Kim Wills

Film

(thank you Olga, for "farl"; I learned a new word!)

Cujo Liva wrote:
Don't confuse "need" with "need to eat".  Many of us have had years of practice at storing excess calories, so a large percentage of people have absolutely no need to eat 1600+ calories every day.  This dates back to our earliest pre-history where food was not consumed as regularly as now with available restaurants, supermarkets and pantries.  Humans have practiced fasting from the very beginning.  I understand that there are legitimate cases of people "wasting away", but that is a comparatively niche problem in modern societies right now.

Well... I agree and I disagree. Sure we store excess calories that our bodies can use if needed. But just because we can survive a mini-famine doesn't mean we'll be at our best or not have negative consequences if that state goes on for too long. And I have nothing against fasting, for most people. I know there are some benefits.
But there is also such a thing as "overweight but undernourished". People can be overweight or obese but be vitamin or mineral deficient; they may not look like they're wasting away, but in a small way, more people are than we'd think. Someone who lives on processed foods, fast foods, microwave meals, etc, can quickly acquire excess fat but not have enough nutrients. In any case (calorie deficit or nutrient deficit) our bodies will take what it needs from our own bodies (including protein, calcium, whatever). Many people think that if they go without food their body will start burning all its fat, and that's it. Stop eating and lose weight. But that comes with invisible costs, including eventual "starvation mode" where they'll start retaining fat (if it's a very long time of undereating).

John Weiland wrote:As others weigh in, I'd like to possibly add the question of where the notion came in that breakfast is "the most important meal of the day".
.....
Like several answers above, it would not be unusual for me, both when working and now in retirement, to have a cup of coffee and not have any food until after the noon hour.  It was more common near the end of the career to grab an extra coffee on the way to work and include some sweet pastry or muffin, but at home I tend to not bother.   This is why I ask the question above...if so many of us are skipping "the most important meal of the day", why is it considered that and what might we gain by at least something possibly more ..... 'thoughtful'..?

This is an interesting question to me, too. My nutrition degree taught us that it is perfectly natural and common for older folks to have less & less of an appetite, and we are taught to encourage older people to keep eating enough, not to under-eat. Supposedly humans need 1600 calories even if laying in bed all day. Many people eat less than that. I worked in assisted living and my observation was (and studies show) that older people eat more when they're with someone else. If you're caring for an older person, you'll notice they keep eating if you're eating with them. Humans mimic people they like, or if they're having a pleasant interaction. So maybe there's an element of being alone versus eating with family (when they were around).

Also, if people are retired they're probably expending less energy and therefore they don't feel the internal urge to eat as much. Physical activity makes a person hungry if they're paying attention to their bodies. Less active = less hungry. (excluding psychological eating issues)

I also did a research assignment on caloric restriction for longevity, where people purposely eat a certain percentage of what's recommended for their bodies (maybe 1250-1600 calories) and they live longer. There is roundabout evidence that this works, BUT it needs to include sufficient nutrients of all kinds, so pastries & bacon aren't part of it! So maybe as we age our bodies are trying to eat less calories in order to live longer? Overall, I think most people (in 1st world countries) are not super-in-tune with their bodies enough to naturally eat like that; I think we've lost our animal instincts and need to learn some things about food and health. There's a book called Intuitive Eating that's worth looking at, and another called Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family by Ellyn Satter. I read both of those for school, and they're both great for getting in tune with what our bodies need. Babies & toddlers know what they need, so if we raised them intentionally in that regard, they could potentially grow up eating perfectly for their own needs. Until someone gives them a Ding-Dong, lol.

Sorry, I know you specifically asked about breakfast, but I feel that what I said applies to all meals. Breakfast is important because it's meant to signal to your body that it's time to become active, and to give it the energy for activity. Maybe like the old days, or on homesteads with many chores, a person would go out and do some physical work, then come in and eat breakfast. The activity caused the hunger. Just my thoughts!

My suburban garden was a bit smaller than 200 sq ft, and it always helped to say "it's about the size of a parking spot"; then they'd go "OH!" and be able to grasp the size easily. Or the size of a car. Especially for people living in smaller areas or who can't grasp measurements well, it could be a fun way to describe the garden size.
The Car-Sized Garden?
Or something else common to compare it to?

My whole life (age 53, raised by grandma) and my son's whole life (age 33, raised by me), we never tried to get a fever down if it was up to 102 or even a bit higher. Above 102 I'd monitor more frequently, and it usually didn't stay there long. If it was in the high 102's and bed time was coming, I'd give something out of fear of it rising during the night. If I was awake to monitor it I'd let it stay above 102 as much as possible. Our fevers were never above the mid/high 102's except for me a year ago. It went up & down all week, and over the weekend it went up to 103.8 at night, and I felt super-crappy, so I went to the ER and it was pneumonia. That was after a number of other respiratory illnesses the previous year and tons of stress. I let the hospital do its thing to me, and went home after 48hrs. I took better care of myself mentally & physically and haven't been sick since.

corn

Mark Reynolds wrote:
I'd look at planting some deep rooted plants that CAN break up the compaction. Forage radish, possibly alfalfa, turnips. The radishes will also collect nutrients and make them available to other plants when they die and decompose.

Daikon! "Daikon radish" can be up to a foot long and up to 3-4" thick. I have searched this topic to death because the spot where my kitchen garden will be has a sub layer of nearly solid clay; like, you could mold an ashtray out of it. I'll be ordering 3000 seeds for $8. The reviews complain it's more like 2000, lol, but that's still the best bargain I found. From what I hear, I'm supposed to plant the daikon all over, let it grow as long as possible, then chop & drop the greens and leave the daikon in the ground to decompose. This will add the biggest possible pockets of organic matter. I can't wait til spring to try it!

Just what I need! A list, here in a spot I won't lose it, lol!

#1! - purchase my dad's property/house from my stepmother & get it in our name! (hubby & me)
2 - Make maps of various elements (so far I only did "sun on kitchen garden, October 4" lol).
3 - Decide on some slow-growing items (fruit/nut trees?) that only need care a few times/yr, and hopefully plant a few.
4 - Plant tons of daikon seeds in kitchen garden to start amending the clay soil.
5 - Hang the rest of our thrift store cabinets in kitchen.
6 - Cut a particular area of brush, and decide on a spot for brush/branch debris.
7 - Identify as many more plants as possible.
8 - Check borders for tracks of 4-wheelers or humans.
9 - Block vulnerable spots of borders if needed.

Any advice on the above is welcome. I saw an idea of using branches & brush to add to fencing. I might use it alone as a 'fence' to deter trespassers. I put up the appropriate legal Posted signs, and rope on a few spots, and this spring I'll see if it was respected or not.

Wow, thank you guys so much, so far! I didn't mention what's already there: a small 20yr old post & beam house (yay!), which is just one big room (a basic bathroom/utility room is technically a separate room with real walls, thankfully, but with just planks across beams as a ceiling, lol). My dad & his buddies would crash there a couple times a year and NOT clean or take care of anything. My dad passed away a year ago, and my husband and I are the only family that ever helped him maintain the place and want it, so this past year we spent 3 separate week-long sessions hauling out moldy old furniture, mouse-eaten bedding, sleeping bags, jackets, etc. We had to throw everything out and spray the ceilings for mold. There's a well and indoor plumbing but the water smells like sulfur so we bring bottled water. I assume one day we'll need to get the well checked & fixed somehow. It hasn't been looked at in 35yrs, and the septic tank hasn't been looked at in the 20yrs of this new house.

There's a wood stove (full of dead birds & debris, lol) and a questionable gas heater in the wall that we don't leave on unattended. We bought some thrift-store cabinets and mapped out a kitchen (there's a stove with a questionable oven), and a small fridge, and there's a kitchen sink with wood counter around it but I don't consider it food-safe, lol.

- We added some baseboard in a mouse-repelling effort.
- There's a shed.
- There's a pile of overgrown rubble of an old barn, which they re-used wood from to build the house. There are great rocks in the pile, but also a huge pile of decaying green asphalt roofing we're stuck with.
- There's the foundation of the previous house (which I was in, in the 90's & have pics of) which was burned down on purpose (it was beyond repair), filled in, and we now call "the groundhog holes", lol. We're toying with excavating it one day and maybe we'd have a giant root cellar & storage! Maybe.
- There's a mostly-dried up pond that only has an inch or two of water in the spring, and is mud or dry the rest of the year.
- There are 2 areas of woods, and a few fields between them.
- My dad said many years ago there's a spring in the aspen grove, but he never wanted to investigate.

Most of all, there's POTENTIAL!
Can you see why I'm so excited, like a little kid?
I feel like I've hit the jackpot! We still have to arrange buying it from my dad's wife, but for now we can go there when we have time (it's 5hrs away) and do what we want.

Lemon balm gets a hearty vote here! Studies have proven it to kill many viruses, including various flu strains and oral herpes (cold sores). I made a lip balm from it and my husband's annual 2-week cold sore was only 1 week, and half the size and half the pain.