Crust Bar Recipe (PBWF, Raw, GF) + Plant-Based Omegas + How We Make Sugar-Free Berry Sauce + Pediatric Nutrition (Again) + Planetary Imperatives (Again)
Continue for: our Crust Bar Recipe (<—tastes like the delicious crust to a cream cake, and also happens to be a raw Plant-Based Whole-Food, Gluten Free, and Sugar Free delight); Plant-Based Omegas and the fibrous/protein-packed benefits of said bars; how we make a super simple sugar-free berry sauce (<—goes great with the Crust Bars); the frustration of doctors who have no nutritional idea what they are doing (and how much they are harming children with their ignorance <—this isn’t hyperbole, Q had failure-to-thrive and it would have continued if we listened to his terrible gastroenterologist’s advice to keep feeding him dairy despite his Eosinophilic esophagitis diagnosis) plus resources regarding Pediatric Nutrition; continued planetary imperatives for making the switch to Plant-Based Feasting (<—we are running out of time and sprinting toward irreversible climate tipping points! Animal Agriculture is perpetuating this destruction and feeding you preventable diseases! WAKE UP! PLEASE!!); plus three whole days of this family following Lifestyle Medicine guidelines, living by example, and showing how you can live a healthy/energetic/joyful life while loving everything you’re eating.
Live Kindly, Feast Kindly, Grow Forward!
Ingredients needed to start a batch of crust bars: nutbutter of choice (we used homemade peanut butter<—also why the processor is dirty), whole oats, flax meal (simply add flax to a blender, dates, cinnamon, vanilla extract, unsweetened coconut, walnuts, salt.
Add everything to the blender/processor, and blend until it is between pebble and sand consistency, dump into container, pat down firmly.
Throw into your fridge and let sit for about an hour, so it can set and get firm. (It’s safe to eat whenever, but for firmness sake give it a spell to set.)
You can serve it with any array of tasty offerings. Here seen: mango, berry sauce, and cashew cream.
Or kiwi, banana, berry sauce, and cashew cream.
Or banana, berry sauce, and chocolate sauce. :-)
Or my favorite: cherries, banana, chocolate sauce, peanut butter sauce (2 cups of oatmilk, 1 cup peanut butter, 2 dates, blend it all together and you get a delicious sauce that is less peanut dense and super, super tasty).
With these bars, you’re avoiding the pit of refined sugars (you’re getting mineral-dense, fiber packed dates); but you are getting a saturated fat wallop with the nut, nutbutters, and coconut flakes, so go easy and just eat one of these and not a platter…this’ll be hard because they are one of our favorite snacks and they Good Gravy GOOD, but one goes a long way.
Aside from that tasty nut fat, though, you’re also getting fiber. We’ve gone through the health benefits of fibrous oats ad nauseum: they are AMAZING for you and you need them in your diet.
Flax is another wonder-food, and here’s a link with ***51*** evidence-based nutritionally-focused videos extolling the benefits of flax.
As seen through the recipe, these bars are PACKED with walnuts. What’s going on in a cup of walnuts?
Protein 17.8g 36%
Total Carbohydrate 16.0g 5%
Dietary Fiber 7.8g 31%
Saturated Fat 7.2g 36%
Monounsaturated Fat 10.5g
Polyunsaturated Fat 55.2g
Vitamin C 1.5mg 3%
Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol) 0.8mg 4%
Vitamin K 3.2mcg 4%
Thiamin 0.4mg 27%
Riboflavin 0.2mg 10%
Niacin 1.3mg 7%
Vitamin B6 0.6mg 31%
Folate 115mcg 29%
Calcium 115mg 11%
Iron 3.4mg 19%
Magnesium 185mg 46%
Phosphorus 405mg 40%
Potassium 516mg 15%
Zinc 3.6mg 24%
Copper 1.9mg 93%
Manganese 4.0mg 200%
Selenium 5.7mcg 8%
Walnuts are also a good source of Omegas.
Omega fatty acids are those things I get from fish, right? Yeah, there are omega fatty acids in fish, but you also get mercury and PCBs, all the microplastics you can imagine, and if they are farm-raised you’re getting antibiotics to boot. They are even high in cholesterol and TMAO! (<—And all of that is just what fish are doing to your body, the environmental consequences are as staggering as they are heartbreaking.)
YOU WANT NO PART OF FISH.
But you do need omega fatty acids because they:
You can get them safely and kindly through the following plant-based sources:
Algae and Algal Oil
Chia Seeds
Brussel Sprouts
Flax Seeds
Hemp Hearts & Seeds
Pumpkin Seeds
Some on-hand Omegas: blue-green algae, flax seed, chia seed, hemp hearts, and walnuts.
How many of you are feeding your children any of the things above, but have questioned the health of a plant-based family? Have you pondered the hypocrisy in that? Have you looked into the research about how every single one of the things above are TERRIBLE for anyone’s health let alone a growing young soul?
I get pretty fired up about pediatric nutrition, because I once was completely failing at this while doing all the things society and our immediate doctors were telling me was a-ok.
In the same way that it took me a week to properly absorb (enough to relay) Ian’s brilliant philosophical Portal Podcast offering re: society’s unwillingness to process imperative information, it took me a week to tamper down my mental raging at the absurd negligence seen/heard in Q’s Thursday telemedicine meeting with his old (because he’ll never seen him again) gastroenterologist.
I know the ever-wise (and evidence-based) Dr Michael Greger preaches that we need to take personal responsibility for our health, but BOY HOWDY can it be both demoralizing and infuriating to get misguided advice from the “specialists” in charge of your son’s care.
How many of your American pediatricians ask at the yearly exam how many glasses of milk your kiddo is drinking each day? Now that you’ve heard me harping about the dangers of dairy for so many months, have you wondered how it is that they are so behind on the health harms?(<—Even Canada has cut dairy from its dietary recommendations.) There are many reasons why this could be, but one of the biggest is that doctors are given almost no education on the roll of nutrition and health. (<—Though there are Elder nutritional pioneers trying to change this.)
Q’s pediatrician is a sweet and keen soul who’s been growing along with us. As I mentioned in this previous essay, he tried all the standard Western medicine approaches to sorting out why Q was so persistently sick and had developed failure-to-thrive. He (and we) thought we were giving him everything he needed to thrive (grass-fed milk, organic/antibiotic-free/grass-fed/local meats, every meal came with vegetables, and we limited junkfood) but it wasn’t until we dove into research regarding nutrition that we learned that animal products were playing a key roll in his sickness.
Now you’d think (or at least we sure did) that the gastroenterologist assigned to Q (because his GI issues had gotten bad enough that they wanted to do an endoscopy to see what was going on) would have a firmer grasp on nutrition…because if you’re dealing with “everything from mouth to anus” you’d likely be focusing on the input (<—FOOD) that is flowing on down that path, eh?
Well, as also explained in that previous essay, when we told this gastroenterologist that we were noticing severe reactions in Q when he had dairy, his response was, “We’re already taking away gluten because he has a noted reaction to that, and you don’t want to take away dairy too, or what fun could he possibly have with food? Too many restrictions and you stop enjoying things.”
At the point of him uttering that incomprehensibly ignorant statement (because there are a LOT of foods you can delight in that are not made with the flesh, ovulation, or breastmilk of another species), Q had been diagnosed with eosinophilic esophagitis and that man has it listed on his website that he is a specialist in this disease… which is confounding, because EVERY SINGLE major health organization that educates us on EoE states the following foods to avoid:
The six-food elimination diet (SFED) is the most frequently employed dietary therapy in patients with EoE. This diet typically trials the exclusion of wheat, __MILK__, egg, nuts, soy, fish and shellfish.
Results obtained from two studies conducted in Chicago and Spain show that about 70 percent of patients showed symptomatic and histologic response after eliminating specific allergens from their diets. Multiple studies have found milk (__60 percent__) and wheat (30 percent) to be the most common food triggers.
Guess what? We regrouped with his pediatrician (after we let our heads cool down from the sheer ignorance in that advice), we cut out everything on that list except the nuts and his symptoms went away, he grew like a weed, and he stopped having all the sinus infections and ear infections.
Q had a follow-up appointment on Thursday via video-chat with this gastroenterologist (because his endoscopy was about a year ago), and I kept it only in the hope that it would wrap up our need to see this man (<—because Q is now better). This was one of the first things out of his mouth:
Ahhh, I see that we spoke about dairy before and you were thinking of cutting it out, and I hope you listened to me because there’s no reason to be adding restrictions to children’s diets [<—despite the fact that this disease calls for inflammatory food restrictions]. Children should be able to eat whatever they want whenever they want, and if you start restricting foods it takes away all the fun of eating.
Most importantly, you don’t want your child to be “that kid” at the party who can’t eat the ice cream and cake (**see Leslie Knope meme below**) because then kids may view him as weird and he can feel ashamed. (**see Leslie Knope meme below**) Judging by the information I’m seeing, it looks like Quillan is growing just fine now and this is no longer a cause for concern.
Because eating should all be about fitting in with the misguided/eating-foods-that-are-terrible-for-them kids, right? And eating should only be about “fun”, and nothing to do with nutrition and health, right? Especially when you have a disease where eating said-foods makes so many white blood cells pool up that you stop absorbing the nutrients in your food and stop growing. BUT HEY, at least you get to look like everyone else at the party!
I promptly responded that it had been clearly proven that Quill could not tolerate cow lactation, that the whole family had gone plant-based (and we’d never been healthier), and that we LOVE our meals/desserts so much we food shimmy over most offerings.
His response was aimed right at Quill: “Is that true? Do you really like everything Mommy is feeding you? You can be honest?” (**see Leslie Knope meme below**)
Q - “Oh yeah! I am never full. I could pretty much just eat all the time.”
Terrible Gastroenterologist - “Ahhh, is that because you’re not getting enough to eat?”
Q - “Oh no! It’s because I really, REALLY like eating; and Mama is the best cook ever.”
I have a tendency to get so mad I cannot even find the words to speak and this was one of those instances. (**see Leslie Knope meme below**) I knew that he was pushing a food item that is categorically known to be bad for folks with a disease that he is SUPPOSED to be a specialist in. I know that cow lactation (and curdled/fermented cow lactation) is tied to a feast of health issues and is absolutely not needed ONE SPECK for optimal health (in fact it actually plays a part in terrible health), and yet here was a man pushing it either out of sheer negligence, or so that he can make kids sick enough that he can still get paid.
Sound like hyperbolic maternal wailing? Take a look at the photo below showing how Q was faring before we listened to world-renowned doctors and started actually reading through the research regarding plant-based diets for optimal health, then started understanding that our doctors have almost no training in how the foods we (and our kids) are eating are directing our overall health, so their advice can often be misguided/harmful.
The foods we love because they are culturally comfortable are terrible for us, and if we listened to that gastroenterologist’s ignorance (or cared about inconsequential “shame” instead of HEALTH) Q would still have failure-to-thrive and would still be getting infections all the dang time; and I WISH I had been able to get the wild Leslie Knope circus music out of my head long enough to speak up, but instead we logged off the video chat in a stupor of silent shock and fury, and resolved to never meet with that man ever again.
What Q looked like before we went Plant-Based. In this photo he has a double ear infection, a sinus infection, and the Croup.
What Q looked like after he snuck some cheese and whipped cream at his school’s Christmas party.
Q now: ever-energetic dynamo, never-sick (last time was the cheese above), cheerful/loving, whip-smart, growing-like-a-corn-stalk kiddo who is ALWAYS excited about what is being fed to him and licks his bowls/plates clean every time (<—we’re teaching him to never do this in public, but Man: if he likes it enough, why not?).
Interested in feeding your children delicious health? Want to move away from our Standard American Diet and the diseases it perpetuates? (If the planetary perils weren’t enough of a pull?)
I’ll redirect you to this horrifying/illuminating video again (and again, and again <—it’s showing how cardiovascular disease starts in children), and the following studies that show the same thing:
Evidence of the Beginning of Atherosclerosis in Infancy and Adolescence”
“Cardiovascular disease risk factors and atherosclerosis in children and adolescents
“A Few Unpleasant Facts About Atherosclerotic Arterial Disease in the United States and the World”
Compelled?
If you have a kid and want to transition them to plant-based whole foods, first: start eating plant-based whole-foods yourself. Our children see what we do and will learn from it.
Second, here are some great resources:
“Nutrition for Kids” from the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine
“Children who are raised on healthful vegan diets have a reduced risk for heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, and other conditions. Adolescents raised on a plant-based diet often find they have an easy time maintaining a healthy weight. They also have fewer problems with acne, allergies, and gastrointestinal problems than their peers who eat animal products.
American children often have fatty streaks in their arteries before they finish high school. Children who eat a plant-based diet limit foods high in saturated fat and cholesterol, which can contribute to heart disease.”
“Diet, Children, and the Future” from Dr John McDougall
“All Children Should Have Their Cholesterol Checked Between Ages 9 and 11” from Dr Michael Greger
“Plant-Based Eating for Kids” from nutritionist Emma Roche (who also wrote the book “Whole Food Plant Based on $5 a Day”)
“Pediatric Plant-Based Nutrition Quick Start Guide” by Dr. Jackie Busse
“Raising Plant-Based Kids with Flexibility and Love with Dr. Laura Pridemore (pediatric series)”
And the ever important “Plant-Based Diets: A Physician’s Guide” put out by the National Institutes of Health to our medical professionals.
What Quill eats these days (and loves).
Plant-Based Whole-Food Kiddo Breakfast: nutbutterscotch bites, sweet peanut butter cream (2 cups of oatmilk, 1 cup peanut butter, 2 dates), and apple.
Kiddo Cardio / Morning Dancing
Plant-Based Whole-Food Lunch: black rice casserole with broccoli and Crystal’s PBWF cheese sauce, balsamic tomatoes, golden tomatoes, green onions, and roasted potatoes.
Q’s latest Lego creation: a Tremors graboid.
Plant-Based Family Feasting: Arepas Pizzas with Parmela cashew cheese and a base of garlickly lentil sauce; served with fresh/homemade heirloom tomato sauce; and a side salad.
Nightly Reading
On the go breakfast: apple (and also had a few walnuts)
Why were we on the go? Because I had an 8am COVID test to prep me for Friday’s surgery. Why am I having surgery? As mentioned in this old essay, an even worse doctor than Q’s gastroenterologist failed to note the umbilical hernia I’ve had since Q was born…over 5 years ago.
I had gone to see her in my 6 week follow-up and mentioned that my previous inward belly button was still outward, and her response was to tell me that mother’s bodies change and I may be used to being skinny but I need to come to grips with my new body. She laughed it off and I —feeling ashamed as if I had been called vain when it was merely a scientific question— didn’t bring it up again. (<—if you’ve seen my no-makeup/frizzy-haired self you’d know this isn’t a concern of mine.)
The problem is that years went by and I kept mentioning how distended and odd my stomach was acting. I got all plant-strong and started lifting 50+ lbs things all the dang time (<—which my old weak self never could have done) and it grew worse and worse, and that doctor never took note or listened to me.
My new doctor took one look at my abominable area and was shocked I was still walking around without pain. What had been a outward belly button turned into a gnome hat, and then turned into a full ridge down my middle; and I —convinced this is “just how mother’s bodies change”— never complained about it because it seemed to be merely physical. Turns out it’s actually dangerous and would be even worse if we got pregnant (something we’ve been wishing for years.)
It would have been nice to know this when I had my old (terribly stressful, yet better-health-insurance) job, because my new bottom-of-the-barrel insurance has me cold-sweating in fear of how the heck we’ll pay for it, but it needs to be done so onward we move.
Yay, America, eh?
MEDICARE FOR ALL.
Post-test, Q and I went into the forest to socially distance and run trails.
And discover blanket-web spiders.
And poke around human waste in streams.
The soggy boots of a cub who fell into the creek a few minutes after the above photo. <3
I spent the latter half of the morning using our garden basil to make some sauce.
Super simple sauce: heirloom tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, salt, basil, and an immersion blender. Keep the skins and seeds for extra fiber, it’s good enough that Q only uses a little bit on his pizzas and then eats the rest with a spoon. :-)
Plant-Based Lunch: Arepas Pizzas with Parmela’s Cashew Cheese, garlicky lentil sauce (diced up lentil loaf with grated garlic and a little olive oil); fresh/homemade heirloom sauce; and side salads.
Annnnd we moved back to a theme of Beetlejuice Sandworms. This kid sure crushes on a theme. He’ll get one into his head and then all he wants to draw are variants, and he works on it for hours!
He draws indoors or outdoors, and if I’m not cooking or writing, I’m back outside trying to tend to our brambly yard (either mowing, pruning, weeding, or tending to plants <—and lately I forget to take pictures because I’m wrapped up in other mental directions, hence the lack), and here seen is the least finicky plant on the property: a pumpkin plant that grows from our compost every year and gives us more than handful of pumpkins by October. :-) All I have to do is aim water back to this corner if we get an overly dry spell. :-)
Watering plants and noticing all of my family is up on the roof: Wicket included.
Plant-Based Whole-Food Dinner: black rice casserole with broccoli and Crystal’s PBWF cheese sauce, balsamic tomatoes, golden tomatoes, green onions, and roasted potatoes.
People have a lot of excuses and a lot of barbs they like to throw up to defend their backwards path, and I’ve gotten this one too.
You need to wake up to the reality that your Standard American Diet is filling you with disease, is needlessly causing the death of a sentient being, and causing more ruination than our entire transportation sector.
If you’re thinking, “Ahh, it ain’t so bad!” here are some recent headlines:
Ice Sheet Melting Is Perfectly in Line With Our Worst-Case Scenario, Scientists Warn
“Such an increase would have a devastating impact worldwide, increasing the destructive power of storm surges and exposing coastal regions home to hundreds of millions of people to repeated and severe flooding.
That is nearly three times more than mid-range projections from the IPCC's last major Assessment Report in 2014, which predicts a 70-centimetre rise in sea level from all sources, including mountain glaciers and the expansion of ocean water as it warms.”
“Although we anticipated the ice sheets would lose increasing amounts of ice in response to the warming of the oceans and atmosphere, the rate at which they are melting has accelerated faster than we could have imagined," said Dr. Tom Slater, lead author of the study and climate researcher at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at the University of Leeds.
"The melting is overtaking the climate models we use to guide us, and we are in danger of being unprepared for the risks posed by sea level rise."
More than half of world's oceans already being affected by climate change
Ocean acidification causing coral 'osteoporosis' on iconic reefs
“Roughly a third of global carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by the ocean, causing an average 0.1 unit decline in seawater pH since the pre-industrial era. This phenomenon, known as ocean acidification, has led to a 20 percent decrease in the concentration of carbonate ions in seawater. Animals that rely on calcium carbonate to create their skeletons, such as corals, are at risk as ocean pH continues to decline. Ocean acidification targets the density of the skeleton, silently whittling away at the coral's strength, much like osteoporosis weakens bones in humans.”
“Greenland's Melting Ice Sheet Has 'Passed The Point of No Return', Scientists Say”
“The best case scenario for climate change just got worse”
“There is a 95 percent chance that when that happens, it will lead to a warming of more than 3.6 degrees — "the threshold beyond which scientists say the Earth will suffer dangerous effects — disruptive sea level rise, intolerable heat waves, and other extreme weather and permanent damage to ecosystems."
I know you don’t want to hear these facts, but it doesn’t make them any less true. The upside is that once knowing, you could do something about it. Do you have the courage to save the future for your kin? For all the species beyond them? (<—because as much as I care about Q and his future babies, I care far more about the millions of species swept up in this destruction too.)
The flip-side is doing nothing and acknowledging the destruction in your wake. You may not want to be reminded of it, but given that my son will be in his 30’s when the oceans are acidifying beyond repair (again, YOU COULD STOP THIS) I can’t possibly remain silent or tamper down this klaxon how. Food shortages, water shortages, worse storms, dead reefs, and an acidified ocean will be the new normal...but by golly, at least it tasted good, eh?
“We Are The Weather”
Nightly Reading
Plant-Based Whole-Food Kiddo Breakfast and saving dishes (and resources like water) by serving it in the dish that was holding the last scraps of berry sauce: overnight oats, banana, berry sauce, and peanut butter sauce.
How do you make our sugar-free berry sauce? I take strawberries, blueberries, and add mango for extra sweetness. I add a sprinkle of cinnamon, bring them to a boil, puree them, and voila.
Tostada Tuesday: lentil loaf diced and seared up taco style (with cumin, paprika, and garlic), topped with cashew queso, ten-minute tomatillo sauce, easy avocado, and green onions.
Q’s tacos: same as above, but as usual: a request for only one of them to have queso “so it can be extra special.” <—He saves it for last and savors it.
Plant-Based Whole-Food Dessert: Crust bar, berry sauce, and banana.
Views from the kitchen: these two hiding in the tallgrass playing a game where they are on the lookout for graboids. <3
Plant-Based Lunch: Arepas Pizzas with Parmela’s Cashew Cheese, garlicky lentil sauce (diced up lentil loaf with grated garlic and a little olive oil); fresh/homemade heirloom sauce; and side salads.
Dessert: cantaloupe from our CSA, mango, mintfrom our garden, and a splash of lime juice.
We hadn’t had cantaloupe in a long while (mainly because it is one of our least favorite fruits), but we received one from our CSA and happily ate it with the goal of diversifying our microbiome.
Nightly Reading.
What’s the most impactful thing you can do as an individual to help your kin, community, millions of species, and planet? Transition as plant-based as possible.🌎♥️
Why? Plant-Based foods are environmentally imperative 🌎. They also promote ideal health💪 (which takes stress off our overburdened health care system), are inexpensive🙌, delicious🤤, & compassionate. 💕
Why imperative, though? 🤔We’re approaching (& have crossed) climate tipping points that will doom our kin & millions of other species. 😱📣Reducing/eliminating animal products is the *most impactful thing an individual can do* to prevent worse. 🌎🔥
Why? Animal Agriculture creates more emissions than the entire transportation sector combined, it’s tied to water waste/loss/pollution (<-- freshwater is our most precious resource💧), land loss/deforestation (<-- exacerbates climate change by reducing our ability to sequester carbon🔥🌎), ocean acidification (<-- FYI 50-85% of earth’s oxygen originates from oceanic plankton🌊) & vast species loss/extinction/suffering💔📣🌎
Plus, consuming animal products is tied to increased risk of cardiovascular disease❤️🩹, diabetes👎, cancer👎, and chronic disease👎; whereas Plant-Based feasting is linked to preventing/reversing some of our most common diseases (<— like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer); plus it promotes ideal health & robust strength (ie Olympians, Weightlifters, Endurance Athletes are thriving via PBWFs too). 🎉🙌♥️
What organizations are promoting plant-based diets for best health and environmental stability? National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic, Yale, the United Nations, Harvard School of Health, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, The American Academy of Pediatrics, National Kidney Foundation, even the Parkinson’s Foundation.
We’re all overwhelmed in one way or another, but for the sake of our kin (and the millions of species we share this planet with) we need to start pivoting forward. As someone who once rarely ate green things & used to eat animal products at every meal, I can assure you that is possible, affordable, enjoyable, & purposeful to pivot Plant-Based. In fact, our whole family is now healthier/stronger than ever. 🙌♥️
Anecdotally, our son had failure-to-thrive, was also plagued with perpetual ear-infections/sinus-infections, and had an omnipresent runny nose. What was he eating? Grass-fed milk, organic/antibiotic-free/grass-fed/local meats, eggs from organic-fed/well-loved chickens from a neighbor, every meal came with vegetables, and we limited junkfood. He was healed via a plant-based diet: he’s launched out of that diagnosis and the last time he had a sinus-infection (or was sick at all) was in 2019 when he had some cheese at a school Christmas party. Before shifting to PBWF’s he was sick every month, and how he’s a robust, vital, thriving kiddo. 🙌🎉♥️
If you think any of the above sounds over-reached/absurd/impossible, please go read the links above. I understand the inclination to hackle-raise (<—because I was once totally there) but the science is clear: any step we make forward is imperative (<—and again “STEPS” is the focus. Don’t leap, just start making steps!). It’s as simple as starting with one meal a week and growing from there.💕
We have the ability (deliciously, healthfully, kindly, inexpensively) to *preserve/protect* the planet we share with millions of species & our kin. How are we going to use that power today?✌️🤟🖖
