By Shai

The past couple of weeks of the new year was anything but the dust settling down.  Just more dust.  Above the din that has been our family course of life was the re-admittance of my mother into the hospital for some grave health problems.  Being with her a few days through the typical hospital experience of complications over more complications, I was reminded of the convoluted life we have woven for ourselves.  I realized through the tangled webs we weave, we find it far more difficult to simplify our lives than to complicate. 

Like, which is easier for you to do…

·      If you were diabetic: scratch out ALL sugar, fats and refined products (chocolate cake, ice cream) OR keep eating all you like and just keep shooting insulin?

·      If you were hypertensive: remove salt and sugar from the diet OR take maintenance BP pills daily and eat whatever you want?

·      If you had bad diarrhea: fast on buko juice and water OR take Imodium or Diatab or such?

·      If you were overweight: cut your portions by half or more, remove all saturated fat and junk food from the diet, and exercise, OR take some magic lose-weight pill and go on eating what you want and not exercise?

The pill has been people’s primary choice for decades—seems simpler, easier and yet lets the good times roll.  Sadly, the good times today roll on to great misery tomorrow as I’ve experienced myself and witnessed from many people dear to me.  No wonder pharmaceuticals and the medical field are amongst the biggest businesses.  Now diet fads and health food supplements are catching up.  Because everyone wants to be WELL.  Everyone wants to be healthy. 

All the doctors at the hospital unanimously declared that aging bodies normally have plaqued arteries, few mini strokes, a full set of false teeth, deteriorating memories, brittle bones, falling hair, fatty livers, enlarged pancreas, dysfunctional kidneys and on and on.  The aging mark, they say, is 40 years!  That is absolutely right, if we speak of city dwellers.  The abnormalities of our lifestyles have made disease-ridden bodies normal at the end of the dark tunnel. 

But time and again, studies of simple-living mountain and rural people untouched by the proclivities of modern civilization have defied the civilized world’s medical “norm.”  No plaqued arteries, brittle bones, enlarged pancreas, mini strokes, etc. in those who live simply in the jungle, eating off the land, following the sun for their sleep and wake cycles. (I hasten to note here that the increasing cases of tuberculosis, cancer, hypertension, shortened lifespans and such amongst many tribespeople in different areas jibe with the significant influence of sari-sari stores selling the same junk that are city folks’ norms.  Shocking to find heaps of discarded wrappers, cans and bottles of candy, magic sarap, soft drinks, sardines and more even in remote mountain sites.)

Certainly, not many of us can verily pack our bags, head for the mountains and become ascetics.  But just as certainly, many of us can simplify our lives in many small ways.  One bucket can be filled by many little drops.

By first turning on this “simplify switch”, we begin to realize how practically all aspects of our lives can be transformed.

Sometimes a great upheaval forces us to turn this switch on.  The great quake of 1990 in Baguio, where we lived then, turned this switch on for our family.  Like a war zone, Baguio had no stores, market, banks, electricity, water, fuel, and was isolated for ever so LOOONG.  We relied on the rains for our drinking and bathing water.  We learned to bathe with two COLD tabo-fuls, max.  For food, we picked from our surroundings, with a little help from relief goods. We never went hungry.  I realized—wow!  How little we need to survive!  What a refreshing, liberating feeling!

Try it.  Drink more water instead of soft drinks or packaged juice.  Eat fewer times a day simple, local meals.  Throw out from the pantry what we can live without and even be healthier for it.  

If just a fraction of society would simplify their existence, imagine the relief it would be on Mother Earth!  Less stress, optimum health in body, mind and spirit would be some of its great rewards.

Simple living, high thinking.  Try it.  You’ll love it.

by shai

While we go about frantically worrying about what to give whom, and where to go first, what to do next, where to get the bucks to do all of the above…let’s take a sacred moment to reflect on the wonderful qualities that is Lord Jesus. 

He exemplified what we all ought to be—concerned only in pleasing the One he lived for —his Father, our Father.  While it mattered not to Lord Jesus who he displeased, as long as his Father was pleased, he became glorified for all time.  While the essence of his teachings was not in the healing of the body but of the lost soul, he became the glorified conduit between us and his—our Father.  It was the will of his Father that moved him, that protected him, that empowered him.

By doing so, he laid out an example to follow, just as all the great saintly persons did and do, to get to the ultimate purpose of existence and thus truly find the PEACE we all hunger for, the real JOY we all wish for every breath we make.

So here is a recipe for all season that knows no time, that will lead us not into temptation and lead us to sweet love as Lord Jesus has showed us.

You’ll need only :

1 whole heart-ful of LOVE, softened and opened, all hard parts discarded

Add the water of association with people who share the same purpose, constantly sprinkle lots and lots of the hearing and chanting of God’s Holy names.  Stir together constantly with loving dedication and perseverance, listening closely to the Lord in the heart, being mindful of the teachings of scripture.  Place in the fire of love from genuine lover of God and let cook.  Dedication will  assure you of  the most divinely sweet nectar of love for the Lord, that only gets better and better, increasing forever in sweetness.

The best part about this recipe is the more you give, the more you have—it just never runs out!!!!

by shai

Cake without eggs?  You gotta be kidding!  Cakes out of whole wheat?  Are you weird or what!  Desserts that are healthy?  OH yes, you are weird!  …Aaaah, wonders never cease, ay.  ; D

Some use Christmas time as the excuse to eat sweets with no holds barred.  For many, it’s the season for the reason … to INDULGE. 

Can’t seem to get off the Sweet Stuff.  Imagine life without sweets.  Like a girl without hair.  Or shoes without a sole.  Or life without a cellphone!  All definitely possible, but…..Oh, what a big BUT! 

By nature, we are magnetized to the sweet taste.  If it’s so natural, then why is it not healthy?  Because, as humans are wont, overindulgence is the path man has reliably found himself sucked into.  Thus we have diabetes, hypertension, heart problems, obesity galore and scores of other ailments as a consequence of our excesses.  Believe it or not, there is a way to indulge in sweets that won’t get your body in trouble.  Moderation and healthy choices.

Here are a few words to illuminate the many who seek some light on it.

ABOUT THE INGREDIENTS.  Most of our generation and thereafter have grown up knowing not much else other than white flour and white sugar.  I’ve said it too many times before: these are the end products of the original food, processed till all the nourishment it had to offer had been reduced to a quarter of a molecule, and all the rest is bad news.  So best to eat food as close as possible to the orig. 

If you’re game, try dried fruit compotes instead of cakes.  Custards made with blended fresh or dried fruit, whizzed with some real soft (silken) tofu and a little ground chia or flax seeds or dissolved gulaman to hold it up.

For sweeteners, try instead honey (but do not cook), molasses, dried fruits, fresh fruits and their juices, panucha, mascobado, cocosugar.  Confectioners sugar is a major health harmer.

For flour, try whole wheat.  I know whole wheat cakes are a pretty radical taste digression from what our palates have been programmed on.  So if you can’t take it, mix with UNBLEACHED white flour.  If you’re adventurous, try a variety of other whole grain flours available at health food stores.  Better still, try our own local flours, camote, cassava, and the like. 

Words of advice and caution: you’ll have to be a die-hard aficionado to attempt to duplicate your comfort food cakes, so free yourself from that mindset.  It’s not impossible I’m sure, but it’s just too bloody hard to go that route.  I’ve tried for years to get that confectioners’ sugar feel and look—fat chance!  So at the outset, relax and tell your taste buds that this is another chapter of its culinary experience.  Soon they will readjust and will never look at—er, taste—a cake the same way again. 

Keep in mind that the cake you’ll end up with will not be air-soft.  It’ll be nutty, chewy and heavy…and if you do it right, YUMMEE!  A little will go a long way, so there’ll be less chance of overeating.

About ground flaxseeds.  Not only do they give you the wonderful omega 3 and 6 boost and more, they make pastries softer and add a little fluff.  Bananas are also a good egg replacement, as is potato flour, camote flour—they’re more the “binding” function of the eggs.  Add a little vinegar or lemon to your milk in a cake, and that will react into some “growing things” that add fluff as well.  Vinegar also reacts with baking soda for that egg-like lift.

Happy, healthy baking!  For a change, give some nourishing stuff to your friends this Christmas, and prepare them at your parties. 

Remember : HEALTH IS WEALTH!!! 

P.S.  My Goodness products are healthy sweet giveaways (yes, we have cakes, too). 

P.P.S.  If you have any questions on healthy eating and cooking, you may e-mail me at cookies@my-goodness.com or mygoodnesst@gmail.com.   

P.P.S.S.  WAIT for new pages to this website, health information and recipes.

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