Thursday, April 29, 2010

A little history...

True bread, bread made from healthy whole grains, properly fermented is and has been the most basic form of food since we left the Garden of Eden: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground . . ." (Genesis 3:7,19). From this has come phrases like "making a living" which at it's earliest was shorthand for sowing, reaping, harvesting and baking grains into bread...your 'living' and maxims like ". . . if any would not work, neither should he eat" (II Thessalonians 3:10).

Hungry people soon discovered that whole grains like wheat, spelt and rye were serious powerhouses of vitamins and minerals and began to hoard the grains for future eating. Some of the stores would get wet from rain and begin to sprout and man learned that he could plant and grow this nutritious staple. This development in man's history was the beginning of our departure from nomadism; up until humans discovered agriculture, they pretty much had to follow their food like cows looking for new pasture to graze after clearing out the one they left behind. But I digress...

Once early man learned to crush grains with stones (as opposed to just slowly grinding them with their teeth..ouch!) it wasn't long before he mixed the course meal with water to make a paste and then baked that paste on hot stones. This is where the world's flat breads originated; breads like corn tortillas, Indian naan and chapati, Armenian lavash, and Scottish bannocks. It was soon discovered that leavened breads could be made by letting the "paste" sit around for a few days to capture the yeast from the air and the spores naturally present on the surface of the grains, and slowly ferment into a risen dough. This type of bread was desirous because it was lighter, softer, better tasting and easier to digest than the flat breads. Soon people realized that by saving a piece of dough from a batch of leavened bread to put in the next day's dough would save them the time of having to cultivate the yeast for each new batch of bread: this was the origin of sourdough, a process still used to this day.

I made my first ever loaf of sourdough bread last week from my own home grown starter that I began cultivating on January 12th. Daily feedings of flour and water fermented into a strong and tangy "yeast" that I used to slowly (over 40 hours) leaven my loaf. The result was a deliciously sour, nicely crusted loaf--I was trilled to have such good results on a first attempt!!


I'd offer you a piece but it is all gone...



Angela

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Sixth Sense

Technology is amazing!

Human Powered Vehicle

I need to get in shape and fast.
I need to grow some serious thigh muscle and I have less than two weeks to do it.


The Human Powered Vehicle Competition is coming up on the 23'rd of this month and if everything goes as planned I might end up being one of the female riders (Yay! And GULP!).


The bike is really awesome, Matthew, myself and even Andrew and Amie along with other fellow college students have been building it from scratch for a while now.
The club members planned out how to build the frame, welded it, tested it, built the seat so that it could be adjustable for different sized riders, worked on the roll cage, designed the fairing and much, much more.


The bike just needs a few finishing touches but it's sturdy and ride-able. I really think our college has a shot of placing somewhere in the competition but even if we don't I know the the event is going to be amazing!

Here's a video of a human powered vehicle via Youtube just so you can get an idea of what these hpv's look like:



I'm very excited and nervous for this competition fingers crossed I can get in decent bike riders shape and that everything works out and our college gets first place *grin-grin*

I'll keep you posted :)

~Olivia

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

"Make me a sandwhich" "Poof! your a sandwhich!"

Okay, so maybe that wasn't so funny but who cares? Laugh your hardest anyway! Laughter is powerful, it is infectious, it binds people together and it's also a form of expressing ourselves.

Besides the domino effect of joy and playfulness, laughter also triggers healthy physical changes in our bodies. Laughter boosts our immune system and also our energy, and protects us from damaging effects of stress.A few years ago a doctor from Mumbai, India, Dr. Kataria, started a revolutionary exercise called "Laughter Yoga". Laughter Yoga is very easy, there aren't any complicated stretches, you simply just laugh and you don't need anything funny to laugh about. Even if you have to fake it at first, just force it out. Laugh at the top of your lungs and as you force your laugh you will start to genuinely laugh. It helps if you have another person laughing with you or even a group; the more the merrier.

I just started practicing with my sister Sarah and it is a lot of fun we start laughing and then after a while we can’t stop.

Laughter is a great way to lose shyness and build friendships. At work when I give presentations or even orientations to new hires, I try to have humor involved. For me it makes the whole training experience fun and time seems to fly by. I remember my first day on the job and the lady giving the orientations to my group told a lot of anecdotes--it really put me at ease and I still remember a lot of our company policies because of the funny stories she told of how she had learned them the hard way.

At school when I am in front of a large classroom and I need to present my latest project, I do a quick tap dance before giving the presentation. People see this and chuckle or laugh, but it helps me do two things: one, I get their full attention and two, relieves me of a lot of nervousness and I am able to present with minimal stuttering.


So now when you have free time or feeling down force a laugh and keep doing it till you start genuinely laughing uncontrollably. It will brighten you’re outlook on life, boost your immune your system, help your blood flow and help oxygenate your lungs. Ever wondered why nobody likes a “grumpy pants”?




Matthew

Smiling =D

Over this weekend while at work, one of my repeat-costumers commented that every time he sees me, I am smiling. “He’s young, that’s why he can smile, he doesn’t have major responsibilities to worry about.” my co-worker chimed in; “He doesn’t have a care in the world!” My costumer chuckled “I wish I were young again”. I replied that I do have responsibilities, and that I have many “cares in the world”, it’s just that I choose to handle them differently than most people.

My parents are huge fanatics when it comes to thinking positively and keeping your brain sharp, so I’ve developed a positive outlook on life which gives me a better chance at handling stressful situations.

Positive attitude = faster bounce back from adversities = happier and less stressful life :)

I think optimism is more important than learning Calculus or Physics, ‘cause guess what… you’re going to have many frustrating situations in school / life and maintaining your cool instead of tossing your book is the key.

Sunday, April 11, 2010


Jumbo's Quote Of The Day

"Every great work, every great accomplishment, has been brought into manifestation through holding to the vision, and often just before the big achievement, comes apparent failure and discouragement. "

~Florence Scovel Shinn~

Alison Krauss Live on Jay Leno for the Music Lovers

Monday, April 5, 2010

God Can



Sunday, April 4, 2010

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Everyone! Click on the link below to read the beautiful Easter poem the girls put on their blog: http://sandoproductions.blogspot.com/2010/04/happy-easter.html

God bless.

Good Friday Arrival...

Congratulations Carlos and Amy! They are the proud parents of their new baby boy, Julian Gustavo. He came in at 9lbs, 22 inches--wow! He's a big guy! We wish him and his parents all the best.

God bless and keep you,

Dbl R and family

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Soy, and why it should be avoided.

Soy has been used for thousands of years in the Orient, and is considered one of the five sacred grains, along with Barley, Wheat, Millet, and Rice. While the last four grains were used as a souce of food, though, it wasn't until the Chou dynasty that soy was actually consumed. Until that point, Soy was of extreme value to the kingdom not as a food staple, but as an essential component in crop rotation. In the soy plant's roots a process known as "Nitrogen Fixation", in which Nitrogen in the air is converted into a usable compound by bacteria, takes place. Subsequently, the soy plant was tilled into the soil as a manure to aid in the growth of next season's crops.



Soy was used as a food around the time when fermentation was discovered. At this point, a previously unusable source of protein becomes liberated, and is not only digestible, but beneficial. Much research has been done into the beneficial properties of Natto, Miso, and Shoyu (soysauce), and links have been found which suggest that fermented soy may enhance enzyme content, provide increased absorption of vitamins and minerals, promote intestinal health, and even possibly prevent or partially reverse cancer.


If all of this is true, then why am I encouraging the avoidance of soy? Key word: FERMENTED. Fermentation is a slow process, in which certain compounds are broken down by bacterial action and transformed into beneficial compounds. In soybeans, specifically, phytic acid , protease inhibitors, and other antinutrients are broken down and deactivated. In its fermented state soy is great. However, the overbearing majority of soy is not fermented because of time and expense issues.


What are the dangers of unfermented soy? Let's start with Phytates.


Pytates are present in some degree in most grains as phytic acid, and reduce the digestibility of minerals by binding them into compounds which the body can't readily digest. This is to the benefit of the plant, and is one of its natural defenses. It is to the detriment of consumers, however, and leads to mineral deficiencies if the phytates are untreated. The phytic acid can be reduced and even eliminated by long-slow cooking, soaking the grain in an acidic medium, and sprouting. Unfortunatley soy has one of the higher contents of phytates, and the phytates are largely heat resistant. This means that methods which work for other grains do not work for soybeans.



Protease inhibitors continue the detrimental effects of soybeans. They inhibit essential functions in the body, and can lead to hypothyroidism, enlargement of glands, pathological conditions of the pancreas, and clumping of red blood cells. Rats who are fed high soy diets often develop goiters and various cancers.



Additionally, in processing to remove the antinutrients from such highly processed items such as "Textured Vegetable Protein" (TVP) and "Soy Protein Isolate" (SPI), new toxins known as Nitrites are developed. In the processing plants, high levels of Aluminum are used, some of which enters the final product, and the entire process is completed at a temperature so high that the initial proteins are denatured, and rendered essentially unusable by the body, making a final product that a consumer must internally struggle to digest. TVP is further processed, due to it's bland flavor, and is often packed full of artificial flavors and MSG. SPI is used widely in protein shakes and baby formulas, exposing countless people to high levels of aluminum and mineral inhibitors. It is made from defatted soy chips, a product that was originally a waste product due to its horrible smell and taste, and the fact that it isn't food.



I can't even begin to express how SPI affects the development of children.

Please, NEVER USE SOY WITH GROWING INFANTS!

Children raised on Soy are thin, scrawny, have stunted brain development due to zinc deficiencies, and may possibly have behavioral problems in adolescence. It is a bad move all around.


The manner in which soy became FDA approved is a toned down version of the fiasco with Aspartame. Soy would have been rejected outright if not for several changes to its original premise. Many toxins were intentionally unmentioned, such as isoflavones.




Soy is cheap to grow, cheap to produce, cheap to process, and versatile. In our age of plastic food, soy is a veritable rubber band stretching across the globe. While once not even listed as a food, it is now almost inescapable in breads and tortillas, in fried foods, even in chocolate! It is hydrogenated, hydrolyzed, acid washed, pressurized, sprayed at high temperatures, and somehow promoted as a health food. Soy is so cheap to produce that its profits have made marketing and lobbying child's play.




Fermented soy is a beneficial food. I don't hesitate to say that in my opinion any other form of soy is a poison. Soy milk isn't food, soy protein shakes aren't food, soy lecitan isn't food. Furthermore, the cattle and chicken raised on soy waste products aren't fit for consumtion either, but that's another post.



Please, do yourself a favor and cut unfermented soy out of your diet. The reseach I did to produce this article (shown below) shocked and disgusted me often. Most of this disgust is attributable to the processing of soy, and I'm against most processing in general, so use your own mindframe to explore as it took me some time to develop mine. Rest assured, I'm sure that these articles contain something to turn off anyone.


As always, thanks for reading.
Andrew.


I am not a liscensed pysician, or liscensed anything for that matter (driving excluded). I research and present my opinions for anecdotal purposes. If you get hurt listening to me I will laugh at you, but kindly.
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