipes that got me through the early days of my allergy. Some people live in small towns with no access to organic produce or specialty staples (as I did in the beginning). In a situation like that it helps to have something that is pretty much always safe. I have found that cabbage and onions tend to be safe no matter what brand I have tried. With that in mind, I thought I would post one of my favorite veggie dishes. I call it simply:

Cabbage with Onions

Ingredients:
1 cabbage
1 or 2 onions
extra virgin olive oil and/or safe butter
sea salt and other spices of your choice

Layer veggies and seasonings in the pot

Rough chop the cabbage and onions. Layer them into a large, heavy-bottom pot with a tight fitting lid. Add seasonings for each layer. For a large head of cabbage and 2 onions, I put two palmfuls of sea salt and probably 2 or 3 tbsp. olive oil plus 1/2 stick of butter sliced over top. Don't worry if it fills the pot to the top because it will cook down quite a bit. I use my 6-quart Lodge Enamel Cast Iron Dutch Oven (if you don't have one, I highly recommend it).

Cover tightly and start cooking on medium low (3 on electric stove). Set a timer for 30 minutes, remove lid, stir, replace lid, set for 30 minutes more, remove lid, stir, if the cabbage is translucent at this point leave off lid, set for 30 minutes more to cook out liquid. You can turn up the heat at this point and stand over it stirring frequently to get a nice caramelization on some of the cabbage, but it isn't necessary. Serve with a dollop of Daisy full fat sour cream and a piece of quick bread if you like.

After one hour of slow cooking

You will be amazed how sweet and delicious this dish tastes after slow cooking for 1.5 hours. You can add any seasonings that you desire. In the past I have added one or more of the following: sliced new potatoes, caraway seeds, red pepper flakes, garlic, bell peppers, Anaheim peppers, zucchini, etc. Tonight I added diced jicama and coriander because I had a jicama and it just seemed right. Jicama reminds me of apples and pears and there is some precedence for pairing apples and cabbage in traditional recipes.

Since this is a slow cooking dish, you could probably get better than average results using a slow cooker. I don't have one (believe it or not) so I haven't tried it. This heats up beautifully so you can make a huge pot of it and eat it over the next few days. It has been a real lifesaver for us and we still eat it quite often even when we have a big variety of safe, fresh produce available.

<3

GMO corn is everyone's problem!

I am painfully aware of the prevalence of GMO corn in the food system of America. This awareness is a necessary by-product of learning to live with a corn allergy. When I speak to people (even friends and family) of the problems that are caused by our dependence on GMO corn, I am met with an attitude of "That's something we don't have to worry about, luckily we aren't allergic like you are." I wish I could make people understand why it is a problem for our whole country right now and is on its way to becoming a problem for the whole world. I found this neat video that helps to explain why genetically modified foods are so bad. Enjoy:





I think all corn allergy sufferers should be active in the fight against genetically modified crops. Tell everyone you know to watch this ten minute video. There are feature length films and books out now that help to illuminate the problems we face because of our dependence on GMO corn. Here are links to my favorites:




If  you would like to know more but don't want to purchase any of these books or movies, you can rent most of them from your local library.  Also, doing a search on YouTube or Google will produce thousands of videos and articles. If you need help explaining the danger of GMOs to others, there is an excellent printable brochure by Jeffrey M. Smith on his website. He is the author of, "The Seeds of Deception" and a famous activist for safer food. He also has a blog on The Huffington Post site.

No matter how you choose to spread the word, the important thing is that you help in some way. Even if you just mention the dangers of GMO corn to a young mother picking out yogurt for her baby at the grocery store, it helps. The continued ignorance of the American public on this issue is the only thing that biotech giants have in their favor.

<3

Making Your Own Quick Bread Mix

I wanted to revisit my adventures in quick bread because I've streamlined the process even more. Now I freeze bags of bread mix and pull them out when I need bread or biscuits. If we want bread, I add water to the mix and if we want biscuits, I add milk (or a mixture of sour cream and water).

Awesome Quick Bread

Dry ingredients:

4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 tsp. my baking powder mix (half baking soda and half arrowroot powder - I leave out the cream of tartar)
1 to 2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 to 1 stick butter or up to 8 tbsp. your preferred fat

Dump all the above ingredients into the food processor and pulse until there are no large pieces of butter visible. Pour this into a gallon baggie and freeze. I make several of these while I have the food processor out. I really enjoy getting 6 loaves of bread mix ready to freeze and only having to wash the processor once. When I get ready for bread, I put my oval corningware dish into the 400F oven with 2 to 4 tbsp. butter in it to melt. I put the bread mix into a bowl and add about 1 to 2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar and a palmful of organic sugar (vinegar to help it rise and sugar to counteract the flavor of the vinegar) and enough filtered water to make a good dough (I have never measured the water successfully, but it takes in the neighborhood of 2 to 3 cups). You can add minced fresh garlic, onions, shredded cheese, diced peppers, sundried tomatoes, herbs, spices, etc. to your dough or you can just plop it into the pan once the butter is melted and sprinkle shredded cheese across the top. Use a pastry brush to bring up some of the melted butter from the sides to the top (or melt additional butter and brush it onto the top) and bake. It takes about 35 - 45 minutes to bake in my deep oval corningware dish (test it with a knife inserted in the middle) and about 20 - 25 minutes in my baking sheet (flatbread). This also makes a really good pizza crust. Once it is cooled, we slice it and make open face sandwiches or cheese toast from it or just eat a piece of it with dinner. I don't think we could go back to store bread if we had to at this point. We don't have this bread every meal, but I do make it about twice a week.

This is a very flexible recipe so feel free to make it your own. I have added raisins (Newman's Own) and cinnamon to the dough with milk for the liquid to make scones. After mixing well, I poured the batter into my buttered 9 x 13 pan, brushed it with butter, then scored the top to mark biscuit size portions. After it baked, I cut on the score lines and we enjoyed square scones with honey butter. It would work quite well to roll out the dough and cut with a biscuit cutter, but I would only take the time to do that on special occasions. I can think up quite a few possible modifications including: add more liquid and some blueberries for muffins, add browned country sausage and shredded cheese for all-in-one breakfast biscuits (use milk for the liquid), add bananas or zucchini and spices and bake in a loaf pan for banana bread. Once you get a feel for how much liquid you need for each variation and figure out how well your baking powder rises, you can modify it to suit your needs with very little trouble. There really is very little difference between biscuits, cake, scones, muffins, and bread. Learn what these differences are and you will be well on your way to mastering them all.

Blondies (Homemade and Corn-free)

Blondies are our favorite easy dessert that all of us can make from scratch without a recipe. Blondies are just brownies sans chocolate, but they are truly delicious. My daughter can't eat any of the brands of chocolate or cocoa that we have tried so we all eschew chocolate in the name of solidarity. You may even find that you don't miss the cocoa if you give these blondies a chance.

Blondies:

• 3 sticks organic butter (melted)
• 3 cups organic cane sugar
• 3 organic free range eggs
• 3 cups organic all purpose flour
• 3 tsp. homemade baking powder (or 1 TBSP)
• 1 tsp. ground vanilla beans
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt

Preheat oven to 325°F. Mix melted butter and sugar. Add eggs and stir until mixed well. Add flour, baking powder, ground vanilla beans and salt and mix well. Pour into buttered 9" x 13" dish (I love my glass bakeware) and bake for 42 - 45 minutes. Let cool before cutting (or just be careful not to burn your mouth with the molten lava temperature of the inside of hot blondies).

This recipe is very easy to remember because of all the threes. Both of my teenagers and I can whip up a batch of these so quickly, it hardly takes any effort. This is just a bar cookie and tastes a lot like really thick chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips. This dessert has been very popular with everyone that tried it and was even on the menu at our latest birthday party. Brenda requested (three times) that I put this recipe on my blog since tasting them at my house, so I knew I had to get it done.

Living Corn Free

I am often asked how a beginner can learn to avoid corn. It's hard to get someone started. I think that avoiding corn is something that comes with practice and no one gets it right the first time out of the gate. It took me over a year before I felt that I was avoiding all corn in my purchases (at least as much as humanly possible in America), but there are still corny things in my life that I can't replace with uncorny ones. I am resigned to life with certain plastics, memory foam, envelopes, cheap pressboard furniture, tape and packaging, fuel for my car, batteries, and craft supplies. I do go out of my way to avoid buying any new products made with/from corn, but sometimes there is no feasible alternative.

My daughter remarked yesterday that even the inside of our refrigerator looks different from the average American's. There are no brightly colored labels and no plastic squeeze bottles and no cardboard packages. Instead, our fridge is filled with mason jars, glass pitchers, glass bowls and whole vegetables. The only cardboard that ever enters our fridge is the packaging for organic butter and organic pastured eggs. In the picture you can clearly see the Santa Cruz Organic Lemon Juice, Bragg's Organic apple cider vinegar, Daisy sour cream, Kroger brand sparkling water (we made cream soda for company) and our Blue Ice Fermented Cod Liver Oil. There are very few brand names or marketing dollars represented in our lives and the brand names we do buy are not the huge food corporations so popular with other Americans. These labels never enter my house: Kraft, General Mills, Bryan, Tyson, Kellog's, Quaker, Nabisco, Vlasic, Folger's, Smucker's, Sara Lee or Wesson. Most of those are subsidiaries of larger corporations but I don't buy from the "healthy" subsidiaries of those large corporations, either. You know the ones I mean, the ones that started as a small healthy alternative and were bought out by large corporations wanting to cash in on the "natural and organic" reputation. Labels like Hain, Burt's Bees, Tom's of Maine and Kashi started as small companies selling healthy products but now have been bought out by corporations known for unhealthy additives.

This is our strategy for avoiding corn and soy:

We never buy anything enriched or fortified or diet or low fat or nonfat. Enriched wheat and iodized salt and even organic vitamin D milk all contain GMO corn derivatives which are endocrine disruptors. They adversely effect blood sugar, appetite, weight regulation and hormone levels. We make all wheat products from unenriched organic all-purpose flour using a corn-free baking powder (homemade) and sea salt (uniodized). We only drink raw goat milk from pastured goats that we buy from our local farmers market. If raw is unavailable, there may be pasturized local milk that is unfortified. If we want yogurt or kefir, we make it at home.

We avoid meat from the grocery store. We buy half a cow from a local grassfed farmer and have it custom butchered to avoid citric and lactic acid sprays (both corn derivatives) and cryovac packaging (GMO cornstarch). We haven't found a safe source of chicken or fish (both are fed corn and soy and are treated with citric acid during processing) so we haven't had any in quite some time. (Some corn allergic are able to tolerate corn-fed meat, but we can't.)

I buy all my produce from the farmers market. The produce (especially the fruit) in the grocery store is usually coated with corn derivative wax to preserve it for shipping. Bagged salads are washed with citric acid - also prewashed carrots and berries. Most fruits are corntaminated in some way. We only eat fruit if we find safe local fruit in season. Grocery store tomatoes, potatoes, bananas and avocados are gassed with ethylene gas (corn derivative again). Apples, peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, rutabagas and citrus fruits are waxed with a corn derived wax as a preservative.

We eat a diet consisting of mainly meat and vegetables with healthy fats. We don't cook with processed oils, instead choosing to use rendered fat from grassfed cows, organic butter with no "natural flavor" (corn), virgin organic coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil. The more fat we eat, the longer we are satiated. I know this is contrary to modern thinking, but it really works! I try to avoid grains and refined sugar though we are not always successful and are not fanatical about it. If finances permitted it, we would be grain-free, though. This is not to be confused with a low-carb diet which uses carbohydrate count only to determine which foods to eat. I don't believe 100 grams of carbohydrate from refined flour is equal to 100 grams of carbohydrate from fresh green beans so vegetables always take precedence over grains in this house.

We eat lots of homemade probiotic foods. I found that my gut flora was badly out of balance (as it is for most people that have eaten processed foods) and I needed probiotics to repopulate my gut. They not only boost the health of the beneficial bacteria in the gut, they stimulate digestive juices for better digestion. I make lacto-fermented vegetables (process used to make traditional sauerkraut) from safe veggies and sea salt and eat them daily. I also drink beet kvass and fermented cabbage juice tonic (delicious, I swear!) for natural probiotics. Really easy to make, the varieties are limited only by imagination and no special equipment is required.

We don't buy spice blends or sauce mixes or bottled dressings or condiments. We buy single organic spices (in seed or pod form when possible) and grow fresh herbs. We also don't eat anything that contains white or distilled vinegar since that is fermented completely from GMO corn. I make my own cucumber pickles and salsa using the method above and use the fermented veggie juice in place of vinegar or buy organic apple cider vinegar. I make salad dressing, marinade, hot sauce, mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard if we want them.

We don't drink any bottled beverages including water or juice. Bottled water contains GMO corn derivatives as does most filtered water. We drink tap water run through a Brita water pitcher and carry our own glass or stainless steel water bottle with us. If we want juice, we make it from fresh veggies or fruit. I never did this before I got a chicken (for corn-free eggs) since the pulp was wasted. Now, the chicken gets the pulp and gives me eggs in return so it isn't a waste anymore. Still, we don't drink juice every day because I question the wisdom of ingesting the juice without the fiber it came with. We do buy organic lemon juice for adding to recipes since organic lemons can be hard to find here.

We have ibuprofen compounded without corn and take no other OTC or Rx meds. More and more we are discovering natural ways to combat little health problems we all encounter from time to time. It helps that we are a lot healthier these days needing fewer remedies. If we did require medications, I would get them compounded as well. I am also extremely careful of any supplements since most contain some GMO corn derivative. Here is a list of corn derivative names.

That pretty much sums up a year of careful research and success with respect to avoiding corn in the kitchen. I have been shocked so many times in the last year at the amount of GMO crops that the average American ingests daily without even knowing it. Even though I was cooking our meals from scratch, I was still feeding them to my family in the form of canned veggies, soup mixes and spice combos and milk, meat, cheese and eggs  (we buy only Kerrygold cheese now since it is corn-free and only organic pastured eggs when we need more than my chicken can produce).

Maybe my next post should be about avoiding corn in the rest of the house. The average American not only ingests GMO corn with every meal or dietary supplement, but absorbs it in the form of deodorant, moisturizer, perfume, shaving cream, hand soap, antibacterial products, air fresheners and shampoo.

Corn-free resources that we find helpful:

• Corn Free Foods 
• Corn Free Spreadsheet List 
• Avoiding Corn Forum

Pizza (Homemade and Corn-free)

Sometimes we just want sausage pizza. It isn't as easy as having one brought to your door, but my recipe is pretty easy. I can't believe we haven't taken pictures of our pizza yet, but I will post some next time we make it. There are several things that I do ahead of time that make it much quicker. First, I always shred my cheese when I buy it. I buy Kerrygold cheese when I am going to make pizza or Mexican so I shred all of it at once and put it in a Ziploc bag in the fridge. We prefer Dubliner for pizzas and it happens to be the cheapest, too. Woohoo!

I brown my meat with diced onions and garlic (you can just puree these in the food processor if you have a son like mine who doesn't like pieces of onion in his food but likes the flavor) and Italian seasonings for the Italian sausage. I can't find safe pork so I make mine from 75/25 pastured beef (some people consider this ratio too fatty but fat is good for you). It is delicious and easy - I could mix all the herbs into it and form it into patties while raw, but I prefer to just add the herbs to the meat while it is browning. I can't tell you specific amounts of herbs because I never measure. Just add the following to taste: fennel seed, rosemary, red pepper flakes, sage, sea salt. Add a little touch of organic sugar if you think it needs it - most commercial Italian sausage has some sweetener but we generally leave that out.

While my meat is browning, I chop my veggies and make my pizza sauce. I always add fresh basil, garlic, onions and red bell peppers (loaded with Vitamin C) on my pizza, but  you can add whatever you like. If you like broccoli on your pizza, go for it! Just beware of mushrooms since they can be grown on a corny medium. The sauce is very simple, too. You can mix this up and it will keep in the fridge for several days and it even freezes well (use it like pizza quick sauce). To a can of safe tomato paste, I add the following: basil, oregano, organic sugar, sea salt, touch of extra virgin olive oil and water. Stir it until it is smooth but still pretty thick (the only way to screw this up is to add to much water - err on the side of too thick rather than too thin). Then I turn my attention to the pizza crust.


Pizza crust for 2 round pizza pans:

4 cups flour (organic wheat is the only ingredient)
1 1/2 tbsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. sea salt
2 - 3 cups of water (may need more)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix all dry ingredients in bowl and make a well in the middle (just an indention for the water). Add some of the water to the middle of the bowl and stir in the flour as you need it. When it gets all incorporated and you have flour left, add more water and stir more flour in. Do this until all the flour is mixed and you have a dough. Pour a handful of extra virgin olive oil into your palm and rub your hands together to coat them both. Pull the dough in half and put each half on a pizza pan. Making sure your hands are well coated, use them to push the dough to the edges of the pan. Don't worry about getting it perfect, you want it to look home-made, don't you? Bake at 425F for about 8 - 12 minutes. Take from the oven and cover with toppings. Bake for another 12 - 15 minutes and enjoy.

Taco Bread and Other Quick Breads (Homemade and Corn-free)

I have a quick bread recipe that I make a lot (with subtle variations to suit the kind of bread needed). Using this quickbread, I am basically making Mexican Cornbread without the corn. I mix up the quickbread and layer taco meat, onions, peppers and grated cheese in the middle. We like to call it:

Taco Bread

Ingredients:
1 lb. taco meat*
2 small onions (diced)
1 red bell pepper (diced)
3 jalapeno peppers (diced) optional - substitute peppers of your choice or omit
1 block Kerrygold cheddar cheese (grated)
1 batch of quick bread batter (see below)
1/2 stick butter

Put a half stick butter in a 9x13 pan in a 375F oven to melt.

Chop onions and peppers. Grate one block of Kerrygold cheddar cheese (8 oz., I think). Prepare one pound of taco meat* and mix up one batch of quick bread batter.

Place 1/3 of bread batter into pan. Spread meat mixture, onions, peppers, cheese all across the top of the batter evenly. Pour the remaining bread batter over filling and put in oven to bake. Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown on top and bread is done in center.

We eat this all the time because we have no uncorny flour tortillas available here and this is much faster than making tortillas. I have a great from-scratch recipe for red sauce so I may have to break down and make homemade flour tortillas for enchiladas one day.

*browned ground beef seasoned with paprika, cumin, garlic, onion, sea salt and ground cayenne pepper and/or ground chipotle pepper, add a touch of sugar if desired.

Quickbread:

3 c. flour (I use Naturally Preferred Organic Unbleached)
1 tbsp. baking powder (homemade)
1 tsp. salt
1 c. sour cream (Daisy full fat)
~1-2 c. water (enough to make a good batter)

Mix all ingredients until a thick batter is formed. It should be much thicker than pancake batter, but not quite dry enough to be dough.

 I use that basic bread recipe for pizza crust, too. I can't buy red star yeast packets here so we never have yeast bread. I would like to perfect sourdough bread from scratch one day, but don't have time for it now.

That basic bread recipe is biscuits if you cut in half a stick of butter before you add the sour cream/water and mix it into a dough instead of a batter (be careful not to overwork it - that makes biscuits tough). I pour the dough into a buttered pan and score it into biscuit size pieces instead of rolling out and cutting biscuits. They taste exactly the same and it is much quicker. The same dough is waffles if I cut in virgin coconut oil instead of butter (virgin coconut oil is my shortening substitute) and add eggs and ground vanilla beans. It's pizza dough or bread sticks if I use extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) and all water with no sour cream. You can make the batch as big as you need. I just figure about 1 tsp. baking powder per cup of flour. I never measure anything except the flour. I made two baking sheet size pizzas using a 4 c. flour pizza crust variation. Bake it for 10 minutes before topping it with homemade pizza sauce (tomato paste, basil, garlic powder, salt, sugar, water) and then bake for another 10-15 minutes with toppings. You can mix sausage seasonings into ground beef as easy as ground pork for sausage topping, you can hardly taste the difference.

The bread recipe is a variation of a basic choux pastry. If I rolled out a batter with cold butter cut in. and kept doubling it over itself, it would be a choux pastry. It goes without saying that you can vary the type of flour, add seasonings or herbs (breadsticks are great with diced onion and garlic and herbs of your choice). Just experiment with it and vary the liquid and pan sizes to see how it cooks with each variation. It is a life saver because quickbreads do not require precision like yeast breads do. Have you ever tried a waffle variation as a substitute for sandwich bread? It is pretty easy to do. I am thinking about a cinnamon roll variation using brown sugar and cinnamon......

Fermented Onion Relish (Homemade and Corn-free)

I just had to share my new favorite fermented veggie combination. I accidentally bought too many onions even for me to use before they went bad. I needed to find something to do with them because I refuse to waste food. I have since read another excellent idea but I will go into that later. Right now I want to share the secret to the best relish you will ever eat. It is super simple, too.

I sliced a lot of onions (I don't remember how many but probably close to a bag) into quarters and then turned them and sliced thin slices from each quarter. I put them into the dishpan then sliced several red bell peppers so that the slices were approximately the same size. I didn't measure anything (as usual) but used about a 3 to 1 ratio of onions to peppers (mainly motivated by the high price of organic red peppers). Feel free to adjust according to your taste. I salted them and stirred them. I added quite a bit of hot red pepper flakes (one of my favorite seasonings) and let them sit undisturbed for about 30 minutes. When I came back to it, it was pretty juicy so I packed it into mason jars and waited for four days. This is my favorite vegetable ferment so far. We can't get enough of this onion relish, the first quart was gone in three days!

I am about to start frequenting garage sales in search of a food dehydrator. I have been reading a lot about preservation methods in preparation for spring and summer. I am determined not to be in the same dire straits next winter that we were in this one. Having to depend on the grocery store is not a very pleasant option when you are corn allergic. The average local produce department is atrocious and there are very few frozen or canned options available that are corn-free.

I have some excellent tips I picked up from one of ladies at the Avoiding Corn Delphi Forum about dehydrating and preserving foods. Here is an excerpt from her post:

I also have excalibur dehydrators, they are pretty much the Cadillac of dehydrators. I love mine, I highly recommend them to anyone that thinks they will dehydrate very much food. It has a nice range of heat settings and allows me to dehydrate almost anything! I do fruits and veggies, I caramelize onions in the crockpot then, dehydrate them and use them for flavor in so many dishes. I dehydrate leftovers (sometimes planned overs) and use that food when I travel away from home, just add water! I make croutons, "instant" rice, the list goes on and on.  (tomatoes dehydrate very nicely)

You can probably see what caught my attention in that paragraph. I can't wait to try the caramelized onions even though I don't have a slow cooker or a dehydrator. I do spend a bit of time every day slicing onions. It is appealing to think that I could instead spend an afternoon slicing and caramelizing and dehydrating and be done with it for a while.

Corn-free soft drinks

My children wanted to try a recipe I found on the Avoiding Corn Delphi Forum for a ginger simple syrup. We tried it and tweaked it and were rewarded with ginger ale and a batch of crystallized ginger rolled in vanilla sugar. Then my daughter had the idea of making vanilla simple syrup. Genius! Now after a year of drinking only water and ginger tea, we were treated to ginger ale and cream soda in the same week. We are so happy.

Ginger Ale (Corn-free and Home-made)

1 - 2 ginger roots (peeled and sliced)
10 cups sugar
5 cups water
Big K sparkling water (or perrier)

I mixed all ingredients in a large saucepan and cooked on low for at least two hours. I suppose you could do this in a crockpot as well. Do not allow to boil rapidly. You don't want to make hard candy and you want the ginger tender and sweet for crystallized ginger. I waited for mine to reduce and we just taste tested it. When a couple of teaspoons added to a glass of sparkling water tasted like ginger ale, it was finished. We were rewarded with almost two quarts of ginger syrup.

Once the syrup was ready, I took the ginger out with a slotted spoon and placed on foil to dry. After allowing it to dry for an hour or so, I rolled in vanilla sugar and placed it in an airtight container.

Vanilla Sugar

To make vanilla sugar: add (at least) three supple, moist 12 Madagascar Vanilla Beansinto a quart mason jar and cover with organic sugar of your choice. After about a month, you will have the most fragrant and smooth vanilla sugar to be used for making ice cream or to sweeten tea or bake sweet treats. We keep several mason jars full at all times and replace the sugar that we have used and rotate that jar to the back. Once the beans are no longer supple, you can grind them in a spice grinder (or dedicated coffee grinder) for ground vanilla beans. We also buy 3 oz Madagascar Pure Ground Vanilla to use in place of vanilla extract since corn-free vanilla extract is hard to find. (You can also use some of your whole vanilla beans to make the best vanilla extract using potato vodka.)

Vanilla Syrup (Corn-free and Home-made)

Now, for the vanilla syrup, the process was exactly the same using one or two tsp. ground vanilla beans instead of ginger slices. If I had any extra vanilla beans on hand, I probably would have split one or two and scraped the insides into the sugar/water mixture and then placed the entire bean into the syrup. I only had ground vanilla beans and a few less than supple whole beans (I need to re-order) so I used ground vanilla beans. We don't mind the tiny particles of vanilla that end up in our cream soda, but if you think it will bother you, simply use whole beans instead. The resulting two quarts of vanilla syrup makes the best cream soda we have ever tasted.

To make any of these syrups into a soft drink:

Just add 1 to 2 tbsp. syrup to a tall glass and fill the rest of the way with safe sparkling water. I believe that LaCroix is corn-free as well as Perrier. I am looking into one of the counter top carbonation machines like this one to make sure they are corn-free. It might make a nice family Xmas present. It would certainly make me feel better about soft drinks since I hate buying anything in plastic containers. 

<3

Corn-free Ketchup Recipe

I've had a request for a corn-free ketchup recipe and I just happen to have one. This recipe is not Nourishing Traditions friendly or GAPS friendly, but just a quick, easy ketchup. The ingredients should be easy to find and you may even  have them in your pantry. This recipe uses canned tomato paste (which I hate to buy), but it is winter so there are no safe corn-free tomatoes for sale

Corn-free Ketchup

Ingredients:
2 small onions (diced)
1 clove elephant garlic or 2 small cloves (diced)
2 TBSP butter
1/2 tsp. salt
1 large can tomato paste
1 tsp ground cloves (fresh ground is best)
1 1/2 to 2 cans organic sugar (use the tomato paste can for measuring)
2/3 can Bragg's Organic Apple Cider Vinegar (use the tomato paste can for measuring)
1 can water (fill the tomato paste can with water)


Saute the onions and garlic in the butter over low heat until transparent. Add the tomato paste, ACV, water, sugar, cloves and salt. Cook over medium low heat until heated through. Use an immersion blender (stick blender) to puree the onions and garlic. Cook over medium low heat until desired thickness (it will be slightly thicker when cooled) is reached. This makes about 1 1/2 quarts. If this is too much for your family at once, you can scale down the ingredients to fit a small can of tomato paste. Longer cooking times will result in a thicker, richer ketchup.

I used the can for the measurements so it is possible to scale it to any size can of tomato paste you may be able to find. Plus, it means less dirty dishes to wash. My kids love this ketchup and I am betting yours will, too. Once the summer starts, I will make a recipe with fresh tomatoes from my backyard. I can't wait!

GMOs in Pasture Raised Meat

I was going to post my recipe for the best meatballs on the planet along with the best roasted veggies as a side dish. My plan went up in a puff of smoke when I started suffering a monster corn reaction to the meatballs. I double-checked all the ingredients: onion, garlic, sea salt, fresh ground pepper, 70% lean ground beef from US Wellness Meats. Now, onions and garlic can be corntaminated, but I knew these were safe. They are not only the same brand I have tested and confirmed, but they were from an open bag. Needless to say I use the sea salt and black pepper every day so I knew it was safe. Besides, this reaction started quickly (before I had even finished eating) and it was intense. I could tell from the first symptom that it was a corn derivative.

After rechecking my ingredients I came to the conclusion that it had to be the pasture raised ground beef from US Wellness Meats. I was so angry and upset. Until this reaction, I was an affiliate. I recommended them on every corn allergy website or forum that I frequent. How could this happen? I emailed them that night to find out how the GMO corn had landed in the meat. The owner, John Wood, emailed me back quickly and said he would look into it. His next email confirmed that they are using lactic acid (citric acid's evil twin and a powerful GM corn-derived anti-bacterial) at the processing plant. The ground beef contains a higher concentration because it is made from the trim off roasts and steaks, therefore, more heavily sprayed areas make up the ground beef.

Now, can you understand the enormity of this? At US Wellness, they go to great lengths to finish cows on pasture. They refuse to finish them on a feedlot using GMO corn to fatten them up quickly. This costs extra because it takes much longer and more work to finish cattle this way. The health benefits of eating pastured meat are extensive and eating only healthy animals is important to me. Feedlot cows are sick when they are butchered and the force-feeding of unnatural grains causes them to suffer high levels of E. coli infections. The government requires the processing plants to use powerful anti-bacterial sprays directly on the carcass to combat the spread  of E. coli. If you saw the process, believe me, you would be in favor of spraying whatever it took to kill all the contaminants that are on these carcasses.

My problem is that the anti-bacterial spray that they use is made with GM corn and I cannot tolerate even a little bit of it. It seems that the government guidelines make no distinction between butchering sick cows in high production abatoires and butchering healthy cows in smaller facilities. Now, the obvious conclusion is that the beef sold by US Wellness Meats is coated with a toxic spray as it is being processed. All of that work and care to raise the best quality meat with the most health benefits is ruined in the few seconds it takes to pump out that toxic brew onto the carcass. Healthy, pasture raised cows are reduced to toxic ground beef in an instant.

To say that I am angry about this would be an understatement. I have come to embrace the need to cook all my foods from scratch. I have come to terms with the idea that I can never eat at a restaurant or relative's house again. I have even given up the idea of "convenience foods" and have resigned myself to gathering uncorny ingredients from sources far and wide, but this is where my patience ends. The produce section of my grocery store is a minefield of corny waxes and ethylene-gassed vegetables and fruit. I can't even buy uncorned milk in the entire city of Jackson, MS and now my source of pasture-raised meat is gone. I don't care if there is GMO corn and soy in every packaged or canned food in my grocery store, I can do without those. Why can't I at least buy fresh produce and meat that hasn't been corntaminated? Does anyone realize that even the organic meat in my grocery store ($12.00 for a small whole organic chicken!) has been treated with non-organic sprays that contain GMO corn? The USDA doesn't count the antibacterial sprays as an ingredient even though consumers clearly are ingesting them.

What does this mean for my family? I have tried to find a local farm for meat and produce, but I moved here on Thanksgiving Day and there wasn't much of a farmer's market by then. All of the places listed on eatwild.com for my area have gone out of business. When the farmers market starts up again in the spring maybe I will be able to find fresh meat and vegetables that haven't been corned. Maybe I will find a way to grow my own vegetables and meat in my backyard, but that seems doubtful with no money and chronic fatigue.

Now, what to do with the corntaminated meat I still have from US Wellness Meats? My mom said she would take it home but I doubt she can tolerate it any better than I can. I couldn't even feed the leftover meatballs to my dog because they had onion in them. What a waste. Of time, money and effort. This depressing post is part of Real Food Wednesdays. Go over and find something happy to read about to lift your spirits. I know I will.

Roasted Onion Dip (Homemade and Corn-Free)

I have always loved onion dip. You know, open the french onion soup mix packet and stir it into the sour cream and chill. Now that I know corn is a problem for us, I needed to come up with a new way of making onion dip. This is what I came up with and it is delicious. By the way, I was able to find all the ingredients at Kroger which is quickly becoming my go-to store for corn-free shopping. My local Kroger has more corn-free items than all the other stores in my area combined (including my tiny local food co-op). The store brands Naturally Preferred and Private Selection are proving to be very good brands for corn avoiders like us, too.

Roasted Onion Dip - Homemade and Corn Free

2 medium onions
1Tbsp. Pure Indian Foods ghee or Organic Valley butter
2 cups Daisy full fat sour cream
1 Tbsp. McCormick Organic onion powder

Dice and roast the onions. Coat the onions with the ghee and spread them in a pan. Roast in a 350 degree oven. I roasted them for 20 minutes, then stirred and roasted for 20 minutes. Continue until all are roasted but not burned. Let cool.

Stir roasted onions and onion powder into the sour cream. Chill. Enjoy.

You can serve this dip with Carr's Water Crackers or Kettle brand Lightly Salted Chips. Both are corn-free and available at Kroger. It's also nice with Bunny Luv carrot sticks, red pepper strips, broccoli or cauliflower florets, jicama, or homemade crispy crackers of your choice.

I would love to try this with mushrooms or roasted red peppers (maybe some cayenne pepper added in) or maybe a combination of several roasted vegetables for a brand new Roasted Vegetable Dip.

Take a look at Real Food Wednesdays for more great tips and recipes.