Various online dictionaries show the use of “ducky” as an adverb to mean fine, excellent or wonderful. With a couple of long weekends and more time to rest, I’ve been a bit duckier recently.

There are some things that are better saved for opportune times. Long holiday weekends are good for making some foods that require a bit more time or effort, or result in leftovers that are better enjoyed sooner than later. For me, roasts fall into that category and New Year’s Eve and Day seemed an excellent time to enjoy some roast duck as the bill of fare. It works out well to enjoy duck a few times a year as something special but not a flight of fancy. While not difficult to make it does require some time and maybe a bit of patience. The end result is enough meat for 6-8 servings.

For stuffing the bird I made a small batch of basmati rice, ½ cup dry, plus ½ large onion, ½ each green and red bell pepper, 2-3 cloves garlic, a stick of celery, some cilantro and parsley, and seasoned with curry mix, sage, thyme, rosemary and bay leaf. In truth, lots of things will work out, feel free to wing it. While the stuffing was cooking the bird was rinsed, prepped and racked. The oven was preheated while the bird was stuffed and tied, then the whole thing went in the oven for a couple hours. The evening meal only required putting some asparagus in the oven when the duck was nearly done, and throwing together a salad. The duck is a bit easier to carve after it has cooled and except for what is used that night, I wait until the next day to pull the rest of the meat off the carcass. The neck, spine, tail and rib meats suits me for ‘anytime’ snacks rather than trying to pick out the meat for use in a dish. The drippings get poured off and saved as well. It’s a bit naughty, but I like to use a spoonful of the fat to flavor some other dishes over the next several days.

Lunch the next day was pulled duck with collards, onion and garlic. The vegetables were braised in a bit of duck fat until soft, followed by adding the duck and allowing the mix to finish steaming through for a couple hours with just a bit of extra water added. I find the long cooking time helps me digest the collards more easily. This kind of dish is pretty simple, it just flew together.

Some other ideas I have done in the past include using the pulled meat with broccoli and a cheese sauce, also known as "cheese and quackers." Or Cold Duck Time,a jazzy number of sliced breast with mashed rutabaga and a salad. Hope you enjoyed this blog, thanks for ducking in!

"¿Cómo perder aquellos kilos de más?" o "Como echar a andar nuestros nuevos propósitos?” Debemos tomar pequeños pasos exitosos que nos lleven a cambios palpables. Utilicemos la energía que nos va dando el realizar dicho propósito, que sirva para alimentar dicha meta trazada. Debemos establecer un plan preventivo saludable, creando nuevas costumbres, rutinas sencillas que podamos transformar en hábitos, como lavarse los dientes cada mañana. Un compromiso a la salud, combatiendo al estrés en nuestras vidas. Solo estando bien con uno mismo, podremos poner el ejemplo a nuestros seres queridos enriqueciendo nuestro espíritu y desempeño en toda actividad.

Apliquemos métodos de desintoxicación para mantener los órganos en óptimo funcionamiento. Es sabido que el mundo en que vivimos está contaminado y que esto tiene efectos negativos sobre nuestra salud. Curiosamente, siguiendo los lineamientos de los planes alimenticios del
Dr. D'Adamo lograremos esta desintoxicación paulatina y efectiva, asistiendo a nuestro organismo, eliminando inflamación crónica causada por malos hábitos alimenticios y de estilo de vida, adecuando nuestras dietas a nuestra fisiología y genética.

Hay todo un ecosistema de tejido inmune y bacterias, algunas "malas" otras "buenas". Las enfermedades digestivas y del sistema inmune se presentan cuando dicho ecosistema se encuentra fuera de balance debido a una dieta y hábitos deficientes y se expone a toxinas exógenas creando una condición de "dysbiósis". Las toxinas, sólo por nombrar unas cuantas, incluyen plagicidas, herbicidas, PCB y PVC de plásticos, hormonas y residuos de medicamentos farmacéuticos en nuestro suministro de agua y medio ambiente.

Toxinas suelen almacenarse en el tejido graso del cuerpo. Investigaciones recientes han encontrado que personas con sólo 10 libras de sobre-peso llevan probablemente una carga tóxica que está contribuyendo a problemas de salud en general. En otras palabras, la eliminación de toxinas debe ser una parte integral de cualquier programa saludable que uno adopte.

Las recomendaciones para desintoxicación o limpieza incluyen el uso de bacterias benéficas, o "probióticos" específicos homeopáticos formulados por el Dr. D'Adamo, en apoyo a los demás órganos de eliminación como son el hígado, riñones, pulmones y la piel. Cada persona tiene su punto débil, tanto los pulmones, o la piel entre otros y las formulas homeopáticas del Dr. D'Adamo se centran en cada uno de sus órganos, de manera integral.

La dieta del GenoTipo examina las posibilidades epigenéticas y el uso de dieta y nutrición para alterar la función de genes y destino genético de manera profunda y positiva.

Esto no es una dieta per se, sino un estilo de vida de acuerdo a la fisiología e individualidad genética de cada quien. Se trata de incorporar los alimentos que nos caen bien y que trabajen junto con nuestro cuerpo a nivel fisiológico, enseñándonos a comer de manera saludable y correcta.

Simplemente leer los libros y aplicar los lineamientos de acuerdo a la individualidad de cada quien es lo que les llevara al éxito para lograr que este nuevo año sea uno de salud plena y expresión global para realizar sus metas y proyectos visualizados.

Evitar aquellos alimentos perjudiciales, moderar aquellos neutros y concentrarse en alimentos beneficiosos. Inmediatamente obtienen más energía, mejoran su digestión, bajan o suben de peso, dependiendo del caso y se sentirán mejor ya que su cuerpo entra en un estado de equilibrio tan anhelado hoy en día por tantos.

El racionar las porciones en cada comida, es sinónimo de longevidad, y el Dr. D'Adamo nos indica dichas porciones a seguir dentro de cada grupo de alimentos y no exceder dicha individualidad. "Todos somos diferentes. Lo que es bueno para uno no es adecuado para el otro."

No dejes para mañana aquello que puedas comenzar hoy! Suerte!

Contáctenme con sus dudas en como aplicar los lineamientos conforme a su individualidad, utilizando las herramientas de reseteo genético y epigenético de las cuales nos viene ilustrando el Dr. D'Adamo desde la publicación de su controversial libro que tiene a los genetistas de cabeza.

Nuestra comunidad de apoyo en FB crece a pasos agigantados, los invito a darse una vuelta por allí!

We didn’t have internet for Christmas. To tell the truth it was very strange. I had no idea how internet dependent I had become. No e-mail, no social networking, no communication with clients, no alternative news sources. I couldn’t even wish my sister a Merry Christmas. I felt rather isolated. However, I had time to read. I had forgotten just how much I enjoy becoming immersed in a good book.

DD and I got to cook together for Christmas Eve dinner. We were in charge of bringing vegetables. We fixed ginger carrots and basil green beans. Both are easy recipes that I’m pretty sure I have blogged about before.

We had also planned to do a raw veggie tray. DD saw a picture of a veggie tree on line, so we did that instead. This will become one of our family traditions. It was healthy and so cute. If you are need a unique idea for a New Year’s Eve party – consider this.

Here is the original link, so you can see a picture.
Click here for Veggie Christmas Tree Picture
The instructions are very wordy. I think I can condense her multiple pages into a couple of paragraphs.

You start with a 12 inch Styrofoam cone. Cover the sides (not the bottom) with aluminum foil. This is so the vegetables don’t touch the Styrofoam. Hot glue the bottom of the cone to a glass plate that is not an heirloom. Our cone popped right off without damaging the plate, but I wouldn’t take a chance.

Start at the bottom and using tooth picks, stick broccoli to the cone. It takes two big bunches of broccoli to cover the cone. For “decorations” use carrots, cherry tomatoes, radishes, cauliflower, or any other raw vegetable you like. Sometimes we used toothpicks Sometimes we just squeezed the decorations between the broccoli. We put a bowl of dip beside the tree for family members who don’t eat plain raw veggies.

It was a delight to look at, and delicious to eat.

You are a collection of cells (literally trillions of them), each with a specific design and function. However, with a few exceptions, your cells all have a basic architectural design. Most of the time they are depicted as looking like a fried egg cooked sunny side up, but in reality they are three dimensional beings, more akin to a golf ball that you’ve cut across its midline. The “white” of our cell model is the body of the cell, and here are found many specialized areas called organelles that do particular jobs, much like our own internal organs have specific jobs as well. The “yolk” of our cell model is called the nucleus, and in this compartment there lies the object of our affections, the chromosomes.

Chromosomes were first discovered at the end of the 19th century by a German biologist named Walther Flemming. Flemming was looking at cells under a microscope and got the idea to use colors to dye the cell to make it easier to see things. The idea must have worked better than anticipated since he at once began to see spaghetti looking things in the nucleus that dyed a very deep color. As is the fashion, he named these entities chromosomes which is Greek for “colored bodies”.

Chromosomes are one of the more dynamic faces of Nature; they have to be, since they are responsible for the passing on of the 'Baton of Life' that we call reproduction. The number of chromosome in the cell nucleus differs somewhat from species to species. We humans have 46 chromosomes; dogs have 78; alligators 32; cabbage plants 18.

Your chromosomes are both the governess and chauffeur of the most important molecule in your body: DNA --which is actually two molecules wrapped around each other. Like any blueprint, DNA needs to be read in order for the work order to be constructed. Now, DNA is a long, long molecule. If it were completely unraveled it would be about six feet long, yet so thin that it would be invisible, since you can easily fit one million cells on the head of a pin. If the entire DNA, in every cell of your body, was stretched out and laid end-to-end in a straight line, it would reach to the sun and back over one thousand times.

Heavy.

I think an effective way of describing the dynamic qualities of the chromosome is to use a few metaphors. My older daughter likes to knit, so we often visit the knitting supply shop in town for fresh yarn. Yarn usually comes wrapped in skeins, a length of yarn wound around a reel. Most yarn comes in lengths of 80-150 yards. One of the nice things about buying yarn this way, rather than just as one long unwound string, is that you can put it under your arm and walk to the car. This is certainly better than tying a knot to the rear bumper and pulled the unwound string all the way home. Thus, the first important lesion of chromosome dynamics; if you’re going to reproduce you’ve got to stuff that entire DNA into a very small, tight package. Chromosomes are just that: tight packages of DNA.

On the other hand, it is very difficult, if not downright impossible to knit anything if the skein of yarn still has the paper label wrapped around it. In order to use the yarn, you have to unwind it. That’s the formula: when the cell needs to use DNA to get information about how to make a protein, it has to unwind it. When it needs to reproduce, or turn off the DNA information flow, it needs to concentrate and condense it.

How this occurs is rather wondrous, and will be the subject of much discussion later on when we talk about how you can modify your genetic destiny, but for now we’ll just stick to the basics. DNA is packaged and concentrated by special proteins termed histones. This concentrated DNA is called chromatin, which is the DNA plus the histones that package DNA within the cell nucleus. Chromatin structure is also relevant to DNA replication and DNA repair.

Histones are very cool bead-like proteins that spool the DNA in a way that makes it either tighter or looser, sort of like the cardboard around which our skein of yarn is wrapped. Histones respond to changes in their structure by tightening the DNA wrap or loosening it. Whenever a cell needs to access the genetic information encoded in its DNA, the histones on the section of the DNA that is needed undergo a chemical reaction called acetylation by which a molecule called an acetyl group is stuck on the histones, causing them to relax and unravel. When business is concluded for the day, special enzymes come along and chomp off the acetyl group cause the histones to become de-acetylated, which makes them tighten up again, sending the DNA in the region back to its resting state. Think of it like this; when your DNA needs to work its histones chow down on acetyl groups for breakfast and they do yoga; when it needs to reproduce or shut down, the histones lift weights --the strain of which causes the acetyl group to pop out of their mouths.

Make sure that you’ve mastered the last paragraph, because much of the very cool stuff dealing with how you can modify gene functions pretty much requires that you know this stuff. By the way, this is very, very cutting edge material; only until recent times have we understood this mechanism, and of supremely paramount importance, that it is used by the environment to influence gene function and that influence, for either good or bad, can be passed on as inheritance.

Scientists have given each human chromosome a number, according to its size; thus chromosome number 1 is the largest, then number 2, etc. Chromosomes come in pairs, one from each parent. So there are 23 pairs, for a total of 46 in us humans. Numbers 1-22 are non-sex chromosomes called autosomes, and pair 23 contains the X and Y sex chromosomes.

In the few minutes it has taken to read up to here, this, around 400 million of your red blood cells were depleted and replaced, consistent with the set of genetic instructions contained in your DNA.

Since starting the BTD about 6 years ago, I have developed an approach towards cooking that makes the most sense for me. I’m going to use this space to cover all the background and ‘basics’. It will also serve as a reference for my future blogs about cooking.

• Most days I don’t have the energy to use more than 30-40 minutes preparing a meal, many days I don’t have the time. But I’m not overly fond of leftovers! That means the vast majority of things I make are simple and/or don’t require a lot of preparation work. The meals I feature that take more effort should be viewed as the exception rather than the rule. Anything that takes more time than that is something that can be left on the stove or in the oven for extended periods without the need for stirring, turning or otherwise needing attention.
• My personalized diet plan, SWAMI, suggests only a single serving of grain daily. Another reason not to spend a lot of time or energy on baked goods, when whole grains used in meals suit my tastes better. From time to time I will make a batch of cookies or a no crust pie. Other baked goods are very infrequent. I do use rice noodles on occasion.
• Ideally all food is grass-fed, wild, free range, organic and fresh. My world is not ideal, so I use canned or frozen food sometimes and buy some produce that is not organic. When a recipe is given, assume that all foods start out fresh and have been made ready for use by washing, trimming, peeling or other normal preparations.
• Most of the things I make don’t require precise measurements. I treat recipes as guidelines that are open to interpretation. Recipes are there to provide ideas first, and methodology if trying ‘something different.’ The ingredient list may be modified and quantities are only a ballpark suggestion.
• In the spirit of the previous bullet, when I say ‘butter’ or ‘olive oil’ that might be what I use, but someone else might use ghee, some other oil or fat, or even eschew added fats for some recipes. It’s all about ideas.
• I have a few ‘tricks’ that come up frequently. One is using a little extra water. For digestive purposes I like my grains softer and more water is how you get there. Another reason is for leaving foods cooking on the stovetop with less need for checking or stirring. Sometimes that makes a dish ‘wetter’ than one might normally want and that gives rise to another trick – tempering in an egg or two near the end of the cooking period. It’s a way to thicken and makes things a bit ‘richer’ at the same time. Like many people I can use an egg or so per day.
• Presentation is a nice touch. For example, when using peppers choose different colors to make a dish more visually appetizing with a minimum of effort. I don’t always manage to do those type things but they are something to keep in mind.
• I tend to use a curry mix at least once a day when cooking. It’s something that I prepare enough of at one time to last a week or two. You’ll have to figure out your own mix. This is what serves as my base, with occasional additions:
  2 parts each of coriander, turmeric, fenugreek and ginger
  1 part each of cayenne, cinnamon and clove

That’s about it for the time being. This will get amended later as needed.

Recently, things have gotten tight financially because of the “training wage” I have earning with my new job for the last 2 months. The trail mix and burgers I have become accustomed to have had to give way to processed turkey and beef bologna sandwich slices.

Besides the obvious avoids in the processed meats another irritating side effect is the hunger created because I am not giving my body the necessary protein it needs or is accustomed to. I’m an O Non Secretor and I require more protein to feel satisfied. The turkey only keeps the hunger at bay for an hour and I don’t function well when I’m hungry and unsatisfied. I eat a lot more and have cravings for other avoids because of it.

Luckily this is only a temporary phenomenon for me. For those of you out there that might not be following ERFYT as closely as you need to, this might give you some insight as to why you are always hungry and or cannot lose weight or be satisfied after meals. Your body knows what it needs and if you don’t give it what it wants, it will find alternative ways to make up the difference at your overall (health) expense.

How a near disastrous lunch turned into a new favorite recipe.

This adventure started at the grocery store last week when they had frozen packaged cod on sale. I’m talking really on sale - 60% off. The expiration date was fine, so I bought several packages.

This morning I took one of the packages out of the freezer, planning grilled cod and vegetables for lunch. The house is cool (we keep our thermostat on 68-70 in the winter) and the cod was thick, so it was still mostly frozen when I was ready to cook. That was ok. I put it in a skillet on low heat and started washing produce.

Maybe I was hungry, but it seemed to be taking a long time for the cod to thaw, even in the skillet. I was concerned about it sticking to the bottom of the pan, so I added a chopped onion and the juice of one lemon to increase the moisture.

The next time I peeked under the lid, there was too much moisture. The fish was thawed, but it was falling apart, more like ground meat than a fillet. I took a taste. The flavor was nice, but it did not look at all appetizing.

Soon the fish was cooked, but it looked like mush. How was I going to serve it? Gumbo came to my mind. I added a sprinkle of Creole seasoning. Then I opened a small can of tomato paste. I tossed in a little celery seed. Remembering rice left over from last night’s dinner, I divided it into two bowls, and called my Honorable Husband to the table. - - - He loved it.

He said, “I think I would rather have fish in a casserole like this, than have a chunk of fish on my plate.” I was stunned. Moments before I had been considering making him a peanut butter sandwich to hide my embarrassment, now we were brainstorming about how to make this accidental fish casserole better the next time. I suggested okra; he suggested broccoli; we both thought of carrots.

I have several packages of frozen cod to experiment with. Perhaps I will measure and come up with a real recipe. Or perhaps I will just wing it - that technique certainly worked well this time.

I eat a lot of veggies every week. I don’t do it because I think it’s good for me. I really crave them. Maybe it’s because I have had Lyme disease for the last 15 years or so and needs the minerals. Or maybe I’m just a little strange. But here’s what I eat pretty much every week.

Large bowl of salad (four large dinner plates of greens) two heads of lettuce, one bunch of parsley or cilantro, four carrots, one bell pepper, one fennel bulb, six mushroom (the veggies vary somewhat every week)

Stir Fry – 1 lb of meat - rice, beans, or quinoa - two or three large plates of veggies. Right now I like Bok Choy, Peppers, mushroom, onions, garlic, and zucchini.

Soup or Stew – 1 or 2 lbs of meat with at least three large plates of veggies. I make my own broth so that uses at least one plate of veggies. Then I put in one of two more plates toward the end of cooking. For the broth I like, carrots, parsnips, celery, celery root, onions, and garlic. For the dish I like kale, spinach, sweet potatoes, carrots, jalapeños, peas, and squash.

So by the end of the week I’ve eaten about 10 large plates of veggies a week! When I go to the store the check out person often asks how many people in my family to which I reply “this is just for me”!

I don’t eat a lot of fruit. Again it’s just a personal choice. I usually have 1 piece of fruit a day and about 8oz of juice. I have a strong reaction to sugar so I’m sure that’s what keeps me from eating more fruit.

I wonder what will happen as I recover from Lyme. Will I need this many veggies? Will I crave them like I do now? If I’m lucky, I will recover from this illness and I’ll find out. I’ll keep you posted.