In the meantime, tonight I needed to make dinner, and I also needed to use about 1.5 lbs of hamburger.  I decided to throw together something similar to the above recipe, only using taco meat instead of bacon.  It turned out really good, so I thought I’d share.

I’ve provided the recipe below.  Here it is already neatly formatted in a Word document.  The taco meat seasoning is a recipe I threw together a few years ago to approximate Old El Paso taco  seasoning, without the MSG.  It’s mild but flavorful, just the way I like it.

However, if the taco meat portion of the recipe doesn’t look tasty enough for you, here is another Word document, which is a recipe for taco meat from America’s Test Kitchen (from one of their publications, Cook’s Illustrated) that takes more work but would probably have more robust flavor.

I highly recommend that you do not omit the ham.  Putting diced ham into the  casserole adds a nice richness of flavor.

I used an 8×8 baking dish for this recipe.  As you can see from the picture, that made the dish pretty full.  If you prefer to use a 9×13 dish, I would suggest adding a few more eggs so you’ll get a decent “crust”, and watch it carefully as it cooks.  You still want some uncooked egg on the top of the “crust” when you add the meat mixture, so it will mix with the meat and provide some firmness to the finished casserole.  If you forget and cook the egg crust completely, I’d suggest you scramble a couple more eggs and thoroughly stir them into the meat mixture immediately before you add it to the baking dish.

I used bacon grease to grease the baking dish, but of course you can use butter, tallow, or coconut oil just as well.  I am happy to report that hardly any of the egg crust stuck to the baking dish, and it was easy to clean up afterwards.

This recipe is easily altered to suit your tastes or available ingredients.  You can vary the seasonings to taste, of course, or use more or less hamburger or diced ham, or more cheese, or different cheese.  Ground turkey or pork (unflavored) should substitute easily for the hamburger.

I used 80/20 hamburger (20% fat) and didn’t drain the grease, and I did not find the finished dish to be greasy.  However, if you don’t like grease, and are using a fatty meat, you may want to drain the grease before adding the seasonings.

This is a very rich dish!  I was almost finished eating it before I even thought about topping it with some sour cream – which I didn’t do, because I was almost done, and it didn’t need it anyway.  However, if you would like some suggestions for toppings, here they are:   salsa, sour cream, chopped black olives, chopped tomatoes, hot sauce, and whatever else you like to eat with tacos.  The Cook’s Illustrated recipe I mentioned above has some suggestions at the end for other toppings, like avocados and onions.   If you feel the need for a low-carb side dish, I’d suggest a light salad.

I have not provided a carb count because your ingredients may differ from mine.  Eggs usually have about 1 gram carb each.  Check the packages for the cream cheese, shredded cheese, and diced ham for their carb content.  The seasonings probably add a few carbs, but not enough to worry about.

low-carb taco casserole, in an 8x8 in baking dish

Low Carb Taco Casserole

For the “crust”:

• 5-6 large eggs
• 1 tsp bacon grease

For the filling:

• 8 oz. cream cheese
• 8 oz.  shredded Mexican cheese mix, divided
• 8 oz. cooked diced ham

For the taco meat:

• 1.5 lbs hamburger
• 2 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1½ tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp paprika (optional – for color)
• ¾ tsp onion powder
• dash cayenne pepper powder

1. Brown hamburger in a large pan or skillet on medium heat, breaking up the hamburger into at least bite-size consistency or smaller (whatever consistency you prefer for taco meat).
2. While the hamburger is browning, mix together all the taco seasonings.
3. After the hamburger is browned, drain grease, if desired.  Reduce heat to medium-low, add the seasonings and mix together.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
5. Add cream cheese to hamburger and cover the pan or skillet.  After the cream cheese has softened, mix it in thoroughly with the meat.  (Or you could pre-soften the cream cheese in another pan or microwave, but I prefer to use as few dishes as possible!)
6. Add the diced ham and about half of the shredded cheese to the hamburger and mix thoroughly.  Reduce heat to low and cover, checking and stirring occasionally.  (This is to keep the hamburger mixture warm until it is added to the casserole.)
7. Crack all the eggs into a single bowl and scramble them thoroughly.
8. Grease an 8×8 baking dish with the bacon grease and add scrambled eggs.  Put dish in preheated oven on middle rack, and check in 5 minutes.  Bake until the eggs are cooked on the bottom and edges of the dish, but still liquid on top.  The eggs need to be partially cooked since the cooked portion will be the “crust”.
9. Remove the eggs from the oven and add the warm meat and cheese mixture to the baking dish, on top of the egg “crust”.  The uncooked eggs should mix up somewhat with the meat and cheese; this will help hold the casserole together when done.  Try not to disturb the crust.
10. Spread the remaining shredded cheese evenly on top of the meat mixture, and return to the oven for 10 minutes.
11. Casserole is done when the eggs are completely cooked and the cheese on top has melted.
12. Let casserole cool for 5 minutes on the countertop before serving.

Well, I found a regular old peanut butter pie recipe several months ago on the Kraft website, and I recently adapted the filling part of the recipe to be both low-carb and delicious.  Here’s the recipe – I hope you enjoy it.  And here’s the recipe already conveniently formatted in a Word document.

If you decide to try the recipe, please let me know how it works for you!  And I already have plans for tweaking it, so if you do anything different, I’d like to know about that too.

Low-Carb Peanut Butter Pudding

Makes:
10-12 servings  (6-7 g carbs per serving)

Ingredients

1 envelope Knox Unflavored Gelatine  (or 2 tsp gelatin powder)

1 cup whole  milk   (approx. 10g carb)

3/4 cup creamy no-sugar-added peanut butter     (approx. 24g carb)

salt (optional)

1/2 cup granulated Splenda        (12 g carb)

15 oz ricotta cheese (I prefer Great Value  Original Ricotta)       (14 g carb)

Optional Garnishes

½ cup whipping cream         (3 g carb)

optional 1 packet Splenda, to sweeten whipped cream          (1 g carb)

cocktail peanuts (for garnish)       (per serving:  1-2 g carb)

Directions

1.      Sprinkle gelatin over milk in a small pot on the stovetop; let stand 5 min. or until gelatin is softened.

2.      Gently heat milk on low to medium heat, stirring occasionally, until gelatin is completely dissolved, 2-3 minutes.

3.      Put milk, peanut butter, granulated Splenda, and ricotta cheese in a blender or food processor. Blend on high speed until smooth.  You may want to add optional salt to taste, especially if the peanut butter has little or no salt.

4.      Spoon mixture into 10-12 small containers or ramekins.

5.      Refrigerate 3 hours or until set.

Optional Garnishes

6.      Whip cream and optional Splenda with mixer or food processor until stiff peaks form.

7.      Top each serving with about 1 Tbsp. of the whipped cream and a sprinkling of peanuts.

Other optional garnishes:  chocolate chips; chocolate shavings; peanut butter chips.  Of course these will add carbs if they aren’t sugar-free, so be careful!

Notes

I highly recommend putting the pudding in individual containers, because you may just go face down in this stuff if you have it all in one large container!  Smaller containers makes for easier portion control.  I realize the individual servings seem small, and that was for 2 reasons.  One – to keep the carb count low, and two – I like my desserts or sweet snacks to be small but satisfying.  This pudding has a lot of fat and even some protein, moderate sweetness, and even a little bit of salt, so a small serving is very satisfying.  If one serving isn’t enough, you can always eat another, but it’s harder to keep track of how much you ate if you just put it all in one big bowl.

I also recommend using the highest quality peanut butter you care to buy.  The other ingredients have a very mild flavor and therefore do not cover up any  off-tastes in the peanut butter.  The first time I made this, I used a cheap store brand peanut butter, and the harsh flavor notes in the peanut butter came through loud and clear in the pudding.  The second time I made it, I used one of my favorite peanut butters, Maranatha, and the pudding had a full, rich taste.  The Maranatha also had a much smoother texture than the store brand, and that texture made the pudding easier to blend and also made for a much nicer mouthfeel in the finished pudding.

I prefer the Great Value Original Ricotta (surprisingly, since it’s from Wal-Mart) because it has a lower carb content, and higher fat content, than Sargento Whole Milk Ricotta.  At the very least, use whole milk ricotta – not the skim milk stuff!

This recipe could easily be adapted to be a rich and tasty peanut butter sauce for ice cream or cheesecake.  Simply omit the gelatin, and add a little extra milk to get your desired consistency.

low-carb peanut butter pudding, garnished with peanuts

delicious homemade yogurt from whole raw Jersey milk - look at the cream on top!

I’ve been eating homemade yogurt for awhile now, made from fresh raw whole milk produced by pastured Jersey cows (the gold standard in raw whole milk).  I’ve been eating it because I have longstanding digestive issues, and eating yogurt once or twice a day just about eliminates those issues.  My husband did a great post on how to make homemade yogurt without a yogurt maker, and I did a blog post on making homemade yogurt with a yogurt maker.

However, as I noted in my blog entry referenced above, and as a little searching online would confirm, homemade yogurt does not have the consistently smooth, thick, creamy texture of store-bought yogurt (which is usually achieved with additives like vegetable gums, which are not always easily available for individual consumers).  Homemade yogurt tends to have a softly lumpy texture, with the “lumps” swimming around in the clear whey.  Now, it’s still really good for you, and probably far more nutritious than store-bought yogurt – especially if you don’t add any sugar to it.  But if you’re accustomed to store-bought, it can be a rough transition to eating homemade, and it’s also not something that looks very appealing to, say, houseguests, or anyone else you might be trying to convert to the homemade yogurt cause.

So, it’s not surprising that there are a number of ways to thicken homemade yogurt, in an attempt to give it a better appearance and mouthfeel.  I did some online research awhile ago, and I found four different yogurt thickening techniques:  straining to remove whey; adding powdered milk; heating milk to 180 degrees F; and adding gelatin.  I tried a couple of them, and didn’t try the two others for good reasons.  Below I discuss my experiences using straining and gelatin, and also why I did not try powdered milk or heating milk to 180 degrees.

Straining

This yogurt thickening technique is simple and makes sense – strain the finished yogurt through cheesecloth to remove whey (although some people mentioned using coffee filters, or a clean t-shirt).  I used a few layers of cheesecloth, draped over a sieve and set over a bowl to catch the whey.  I let it drain for about an hour.

However, as it turned out, I wasn’t able to just put the yogurt in the cheesecloth and walk away.  A film formed after awhile on the cheesecloth, impeding drainage, so I kept scraping the yogurt around, to open up some areas in the film to let the whey continue draining.  As you might expect, it’s a lot of bother to keep doing that.

Result:  the yogurt was definitely thicker, somewhat closer to smooth and creamy but still lumpy looking.  It had a much smaller volume than the original yogurt; I’d say I ended up with one-third yogurt and two-thirds whey.

Pro:  whey drained off yogurt is great for other stuff, like making sauerkraut or pickling fruits or veggies.

Con:  a lot of work, what with all the scraping, and resulting yogurt is considerably reduced in volume.  To be fair, some websites I read said to just leave the yogurt for several hours or overnight, but I wasn’t that patient; maybe it would have drained well on its own, with more time.

Recommendation:  I’d recommend using this method mainly for obtaining whey, and also if you’d like to use the resulting yogurt as a very tasty substitute for crème fraiche or sour cream (although again, it would not be as smooth and creamy as store-bought crème fraiche or sour cream, since like store-bought yogurt, they are usually made thick and creamy by additives).  I’d also recommend this method if you don’t want to use any of the other three methods discussed below, as it is the most natural of all four methods mentioned in this post.

Powdered Milk

A lot of people use powdered milk to thicken their yogurt, although I could not find a consistent suggested amount; recipes varied considerably.  I decided to not even try this method (after, of course, already buying a package of powdered milk) for a number of reasons:

Extra carbs: the only powdered milk available around here is the non-fat kind, which means I’d be adding extra carbs and protein to the yogurt.  The protein would be okay, but not the carbs, since I eat low-carb and milk is already a somewhat carby food (although yogurt is a bit less so, since some of the sugar is used by the fermenting bacteria).

Taste and texture:  some people commented that they didn’t like the taste of powdered milk, and I felt reasonably certain I wouldn’t either.  I don’t like skim milk – why would I like it powdered?  Others commented that sometimes powdered milk added a gritty texture – not what I’m going for.

Nutritional quality:  I honestly can’t imagine powdered milk being highly nutritious, especially since this milk is probably from the usual sort of conventional dairy cow – confined in a stall 24/7, being fed distillery swill, antibiotics, and growth hormones, never getting to soak in some sunlight or fresh air, or even just take a walk once in awhile.  Such cows produce poor quality milk (which is why it needs to be pasteurized and supplemented with vitamins), and the quality is reduced further by the pasteurization and dehydration process.  Yuck.

Heating Milk to 180 degrees F

This method thickens yogurt a couple of ways, dehydration (which depends on how long you heat the milk) and protein denaturing, which occurs at high temperatures (here’s a simple explanation, a technical one, and a really technical one).  I didn’t try this method either.  I don’t want to denature highly nutritious raw whole milk; I want the nutrient content to be as whole and intact as possible (although some people using high heat with raw milk do have their reasons).  Also, this method pasteurizes the milk, killing off a lot of beneficial bacteria that are naturally present in high-quality raw milk.  These beneficial bacteria are good for the digestive system, and they also fight off pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria, both in the milk, and in your gut.

Recommendation:  If the only milk you can get is store-bought pasteurized milk, you’ll have to use this method in order to produce safe yogurt.  Pasteurized milk has had all the beneficial bacteria killed out of it, leaving it extremely vulnerable to “infection” by pathogenic bacteria between the time it’s pasteurized and the time it gets put in your fridge.  By pasteurizing the milk again, prior to adding the yogurt culture, you are giving the beneficial yogurt culture bacteria enough of a head start that they can outcompete or kill off any new pathogenic bacteria that will inevitably get introduced into the milk in your home environment (no offense!  Bacteria are everywhere).

Gelatin

This is my preferred method for thickening yogurt.  I simply add a packet of Knox gelatine powder (2 teaspoons) to two quarts (8 cups) of milk, as I’m heating the milk up to 110 degrees F.  (No need to “pre-soak” the gelatin in a separate container.  I just sprinkle the powder on top of the milk, distributing it as evenly as possible, wait a few minutes, and then whisk it in with a fork)  This method produces some very good, reasonably thick yogurt, although it doesn’t thicken up until after the finished yogurt cools in the fridge and the gelatin sets up.  Note:  You can also use more or less gelatin for different texture.  I just made a two-quart batch using only 1 teaspoon of gelatin (half a packet) and it turned out real well – still with a thick and creamy texture, but not as firm as when I had used 2 teaspoons.

Pro:  considerable improvement in texture and thickness, with good appearance and mouthfeel.   I wouldn’t be ashamed to serve this to other people, although still with the caveat that it is homemade, because it’s not perfectly smooth and creamy like store-bought yogurt.

Con:  If you’re using small packets of dried gelatin powder, and you want to make significantly more or less than two quarts of yogurt, then you’ll have leftover gelatin you’ll have to store somehow (it needs to be kept dry).   You also won’t be able to strain whey out of this yogurt, since it is bound up with the gelatin.  Finally, if you are avoiding animal flesh products, then obviously you couldn’t use gelatin; there are, however, substitutes for gelatin, including vegetable-based ones, although you might have to experiment to figure out which one you like and how much to use.

Recommendation:  this is the easiest method for thickening homemade yogurt.   You could also use this with any of the other methods.  I’d recommend varying the amount of gelatin you use to see what texture you prefer.

Final note:  it is important, while the yogurt is fermenting, to not jostle the container(s); this will interfere with the formation of the yogurt texture, regardless if you are using any thickening technique or not.  Be sure to ferment your yogurt in an out-of-the-way place where it will not be disturbed.

I’m glad I finally got around to researching this topic and learning how to thicken yogurt up to a texture that I like.  Before I started thickening it, eating it could almost seem like a chore, since the texture and appearance were not appealing, and so sometimes I avoided it, to my own detriment.  I enjoy eating my yogurt now, though, and I certainly enjoy having a happy, well-functioning gut!

Pastured Jersey cows - happy cows make great milk!

The arrogant cock

My first reaction was shock.  My second reaction – since he was still standing there, and especially after I saw my wound (red but not bleeding) – was to kick the rooster.  However, he very easily dodged my soft slippered feet, and just stood there, still bobbing around, waiting for his chance to get in close and get me again.

Well, if I couldn’t connect with my feet, I could at least chase him, so chase I did.  I didn’t come close to catching him, but I chased him long enough to put some fear back in him and to burn off some of the adrenaline I had surging through me.  I also glared at him a bit too.  He got the message.  He didn’t start crowing again until I went back in the house.

My first thought once I was no longer showing him who was boss was, of course, to get rid of the rooster.  Then I reminded myself that I had wanted a rooster in the first place, and – well – our rooster is a handsome fella.  So I decided that I was just going to have to make sure he always knew who was boss.  From now on, I’d have to chase him around a bit whenever I went into the chicken yard, as well as shoot him the occasional “I’m the boss” glare when I didn’t feel like going in the chicken yard to chase him around.

Just chasing him, though, seemed unsatisfactory as far as maintaining dominance.  I don’t know how chickens think about such things, but in my mind, if I couldn’t at least get in a few blows once in awhile, then I wouldn’t be convinced that I was really dominant.  So I figured poking him with a stick while I was chasing him would do the trick – “pecking” at him the way another rooster might, if he was being chased by a rooster.  (My inspiration for this idea was Cesar Millan and his use of the “hand bite” to assert dominance with dogs.)

An obliging storm swept through just a day later and knocked a perfect rooster pecker down to the ground for my use.  It’s about five feet long, giving me a pretty good reach without being too heavy.  I’ve chased and “pecked” the rooster a few times since I got it, and it works great.  Whenever I let the chickens out (once or twice a week) I lie in wait, rooster pecker in hand, and I poke him once he’s out of the coop and caught sight of me, and I chase after him a bit.  Of course I have no desire (any longer) to do any physical harm to him.  I just don’t want him attacking me anymore.

The rooster pecker, ready for pecking

And here I am harassing the rooster.  I would have preferred more of an action shot, but my camera isn’t that obliging.

Asserting dominance in my territory

Keeping chickens has certainly been an interesting experience so far.  My husband and I do like having them, especially since they started laying eggs.  They are fun to watch, and as I have demonstrated here, can even help build new skills and self-esteem.  I just have to keep an eye on the rooster!

Salton Yogurt Maker, model GM-5, cooking up some yogurt

About a week ago, I was browsing through the local Salvation Army thrift store, when I stumbled upon this little gem – an old Salton Yogurt Maker, model GM-5.  I thought, “Wow!  How cool is that?” because I had wanted to get a yogurt maker for some time (I registered for one on my bridal registry – a Salton yogurt maker, but not one of these antiques!).  I wanted to call my handsome hubby and have him Google it real quick, to find out if these yogurt makers were reliable, but as is often the case with my cell phone, the battery was dead.  So I threw caution to the wind and plopped down $4, and took it home.

Of course, only after I got home did I consider how unnecessary this purchase was – Aaron already makes perfectly good yogurt, which gets incubated (fermented) in a small cooler with warm water – sans electricity.  Well, the deed was done – so we might as well try out the yogurt maker.

Also after I got home, I googled “Salton yogurt maker GM-5″ to find out exactly what I had.  I knew I did not have a user manual, but it turns out I also did not have a handy little thermometer/spoon combo, which fortunately I did not need anyway.  A little more Googling turned up a PDF of a user manual from 1976.  The picture of the yogurt maker on the manual appeared to only differ cosmetically (it had printed on it “Thermostat controlled” whereas mine does not) so I figured it was close enough.

Aaron cooked up a quart of yogurt last night, and got it all poured neatly into the 5 little glass containers.  I tucked the containers into their slots, put the lid on the maker, and plugged it in.  I checked it awhile later to make sure there was some heat being generated somewhere, and there was.  The instructions said the yogurt would be done in 10 hours, which would have been 5:30 AM this morning … I checked it at 8:00 AM.  The yogurt turned out great – just the same as cooler-incubated batches.  We have already discovered that when we use the yogurt culture that we are currently using (from Kalona Organics, an organic yogurt with several strains of bacteria available at our local Hy-Vee at 12^th and Harrison) that we have considerable leeway in the incubation time without the yogurt getting too tart.

And here’s a picture of the finished product.  The yellow stuff is delicious cream!  No skim milk low-fat yogurt for me!  We use whole raw milk from pastured Jersey cows (I have awesome in-laws).

mmm ... fresh raw milk yogurt - good food for your gut

And I figured out that there were some advantages to using this maker after all.

• Glass containers – while we are not Luddites, we do prefer to avoid plastic, and use glass instead, for food storage.  We had been incubating yogurt in small plastic containers in the cooler.  These Salton glass containers are really nice little containers.  And I would guess from the condition of the containers that they were rarely, if ever, used (although the yogurt maker lid is a bit scratched up).  So even if we no longer wanted to use the maker, we could still use the glass containers, which were worth the purchase price alone.  NOTE:  if any of the glass containers are broken or missing, don’t despair!  Half-pint canning jars fit nicely in those small compartments.
• More convenient – no messing around with putting warm water of just the right temperature and depth in the cooler.  Just gotta pour the milk with starter culture into the containers, put them in the yogurt maker, and plug it in.  No fancy-shmancy on/off switch either.  Plugged in = on, unplugged = off.  The power cord isn’t even polarized!
• Less mess - when incubating yogurt in the cooler, we end up with wet containers that need to be dried off before being put in the fridge.  Plus, the cooler has to be emptied out and allowed to air dry before being put away.
• Just the right amount - a quart of yogurt is just about right – that’s about how much I eat in a week or so.

So I’m pretty happy with my discovery, and I think we’ll be using it pretty regularly.

I just wish I knew how old it was.  I can’t find a picture of a GM-5 Salton yogurt maker that looks exactly like mine (without “thermostat-controlled” printed on it) and of course no year is printed on the bottom.  The Salton website was not helpful.  To anyone who stumbles upon my little blog here and has any information, I’d appreciate any help. 

My breakfast consisted of:

• A glass of raw whole milk
• Egg yolks cooked soft (still runny – okay, all except one, which broke), in coconut oil, sprinkled with salt and fresh ground pepper
• Low-carb whole grain, whole wheat toast, slathered in salted butter

If you guessed the toast, you get a gold star!  The other foods are both very nutritious and safe.

• Raw whole milk (from pasture fed Jersey cows) is both safe and very nutritious.
• Egg yolks from truly free range hens are also safe and nutritious.
• Coconut oil has many health benefits.
• Salt is a necessary nutrient.
• Butter is a nutritious and health-promoting food.

The low carb bread, however, contains:

• Whole wheat whole grain flour (probably not soaked, sprouted, or fermented)
• added fiber (soy fiber and/or cellulose fiber or wheat fiber)
• Brown sugar
• soybean flour
• plus a lot of multisyllabic ingredients I didn’t feel like looking up

So geez, why did I eat the toast??  Because I like buttered toast as part of my breakfast. Eating the butter by itself just isn’t the same, and it doesn’t sop up runny egg yolk very well, compared to toast.

Today was the first time I’ve ever tried cooking just egg yolks.  I’ve never liked egg whites, but I always ate them with the yolk because, well, they come together, and whites have protein, which is good for you.  However, this article about eggs mentions that the whites aren’t necessarily good for you, which explains why I’ve never liked them.  So I have freed myself from the tyranny of the egg white!  And those yolks this morning tasted wonderful.  I am not going back to eating whites with my yolks!  If I need extra protein, I’ll eat bacon.

Can't we all just get along?

I have to admit – up until recently, I shared the unreasonable prejudice of many other people, in preferring brown eggs to white eggs.  In spite of information from presumably reliable scientists to the contrary, it just seemed to me that if more people preferred brown eggs to white, maybe there was a Good Reason, like some subtle nutritional superiority or something.

Well … then I actually started paying attention to the eggs I eat every day, the ones my husband and I get from my in-laws.  We get a mix of brown and white eggs from free-range hens (also of many colors).  To my surprise, the yolks from the white eggs are consistently a very dark, rich orange color, as you can see below.  All three eggs below came out of white shells.  I even found that often the yolks of white eggs were richer in color than yolks from brown eggs.

Three gorgeous dark orange egg yolks from white eggs

Same eggs - look at how high those yolks are standing up!

This is not to say, of course, that all white egg yolks are better than all brown egg yolks.  Obviously, there are a number of variables, feed quality and lifestyle quality of the chickens being the most influential.

And I still want to get some Marans and Welsummers, which in addition to being beautiful chickens, lay some absolutely gorgeous dark brown eggs!

But now I know the truth, and I wish to share this information with all of my readers – yes, all 10 or so of you – don’t judge an egg by its shell.  There is no Good Reason for you, the individual consumer, to prefer pretty brown eggs to plain Jane white eggs, except aesthetics.  White eggs really are just as good as brown.  And I hope that by providing this testimonial I’ve helped make your breakfast just a little more delicious, satisfying, and – well -  eggalitarian. 

New Hampshire, White Leghorn, and Black Australorp hens lounging around together, May 31, 2009.

The chickens are growing up beautifully.  They are all in an “adolescent” stage, where they don’t quite have their full growth yet, and are not yet laying eggs.  They are, however, mature enough that they look like gorgeous, slightly smaller versions of their adult selves, and they are big enough that we have been able to resolve the identity of the “mystery” chickens. We can now tell the New Hampshire apart from the Cinnamon Queen, and our straight-run Buff-Laced Polish chicken has turned out to be a rooster.

All 8 chickens, labeled for convenience. June 11, 2009

For awhile there, after the rooster started awkwardly crowing but before he developed the distinctive five syllable “cock-a-doodle-do” call, I thought he might simply be a dominant hen.  Dominant hens do crow, and I was really hoping for another egg producer (contrary to my earlier expressed wish for a rooster).  But he has grown into producing a very distinctive rooster call, and I no longer consider him to be a dominant hen.  Well, as long as his crowing doesn’t bother the neighbors, I’d like to keep him around.  He’s already pretty, and will likely be even more so when he is fully grown.

Aaron is very worried that the rooster’s crowing will bother the neighbors, even though they haven’t complained and I hardly notice it myself (although it can get pretty loud).  Aaron’s solution has been to box up the rooster at night, when all the chickens have gone in the coop, and the rooster doesn’t get let out until 9:00 AM.  I have urged Aaron as well to actually talk to our neighbors and ask them if they are bothered by the rooster, instead of just worrying about it, but I don’t know if that will ever happen.

We are also finally able to tell the New Hampshire from the Cinnamon Queen.  They are the same red color (they share some ancestry, as the Cinnamon Queen is a hybrid – Silver Laced Wyandotte Hens with a Rhode Island Red Rooster – or so the internet tells me!), but the New Hamp has dark tail feathers, and the Cinnamon Queen has white or light-colored tail feathers.  I was able to see the color difference upon close examination of the chicks’ tails probably at least six weeks ago, but since this is my first time raising chickens, I didn’t want to say for certain until they looked more like their adult selves.  The Cinnamon Queen also matured a bit faster than the New Hamp, but the New Hamp has since caught up, so there really wasn’t much difference there.  The next real test will be – who lays eggs first?  One of the desirable traits of the hybrid Cinnamon Queen is early egg production.

Cinnamon Queen, April 28, 2009 (a little over a month old)

New Hampshire, April 28, 2009. Note that she still has chick fuzz on her neck (compared to the Cinnamon Queen). She's also a bit smaller.

Aaron is in the process of building a very nice coop for them.  This is a coop designed to hold eight chickens, with 32 square feet of floor space (four sq.ft. per chicken – recommended minimum for free-range chickens).  I mention this because in our research on coop designs, we found lots of designs for 2-4 chickens, but very little that were larger – and also relatively plain.  It seems there is a big leap up from “small and simple” to “large and elaborate” with very little in between!  So ours is an in-between coop  – large and fairly simple.  I’ll be painting it once it’s done – probably a nice yellow color, along with some sort of contrasting trim.  We also want to put it on wheels to move it around easily.

Most people who have backyard chickens, it seems, only get a few, instead of eight like we did.  We got eight because we wanted around 5-6, and it was prudent to get a few extra in case any of them died – and pretty cheap, too – most of the initial expense is in stuff for the chickens.  Well, none of them died!  We have eight very healthy chickens!

The "exit" side of the coop. The right side of the roof tin (in this view) still needs to be trimmed.

The "access" side of the coop, with a door big enough for humans to get in. This side of the coop is a little over 4 feet high.

Their primary feed is Nutrena NatureWise Meatbird feed, which we get from our local Farm and Home Supply store.  We’ve been feeding them that since shortly after we got them.  We could have started them on it, but we didn’t find that out until later, so we started them on medicated chick feed.  We’ll keep them on the meatbird feed until they start laying, which is when we’ll switch them to a layer feed.  I’d love to be able to mix their feed ourselves from locally available ingredients, but that is A LOT of work and cost-prohibitive at this time.

They also eat plenty of grass and whatever bugs they can scrounge out of our lawn.  I like to think they find quite a few – the lawn hasn’t been chemically treated for at least three years, and almost every time I dug into it this spring to give them some dirt clumps to feed on (when they were still kept inside) I found worms.  About once a week or so we give them wheat sprouts that we’ve sprouted ourselves, plus occasionally some sour raw milk – they love both treats!

I’ll post more later on the chicken coop, once Aaron’s got more work done on it – and more on the chickens, once they start laying.

One big happy flock of "teenaged" chickens. June 3, 2009

Oh, and the pork.  We had no idea how much to serve, since the organizers had no idea how many people would be there – their guess was anywhere from 100 to 300 people.  Aaron and I decided to just go ahead and cook up most of a whole hog, minus the chops and bacon (I just can’t pass up on chops and bacon!).  We had the processing facility cut the rest of the hog up into what they called “primal cuts” which was basically just really big chunks of hog, still on the bone – the biggest chunk weighed a little over 25 pounds.  We borrowed a few large roasters, and also borrowed the St. Rose Church kitchen, a nice big professional kitchen with large swaths of stainless steel to work on.  Aaron had to get out the hacksaw to get some of those pieces of pork to fit in the roasters.  Aaron slow-cooked all the meat at about 250 degrees, to an internal temperature of 200 degrees – that big piece of meat I mentioned earlier took over 24 hours to cook!  And then we pulled all of that meat by hand, using ordinary kitchen forks.  Fortunately, all the meat was “fork tender” and just fell off the bone.  Although it took about forever – we probably put in a total of 3-4 man hours just pulling pork – we had some incredibly great-tasting pork.  We estimate that we ended up with about 80 pounds of pulled pork.

We had already decided to serve two flavors – barbeque and regular (lightly seasoned with salt and pepper).  We had “regular” because the point of this venture was to showcase the pork, so I wanted people to be able to taste the pork with as little seasoning as possible.  For the barbeque pork, I didn’t even want to bother with a homemade barbeque sauce because I knew we’d be too busy with everything else, so we just used KC Masterpiece, which is a pretty good mild sauce that most people like.  Well, with our pork, it was awesome.  The pork already smelled good when it was cooking, and then when I added the sauce to one of the roasters of pulled pork – the smell was just heavenly.

So we had all this awesome meat, and I also made sure we had plenty of good fixins – Frank’s Red Hot sauce, sweet and dill relish, mustard, ketchup, salt and pepper.  I bought enough supplies to serve just over 200 sandwiches.  We decided to do this as a fundraiser for a non-profit organization (4-H), because the county health department, when granting temporary food stand permits, is more forgiving of fundraisers than for-profit events.  This being the first time we’ve ever done anything like this, we figured we needed all the forgiveness we could get.

The weather was gorgeous that day, and everything went relatively smoothly.  We took 4 large roasters full of pulled pork.  We charged $3 for a sandwich with a very generous amount of pork (we don’t know how much!  We didn’t measure) and 50 cents for a bag of chips.  There was never much of a crowd, though – we estimate that we served about 100 sandwiches.  We also sold some in bulk to people who requested it (fortunately I had brought along about a dozen leftover containers).  I was disappointed that we didn’t serve more sandwiches, but we pulled in enough money to be able to make a donation of $173.57 to the Barry Winners 4-H club.  Aaron’s father Harley donated the hog.  If we had paid him full price we would have been able to donate only $20 to 4-H.  We took home a roaster and a half of leftover meat.

Aaron and I just aren’t very aggressive when it comes to marketing.  We were serving these amazingly good pork sandwiches, and we were too shy about the marketing to even give every customer a brochure advertising the pork.  We had a poster display and the brochures available right next to where people paid, but I personally tend to ignore such things, and I would guess a lot of other people did too.  We are in the odd position of having a very high-quality, reasonably-priced product to sell with very little idea of how to do so, and are also too reserved/introverted to really get ambitious about getting the word out.

We’re still not sure if we’ll ever do this again.  It was a lot of work and stress, and the real point of it was to market the pork, and I don’t think we got even one half-hog sold (we haven’t heard from anyone).  Of course, I also know marketing is also a long-term process – to be really effective, people have to see the product many times over a period of time, and we’re really just beginning.  And this being the rural, conservative Midwest, people are not even going to assume that our pork is any better than the cheap bland confinement raised pork they get at the store – unless they are nostalgic for the great farm food they had growing up.  Most people nowadays weren’t raised on great-tasting locally produced food, so they don’t even know what they are missing.  And then there are people who insist that they can’t taste the difference between confinement pork and “artisan pork” (our term – what we’ve decided to call our pork).  Well, I guess those people aren’t our target market.

Aaron made the comment when we were driving home after the event, that even though he cooked the meat, he didn’t really do a whole lot – that the reason the meat was so incredibly good is because it was very high quality meat in the first place.  He’s right – and I just wish more people had a chance to try it and see for themselves!

Well, obviously, there are a lot of challenges we face in getting the word out.  It’s a worthwhile task … I just wonder quite a bit if I am up to it.  I have been writing down “lessons learned” and ways to do this better the next time, if we do.  If we could do this at an event with a lot more people that would certainly be helpful.

And if we do this again, we are gonna have some of these!   I find it a bit odd that they are plastic – I’d prefer stainless steel – but they still look like they’d be fun to use, and a lot easier to use for shredding pork than forks!

I wish I had taken some pictures of the pork, but I was too stressed out to think of it.  Here’s our only picture related to this whole thing – a picture of our booth at Trade Days.

But there are also drawbacks to pursuing a low-carb lifestyle – physical, psychological, and social.  Given that many of the drawbacks that I have experienced are the same ones that discourage others from starting or staying with low-carb, I thought in the interests of fairness, I should discuss the drawbacks.

Side effects during transition due to electrolyte deficiencies – I had dizzy spells when I first started eating low-carb, and I didn’t really get them “cured” until I went back and read “Protein Power” more closely, and found out that the body will dump a lot of potassium and sodium (which are electrolytes, along with magnesium and chloride) as it’s dumping the extra retained fluid.  I started supplementing with potassium and magnesium, and eating more salt, and this eventually worked itself out.

Heart palpitations – same thing – some sort of electrolyte deficiency or imbalance.  It worked itself out as I got used to the diet and was taking supplements, but it was weird.  Fortunately, I knew it was diet-related and that I wasn’t having a heart attack.  The main problem with electrolyte deficiencies is that the symptoms are pretty much the same as when you’re getting too much!  So you really have to know how much of them you’re getting so you can adjust your dosages properly.

I had other side effects as well, but I didn’t document them so I don’t remember them!  This is like a lot of other health stuff – your results may vary.  You can pretty much count on experiencing some odd or uncomfortable side effects, so it’s really important to educate yourself on them.

Different body – the body I have now is not the same one I started with on low-carb.  It has just as many quirks but some of them are different ones than before.

I can easily get muscle cramps due to (I assume) a lack of potassium.  I still take potassium supplements on occasion but I still haven’t figured out how much or how frequently is just the right amount.  This is a significant deterrent to exercise (not that I need any deterrents, though).

I seem to be more easily dehydrated, but (like a lot of people) I don’t seem to feel thirst until I really really need it (although I will drink quite a bit if water is sitting right in front of me, fortunately).  I’ve always had a problem drinking enough water, but it’s more of an issue now that I’m not carrying around an extra gallon or so in vivo.

Skipped meals – hunger signals are more subtle now that my blood sugar isn’t surging up and down to unhealthy levels.  So, if there’s nothing in the fridge that I want to eat, it’s a lot easier to snack on a glass of milk or a few crackers with butter or cheese than it is to cook a decent meal.  This is an advantage, of course, when no food is available, but it can be a disadvantage when I just don’t feel like cooking (which is most of the time) and there are no tasty leftovers in the fridge.

Reduced dental hygiene habits – I didn’t realize the extent to which I relied on mouth fuzz to prompt me to brush my teeth until I stopped getting it.  Since I still eat some carbs (including sugar) I still get some fuzz, but not nearly as much as I used to – so the fuzz rarely gets to the point where I feel I absolutely have to brush my teeth.  I don’t have bad breath and I have really strong teeth – so I just don’t have as much incentive to brush my teeth as I used to.  It’s embarrassing to admit this in our hygiene-crazed culture, which makes it all the more important to talk about.  And no, I will not tell you how often I actually do brush my teeth!  But obviously – less fuzz means less decay due to sugar, so I don’t believe I am compromising my dental health.  Here are a couple of great blog posts about preventing and reversing tooth decay in case you get more worried about my teeth than I am.  And good luck finding a dentist who is aware of this information (which should be known by all of them).

Carb cravings – well, this is a problem I also had before low-carb, of course, I just didn’t feel as guilty as I do now when I satisfy them.  I wonder how much of the carb cravings might be due to some sort of deficiency, versus the simple psychology of “it feels good to eat carbs”.  Dr. Michael Eades of “Protein Power” advises people to start or increase magnesium supplementation if they have carb cravings, but I still have the cravings even with supplementation.  I discuss my effort to puzzle out my feedback mechanism for cravings in a previous post, A buzz or a glow?

Lots of guilt and shame – am I craving carbs (especially sugar!) because I am a weak person, or is there something going on physiologically that I just don’t know the cure for yet?  It’s just so easy to assume my frequent desire for ice cream or sweets is “just me” and feel ashamed at my weakness.  It’s also a lot easier to feel guilty/ashamed than it is to devote considerable effort, time, and perhaps money to figure out what is actually behind the carb cravings (if it is other than psychological … or even if it is psychological!).  Of course, there was also constant guilt with the low-fat diet, because even if I followed the guidelines, I was still hungry and wanted more fat/protein – so then, too, the easy assumption was that there must be something wrong with me… which was true … I wasn’t getting enough fat and protein!

Toxic culture – well, this is a huge issue, and has been discussed in so many other media (like this recent excellent post by Dr. Michael Eades (Protein Power))  that I’ll just mention the basics.  Our culture – particularly the media – aggressively criticize a low-carb lifestyle.  Numerous studies showing its benefits are ignored, or worse, skewed into showing no benefit.  Health experts, most with virtually no training in nutrition other than the food pyramid, preach the non-existent benefits of grain-based diet.   Anyplace where food is sold has numerous high-carb, low-fat, no-nutrition products touted as health food.  It’s an upside down world in so many ways, and this toxic culture is one of the most basic, one of the most insidious, and is the single most difficult issue that low-carbers must contend with in pursuing their own good health.

Not a cure-all – I believe that anyone that has done a decent amount of reading about the benefits of eating a low-carb diet could be forgiven for forming an unconscious assumption that low-carb will cure anything.  Every aspect of human health is either directly or indirectly affected by unbalanced blood sugar and by insulin resistance.  While following a low-carb lifestyle will certainly improve many aspects of one’s health (as I have already attested) it can’t cure everything, especially if a health problem has been plaguing someone for years.

This leaves an enthusiastic but disappointed low-carber (like myself) to wonder – am I just not doing it right?  What else could be the problem?  This is especially true for weight loss. I’d bet good money that when people stop losing weight with low-carb, they lose faith in the diet, regardless of how good they feel otherwise.  I certainly did!  Some really good long-term studies on what is going on when weight loss stalls, but the low-carb diet is maintained, would provide a tremendous boost for people who are struggling to maintain a low-carb lifestyle while facing tremendous pressure from their culture, family, friends, and health experts to switch back to a high-carb, low-fat diet.

Conclusion - pursuing a low-carb lifestyle has most certainly been worth it for me and my husband – we are healthier because of it, and if we ever get around to reproducing, our kids will be healthier for it, and much more knowledgeable about optimal nutrition than we were.  I am grateful to all those health care professionals who wrote books and set up websites to get the message out about low-carb diets.  I feel confident now that I, my husband, and our (future) children will not have to suffer from diabetes or other lifestyle-related metabolic disorders, and that gives me some measure of peace in this upside down world.

Recommended reading:

Weston A. Price Foundation

Real Milk Campaign

Nourishing Traditions – great book on food raised and prepared naturally

Lardy, Lardy – great post on the health benefits of lard by Dr. Mary Dan Eades (Protein Power)