Author: Bethany

Food for Thought

An example of Social Engineering: in the cereal aisle, oats are located on the bottom shelf, level with my feet, barely off the ground. Grape Nuts, a cereal made of only 4 ingredients: wheat, barley, yeast, salt is located all the way on the top shelf where my eyes never naturally wander.

I don’t necessarily agree that we should ban cup sizes (Big Gulp) or soda; consumers should have the freedom to buy what they want. However, I do believe there should be strict regulations to protect the planet such as limiting how much land can be used to produce crop for fossil fuels, animal feed (therefore naturally limiting how many animals we raise in order to be able to feed those animals), so more land can be used to grow other healthful crops (fruit/vegetables/grains) to feed our planet.

The most important and effective way to fix our food system is for people to vote with their dollars. If no one buys the 64 oz. soda, corporations will stop selling it.

How do we get people to vote with their dollars to more healthful choices? A few thoughts:

  • Understanding the truly cheapest path is prevention of disease through lifestyle choices. This is the ultimate form of healthcare.
  • Education/ self efficacy: instilling confidence in the kitchen- learning it doesn’t need to take as much time or money as some people tend to think.
  • Intrinsic motivation: just like any choice we make- financial, spiritual, etc. – we must have a large enough ‘why’ that pulls us to make healthier choices, and we’re not being pushed by the government.

*Some Excerpts*

Worship or worry- you can’t do both

– Seen on a sign in front of a church in Portland, OR

Proactive people show you what they love, what they want and what they stand for. (Different from people who are known by what they hate, what they don’t like).

-Boundaries

God is more concerned with our hearts than with our outward compliance … (an internal ‘no’ nullifies and external ‘yes’)

-Boundaries

Power is not something you demand or deserve; it is something you express. The ultimate expression of power is love – it is the ability not to express power but to restrain it.

-Boundaries

Questions To Ask Yourself Everyday

Morning Questions

  1. What am I happy about in my life right now? (What could I be happy about if I wanted to?)
  2. What am I excited about?
  3. What am I proud of in my life right now?
  4. What am I grateful about in my life right now?
  5. What am I enjoying most in my life right now?
  6. What am I committed to in my life right now?
  7. Who do I love? Who loves me?

Evening Questions

  1. What have I given today?
  2. What did I learn today?
  3. How has today added to the quality of my life or how can I use today as an investment in my future?

-Tony Robbins

On The Ego’s Need For Approval

Eckhart Tolle’s thoughts on the Ego. This is a good reminder to carry into our daily lives:

The Ego’s patterns dissolve when you don’t oppose them internally. Opposition gives them renewed strength. You can then accept family’s behavior with compassion, without needing to react to it, and without personalizing it.

Be also aware of your unconscious assumptions or expectations that lie behind your old habitual reactions to them. The more shared past in a relationship, the more present you need to be, otherwise you will be forced to relive the past again and again.

An Interesting Interpretation of Sin

Ancient Greek translates “sin” as to miss the mark. So to sin means to miss the mark or miss the point of human existence. It means to live unskillfully, blindly, and thus to suffer and cause suffering.

The ego wants more than it wants to have. Once it has, then it continues wanting more.

Original sin is that disconnectedness, that forgetfulness of our oneness with The Source.

-Eckhart Tolle

The Truth About Greatness

The paradox is that the foundation for Greatness is honoring the small things in the present moment, instead of pursuing the idea of Greatness. Everyone’s life really consists of small things. Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favorite fantasy of the ego. The present moment is always small in the sense that it is always simple, but concealed within it lies the greatest power. Like the atom, it is one of the smallest things, yet contains enormous power.

In everything you do, try to find one of these three states: acceptance, enjoyment, enthusiasm. One of the greatest diseases of our culture is the ‘wait to live’ syndrome. Waiting for something to have meaning when in fact meaning is something we get out of being, not doing.

-Eckhart Tolle

Butternut Squash Soup

A warm, cozy treat for a chilly day. This soup goes great with white crusty bread for dipping!

Ingredients:

  • 2 Tb butter or oil
  • 1 shallot, diced
  • 1 butternut squash, diced
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • Hearty sprinkle of salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 4 cups vegetable stock
  • 1 Tb maple syrup
  • 1 can coconut milk

Directions:

  1. Heat butter or oil in a stock pot and add shallot and cook until translucent. Add squash, garlic, cinnamon and salt and cook for a few minutes to begin cooking the squash.
  2. Add vegetable stock, bring to a simmer and cook until squash softens.
  3. Once squash is cooked through, ladle soup into a blender and blend until smooth (you can also use an immersion blender).
  4. Return soup to stock pot and add maple syrup and coconut milk and stir thoroughly.
  5. Taste soup and adjust accordingly.

Save the Seeds!

Every year I garden I learn more and more. I used to garden with aesthetics in mind and keeping my garden looking what I thought to be beautiful. Understanding the process nature uses in plants has changed my opinion of what is beautiful. I used to never let me plants go to seed or flower, thinking this looked unkept.

This year, I let a few vegetable plants flower to try something different and in the process I’ve become fascinated with saving seeds the plant provides. It makes so much sense in that letting certain plants flower provides food for the bees and we also were able to keep seeds for next year.

Here is how to save your basil seeds:

Let the plant flower; this means stop pinching your plant once the season is coming to an end. Every now and then I would still harvest some basil leaves from the bottom of the plant if a dish really needed that yummy touch that only basil can provide!

On the stalks you will see flower heads that eventually turn brown and dry out.

Once totally dried, pinch these brown flower heads off and open them up to find your basil seeds!

It takes some time to find a method that works for you, but I took my time, sat in the sun and opened up these dried flowers one by one to collect the tiny black basil seeds to save for next year’s planting.  This is a great activity to do with kids that have mastered their fine motor skills!