A comment I posted on Mothering.com

(The question was, How often and what to feed a 10 month old.  My reply also addressed some of the other replies on that website.)

http://www.mothering.com/community/t/1330585/how-often-and-what-to-feed-a-10-month-old#post_16708488

1)  I don't understand the taboo on mushy foods.  Our foremothers certainly chewed up foods for their babies. Maybe that's the origin of kissing.  Maybe that's why babies have an instinct to dig into our mouths with their little fingers.  Chewed up food probably also helped the babies' digestion, since the mother's saliva is full of enzymes.  Traveling in Africa, I shared a calabash of beer whose making involved the village women chewing starchy roots and spitting out the mush, adding water and allowing to ferment!  And this is drunk by the whole village.  So chewing for your own baby? natch.

2)  Given what we know about sugar, I wouldn't give babies cereals.  When digested, starches turn into sugar!  Would you be feeding spoonful after spoonful of sugar to your baby?   Rice, wheat, oats, bread, pasta, etc. all turn into sugars in the digestive system.  When digested.  Some can't be digested, and they feed the bad bacteria and yeasts (Candida, C. difficile, etc) that have been identified by some researchers as co-factors for autism, Crohn's disease, IBS, asthma, and a host of other diseases. 

As the mother of a special needs DD now grown up and severely schizophrenic, who now has a 16-month-old (my DGD) and another on the way, I wish I had known when she was small what is now known about sugar, cereals, gut dysbiosis, and their horrific effects on the immune system, the brain, and development.  I remember DD had a "sensitive stomach" as a child. I remember how she always craved sweets.  It didn't seem that important then.  We were pretty health-conscious for our time but the knowledge about the sugar/starch/dysbiosis just wasn't there and she had sugar every day.  Plus rice, bread, potatoes, etc.  I can't turn back the clock, but our household is now following the SCD/GAPS diet (easy to search online).  It's a huge effort, but we're hoping this will bring some improvement to her condition and PREVENT her children from following the same path. Conventional medicine gives the offspring of schizophrenics a tenfold chance of being sz compared to the rest of the population.  They think it's a genetic predisposition - maybe it's (also?) a learned food preference, compounded by the passing on of the wrong gut bacteria from mother to baby at birth. 

BOTTOM LINE?  Emphasize fruits, veggies, nut butters and milks (esp. coconut milk), homemade yogurt (one survey discovered that 2 out of 10 brands chosen randomly on supermarket shelves contained NO live bacteria, and another significant number only had 10% of what was stated on the labels), broths, fish, etc. both for your consumption (some of the toxins created by the "bad" bacteria pass into breast milk, which explains why autism can start very early, even in a breastfed baby) and the baby's, and you won't need to worry about the other co-factors like antibiotics and immunizations.  For more details, look at the SCD and GAPS diet.  You don't have to follow it 100% like we now do - which is not easy - but being aware will help you make the right food choices for the whole family, to prevent autism, allergies, and many other chronic inflammatory diseases. 

Quick and Easy Coconut Milk Yogurt

I've revised my coconut milk yogurt recipe. It's much faster, much easier. No heating, no cooling down, no watching temperatures.  Because it's made with coconut milk it has no lactose and no casein, so no 24-hour incubation needed.  You do need a blender and a yogurt maker or other way to keep the microorganisms thriving at their favorite temperature for 8 hours. I use a crockpot plugged into a dimmer switch.

If you are doing strict SCD or GAPS you must make your own coconut milk.  There are lots of good recipes on line for this.  I actually use Aroy-D Coconut milk in 1 litre TetraPaks, which has won awards (I know...).  It lists only coconuts and water as ingredients, and as far as I know, the TetraPak packaging contains no BPA, which canned coconut milk (like all other canned foods) does contain.

Dates are added to provide food (fructose) for the microorganisms that turn milk into yogurt (Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, etc).  Dates are said to be very digestible, but if you prefer, you can replace the dates with 1 Tablespoon of raw honey.

The unflavored gelatin sets the yogurt to a soft gel as it cools.  One pack of gelatin usually sets 2 cups of liquid to the bouncy "Jell-O" consistency we all know.  Here we're doing over 4 cups of liquid, so it won't be as firm as Jell-O, but of a gentle consistency that blends in a heavenly way with the coconut milk's creaminess. Gelatin is also very soothing for the digestive system.

Keep refrigerated, like any yogurt.  Should keep well for at least a week but in my house it's gone within about a day, so it's a good thing it's quick and easy to make again!

COCONUT MILK YOGURT

Ingredients:

4 cups coconut milk , at room temperature or up to 42 C
1 package yogurt starter or the dose for 1 quart milk
1 package unflavored gelatin (1 scant Tablespoon) or 1 1/2 Tablespoons unflavored Vegan Jel
5 raw dates, pitted

 Directions:

1. Plug in your yogurt maker to warm it up.  Place all the ingredients near your blender.

2. Pour the coconut milk into the blender jar (use the jar measures to get the right amount if using canned milk).  Start the blender on a low speed, take off the whole lid, and sprinkle the unflavored gelatin and the yogurt starter into the middle of the swirling milk.  Turn off blender, add dates, put the lid on, and process on high for 1 minute, until dates are liquefied.   Pour into yogurt maker and follow your usual yogurt-making steps.  Incubate 6 to 8 hours.

3.  After about 6 hours, the yogurt will still be liquid and the cream will have risen to the top. No worries! Mix well and taste the yogurt to see if you prefer to let it ferment longer.  If it's got that great yogurt taste, put the lid on the container and refrigerate.  After cooling 1 to 2 hours (depends on your container), the gelatin will be starting to set, and it will be starting to separate again. Mix again (add 1 tsp vanilla if desired). Cool 2 to 3 more hours before serving.

Almond Milk Recipe

RECIPE:

Ingredients:

1 cup raw natural almonds
filtered water or tap water if you normally drink it
vanilla extract optional
almond extract optional
1/4 cup coconut milk optional

Soak almonds for at least 2 hours. I find that's the minimum to get the nuts to jump out of their skins. Some recipes call for soaking 12 to 24 hours, but I find that the taste gets more bitter with a prolonged soaking. I like soaking about 6 hours.  Rinse several times thoroughly with good water.

"Blanch" the almonds, that is, remove the toxin-laden skins by squeezing the nut between your thumb and index finger,  The nut inside will pop right out! I admit it takes a few minutes, you can do it while listening to an audiobook for example, anyway it gives you an excuse to sit down for a few minutes.  You have to keep the almonds wet because the skin dries fast and sticks firmly to the nut when dry.  Frankly, some pop right out, some you have to peel. 

Put the almonds in a blender with 2 1/2 cups water (room temperature). Blend on high for one minute. In a Vitamix, about 30 seconds is plenty.

Pour the milk into a strainer lined with a juicing cloth. Put another 1/2 cup water in the blender jar, swish around to rinse out ALL the almond foam and add to the almond mixture in the strainer. That's a total of 3 cups water for 1 cup almond milk. Let the milk drip out for 15 to 30 minutes, then press out by hand (see my first post on how to do this) or in a press.

Add vanilla and almond extracts to taste, if desired. I use 1/2 teaspoon of each, if at all.  I prefer to add 1/4 cup of coconut milk, which removes the dry edge that raw almond milk tends to have, and adds creaminess and sweetness.  See my last post on Mixed Nuts Milk for how I arrived at this formula.

This makes a pretty thick milk, no guars, gums or xanthan anything needed. It keeps about 3 days in the refrigerator, but in my house it's gone within 24 hours.  So I set my cup of almonds to soak every morning and some evenings too.

Looking for a Mixed Nuts Milk - 1st try

Plain facts are hard to find. I've been looking for hard facts on the composition of almond milk, coconut milk, and breast milk. My motivation is to get the best mix of non-dairy milks to approximate the macronutrient balance (i.e. fats, carbs, proteins) of breast milk, which is arguably a good guide. I’m not trying to make baby formula, just a nice all-around milk for us to drink.

Finally found part of the info on this website. If you scroll down a bit there's a table comparing "whole" (i.e. cow's), soy, almond, rice, and coconut milks. Breast milk is missing, but I found that information on Wikipedia. I also had a box of hemp milk in the kitchen, so just for fun I added in that info:

Grams/100 ml	BREAST	COCONUT	ALMOND	HEMP
Proteins	1.1	2.3	1	0.8
Fats	4.2	23.8	2.5	2
Carbohydrates	7.5	5.5	7	0.4

So I played around with this on a spreadsheet. Of course there is no mix that works perfectly - too many variables. First, I decided to ignore the huge amount of fats in coconut, because coconut oil is so good for you. The other milks have less fat than breast milk, so any significant amount of coconut milk will bring the combined milk’s fat content up above breast milk standard. Next, I wondered, should I make proteins or carbohydrates the decisive factor? For both of these, almond milk is very close to breast milk, just a little lower. For carbs, both coconut and hemp milk are even lower in content than almond milk, so they can’t improve on plain almond milk. For proteins, coconut milk is higher, so it can bring the protein content of the mix up. So I chose to follow the proteins. Amazingly, when I tweak the coconut, almond and hemp proportions to get the proteins "right", the other two macronutrients end up not too far off, even the fats, which I'd given up on...

The "Mixed Nuts Milk" proportions are: 1/10 coconut milk, 8/10 almond milk, 1/10 hemp milk.

Grams/100 ml	BREAST	COCONUT	ALMOND	HEMP	Mixed Nuts Milk (version 1.0)
Proteins	1.1	2.3	1	0.8	1.11
Fats	4.2	23.8	2.5	2	4.38
Carbohydrates	7.5	5.5	7	0.4	6.15

Can’t wait to try it out! Though, after doing the research and the math (and it was fun), the taste test will probably be what matters…!

p.s.: What makes this really fuzzy is, with how much water were the various milks made when these compositions were measured?

PPS: Made the almond milk, and couldn't wait to test the MNM!  I added 1/4 cup coconut milk and 1/4 cup hemp milk to 2 cups almond milk.  That makes 10 times 1/4 cup, just the right proportions.  RESULT:  It tasted realllllly nice!  None of the milks dominate, it's just creamy enough, not dry like plain almond milk and not overly creamy like the coconut milk.  

Coconut Milk Yogurt

A big item on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is the 24-hour yogurt, with its much-needed probiotics.  But there is a troubling fact: making yogurt gets rid of the lactose in the milk, but what about the other milk components that are possible Crohn's irritants?  Casein for example.

So I wanted to give coconut milk yogurt a try.  Doing my homework before messing up perfectly good coconut milk, I looked at what other websites offer on the subject. Some websites, including at least one yogurt starter website (don't actually remember which), say it can't be done.  Hey, I like a challenge, and the benefits were just calling to me.  For example, another benefit is, it wouldn't have to incubate 24 hours, because the extra time is needed to make sure the bad lactose is all eaten up by the good bacteria. Coconut milk yogurt would also bring in all the amazing benefits of coconut oil, the relatively complete proteins of coconut milk, and the aromatic flavor of coconuts.  So I just had to find a way.

The problems that made coconut milk yogurt impossible were, 1) it stays liquid, 2) it separates, and 3) it doesn't have enough sugar to feed the bacteria.  To solve 1 & 2, I retained the services of unflavored gelatin.  Of course, if you're only going to use it for smoothies (and it is a terrific smoothie ingredient), or you like liquid yogurt, or you're a vegan, you can just leave out the gelatin.  Just shake before using.  For the third reason I called good old dates, my new favorite sweetener, to the rescue.  So this yogurt recipe needs a blender, to liquefy the dates, but I soon realized that it also helps mix in the gelatin and the starter, making coconut yogurt not only possible, but the easiest yogurt to make!

One more comment: I only use TetraPak (UHT) coconut milk, not canned milk (when I can't make it from the nut). No BPA.  Also, UHT stands for Ultra High Temperature, which means the milk does not need to be brought to near boiling: it is already quite sterile. So there's another time and energy saver.

In fact, this method shortcuts so many of the usual steps of yogurt-making, AND the result is SO DELICIOUS!

COCONUT MILK YOGURT

Ingredients:
4 cups coconut milk (home-made or in TetraPak - no BPA) at room temperature or up to 42 C.
1 package unflavored gelatin
3 to 6 dates (with 6, the yogurt will be slightly sweet; adjust to taste)
1 package Thermophilus/Bulgaricus/Acidophilus yogurt starter

Equipment: a good blender, a plug-in yogurt maker. If your yogurt maker is the type that just insulates heated milk, you'll have to heat the coconut milk to the correct temperature before starting

Assemble all the ingredients near your blender.

1. Pour coconut milk into the blender jar.  Start the blender on a low speed, take off the lid, and sprinkle the unflavored gelatin and the yogurt starter into the middle of the swirling milk.  Turn off  blender, add dates, put the lid on the jar, and process on high for 1 minute, until dates are liquefied.   Pour into yogurt maker and follow your usual yogurt-making steps.  Incubate 6 to 8 hours.

2.  At the end of the incubation period, the yogurt will still be liquid and the cream will have risen to the top.  Mix well, refrigerate one hour, then mix again.  The gelatin will be starting to set, which will keep the yogurt from separating again.  After a few more hours of cooling, the gelatin will have set to a soft gel.  One pack of gelatin usually sets 2 cups liquid to the firm "Jell-O" consistency we all know.  Here we're doing 4 cups liquid, so it won't be as firm.

My yogurt maker is an old crockpot with a cracked bowl, plugged into a dimmer plug.  The yogurt goes into a glass jar (mason-type) that fits nicely in the crockpot.  I put a potholder under the jar to keep the temperature even, and the lid on the crockpot.  It didn't take long to figure out the right dimmer setting to get an even and continuous 42 C for incubating the Thermophilus/Bulgaricus/Acidophilus yogurt.

Faux Pho

Sometimes the urge to eat out inspires creative uses of whatever I have on hand.  Here, shredded King Oyster mushrooms stand in for rice noodles.

1 quart SCD chicken broth, strained*
1 package King Oyster mushrooms
2 stalks green onions, chopped fine
1" piece of fresh ginger root, chopped
1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil
1/2 cup mung bean sprouts
basil leaves to taste
hot cayenne pepper or hot sauce to taste
lemon or lime to taste

1.  Slice cap off mushrooms.  Shred mushroom stems with the large-holed side of the grater.  This is the "faux" rice noodles.

2.  Bring broth to a simmer.  Add mushrooms, green onions, ginger root, and sesame oil.  Simmer gently for about 5 minutes or until the mushroom strands have the desired tenderness.

3.  Serve with sprouts and basil leaves on the side.  Each person can add sprouts, basil, lemon or lime juice and hot pepper sauce as desired.

*  What to do with the strained chicken and veggies that went into making your broth?  I mix in a couple of eggs, salt, chopped green onions, and fry like little pancakes in some coconut or grapeseed oil.  Makes a nice side to go with the faux Pho.

HEALTH FOOD Chocolate cake

I make this when the brownie or chocolate cake cravings hits someone in the family.  It's fast and hard to mess up because of the low baking temperature.  And this is ALL HEALTH FOOD!

1 tsp butter or coconut oil for pan
18 dates (pitted, non-sweetened)
1 1/2 cups almonds (raw, natural, unsalted)
1/4 cup cocoa (unsweetened)
4 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup coconut oil (virgin, unrefined, organic if possible)
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp sea salt

1.  Preheat oven to 300 F.  Line the bottom of a cake pan with parchment paper*.  Smear the paper with butter or coconut oil.

2.  Put all ingredients in blender.  Process until well mixed, thick and smooth or somewhat grainy, to taste (and depending on how well your gut tolerates little chunks of almond).  Stir with chopstick as needed and to get those last bits of cocoa off the sides.

3.  Pour into pan.  Bake for 45 minutes.  Makes 1 layer but this is enough for most uses.

* I use a round 8-inch cake pan and have made myself a template wedge to make the parchment paper circle really fast.  Just fold a squarish piece of paper 3 times around the center (like for making doilies or paper snowflakes), line up with the wedge, and cut the eighth of a circle on the outside of the wedge.  Unfold.