Anti-Stress Nutrition Programme to Improve Mood,
Health, Behaviour and Learning
By Brenda Sampson
LOW ALLERGY RECIPES
See also Baking hints for low-allergen cooks
NEVER LEAVE FOODS RAW OR COOKED IN ALUMINIUM CONTAINERS LONGER THAN NECESSARY. PREFERABLY USE BEST QUALITY STAINLESS STEEL FOR ALL COOKING.
SAMPSON EASY LOAF RECIPE:
makes three small loaves.
Milk, wheat, gluten, egg, yeast and sugar free. For Feingold diet choose low salicylate flavourings. Use a large measuring cup, the size of the black glass coffee mugs commonly seen nowadays. I use linseed jelly in bread. It is not necessary, you can use water instead. But the linseed jelly makes the loaves moister and less crumbly. Prepare the jelly beforehand.
Linseed Jelly
Soak 1 tablespoon of linseed in a half cup of water overnight. Next day fill up the cup with hot water and whizz in blender till the seeds are ground and jelly forms. Linseed jelly can also be used as an egg substitute in baking. Use 2 tablespoons of jelly to replace 1 egg.
Bread Recipe
1. Grease three loaf tins with oil, clean dripping or butter if allowed
2. Sift dry ingredients 6 cups of flour, use any that you have or any that you like, or a mixture 2 teaspoons baking soda, 4 teaspoon cream of tartar, 1 small teaspoon of salt Add handful of walnuts or other nuts if you like.
3. Whizz wet ingredients to a frothy cream 1 cup linseed jelly, 2 ½ cups of hot water, 2 tablespoon cold pressed oil, 2 cups of any fruit or vegetable; it can be cooked or raw, chopped, grated or mashed; suggestions follow at the end.
4. Mix wet into dry ingredients. Rinse out the blender with ½ cup of warm water, probably this extra liquid will be needed, the mixture should be soft and moist. Divide into three tins and cook 1 hour at about 400°F or 200°C. Do not cut till the next day, it improves with keeping. Keep spare loaves in fridge or freezer.
Flavours
Low Salicylate flavours : Chopped pears, mashed bananas, pumpkin with a few cloves of garlic, any root vegetable chopped or grated. I have used carrot and red beet.
Other flavours: grated raw apple or cooked apple pulp, with 2 teaspoons cinnamon and some sultanas.
Zucchini or marrow flavoured with ginger, 1 teaspoon of powder or 2 teaspoons of grated raw ginger.
This recipe makes a moist flavourful loaf that does not need a spread. It is important not to cut it till it is 24 hours old, the flavour improves with keeping. The loaves are small and compact, with a dense meaty texture. If you want the slices to look bigger cut them at a 45 degree If eggs are tolerated and you wish to use 2 eggs instead of linseed, separate whites and yolks. Put the yolks in the blender with the wet ingredients and beat the whites till stiff. Mix the wet and dry ingredients using more water if necessary, and at the very end fold in the egg white to give extra lightness.
BREAD RECIPE WITH WHEAT FLOUR, easy and delicious
A member writes "I have an excellent bread recipe to share, so simple."
4 cups wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons wheatgerm
1 teaspoon baking powder
600 mls acidophilus yoghurt
Mix all ingredients, put in a loaf tin and bake 1 hour at 200°C Can be varied by putting different seeds on top, or adding chopped fruit, dried fruit or nuts. Wheat free dieters could try this recipe using alternative flours.
PUMPKIN AND GARLIC LOAF
Wet ingredients: mash these together in a pot over a low heat
1 cup boiling water
110 gms butter or ¼ cup cold pressed safflower oil
1 level teaspoon salt
2 large cloves of chopped garlic
2 cups cooked pumpkin
1 tablespoon golden syrup, optional
Sift dry ingredients
4 cups of any tolerated flour, try a cup each of barley, rye, soya, rice, etc. 2 teaspoons baking soda and 4 teaspoons cream of tartar.
Stir wet into dry ingredients and add more warm water if too stiff Bake in two greased loaf tins at 400F for about an hour. If you want to avoid using too much soda, ask your chemist for some potassium bicarbonate and use it with cream of tartar as a raising agent to replace baking soda.
WAFFLES are now all the rage in our house!
Ever since I stopped eating bread, I have missed the delicious crunch of crisp toast. But now I have found an even more delicious replacement, waffles. My Aunt Marcia heard me mention how I loved waffles and advertised for a second hand electric waffle iron and gave it to me for a birthday present. But we did not use it much because my mother had a coronary and a stroke and waffles made with eggs and topped with jam and cream are very high cholesterol food. However there is a low allergen, low cholesterol waffle recipe in Linda Edwards "Baking on a limited wholefood diet" which I found very much to my taste. Here it is - waffle cookers are such a reasonable price these days.
Ingredients
1 ½ cups oat flour or tolerated alternative
flour
1 ½ cups water
½ cup sesame seed
½ teaspoon salt
Method
The sesame seeds need to be ground. Put ½ cup flour in blender. Add sesame seeds. Whizz till flour and seeds combine. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and beat with eggbeater to a thick but slightly runny cream. Add a little more water or flour if needed.
Allow 5 minutes for waffle iron to heat, grease it if necessary with butter or sweet dripping, (some newer irons are non-stick). Pour in the batter and allow 5 minutes to cook. If you open the waffle iron too soon, the waffle will split open in the middle. If it does just shut it again. The nice part is that you can make a bigger quantity and keep them in fridge or freezer. When you are ready to use them you can re crisp them in a toaster or in the oven. They can be topped with sliced banana or other fruit, but the sesame seed gives a nutty flavour and I enjoy them plain with no topping, just as a biscuit.
CHRISTMAS FRUIT CAKE
(no wheat, eggs, dairy or sugar, but high in salicylate. For the salicylate-sensitive, reduce currants/sultanas/raisins and give vitamins/minerals to reduce sensitivity. See Information about salicylate)
2 cups water
1 ½ cups rice flour
1 cup sultanas
1 ½ cups soya flour
1 cup currants
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ cup chopped raisins
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 ½ cups cold mashed pumpkin
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoons grated lemon rind
1 teaspoon nutmeg
3 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Combine fruit and water in a large pot preferably stainless steel or enamel. Bring to boil and remove from heat. Stir in pumpkin, lemon rind and oil; cool and stir in sifted dry ingredients. Pour into greased 8 inch ring tin. Bake in moderate oven 1 ½ to 2 hours. This cake has no added sugar, so will not keep a long time. When cold, wrap in double layer of aluminium foil and store in fridge.
BREAKFAST MUESLI
Mix one cup of each of the following in a large plastic bag: Oatmeal or rolled oats, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds. Use a half cup sprinkled over any chopped or grated raw fruit. If you do not tolerate wheatgerm, try coconut instead. Try to eat it without adding fluid, chewing it thoroughly so that it becomes liquid in the mouth with saliva. All food should be liquidified in this way, because digestion begins in the mouth with an enzyme called ptyalin found in saliva.
PORRIDGE IS MORE NOURISHING & BETTER VALUE THAN PACKET CEREALS
Recipe: 1 cup of oatmeal or any ground meal; fine cornmeal, wheatmeal, rye, millet, brown rice or buckwheat flour (use a different grain each day).
1 small teaspoon salt, 1 cup hot water and two cups of boiling water. Mix the meal to a slightly runny paste with the hot water and stir it into the salted boiling water. Simmer gently for a few minutes, cover and remove from heat. Keep the pot warm with a teacosy or a warm cloth. After fifteen minutes it will be ready to eat. Eat it without milk or sugar. All grain food should be well chewed to mix it with saliva since saliva is what enables it to be digested. For flavouring one can add chopped tolerated fruits, dried fruits, nuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, etc. Try medium ground cornmeal porridge with a peeled and grated pear. It's delicious.
Try to use freshly ground grains. If you have a liquidiser, use it to grind your own. Soak grains in a cup of water overnight; next morning liquidise and add boiling water to make porridge. If you do not have a liquidiser and find it hard to get freshly ground grains, try making porridge with whole unground grains. Still use the proportions of one cup of grain to three cups of water. Soak the grain overnight in cold water; next day add boiling water and salt and simmer gently till all the water is absorbed. Or use the haybox method of keeping the pot hot without heat, by wrapping it in something warm: Soak the grain in cold water in the morning. In the evening add boiling water and bring it to boil. Cover the pot, place it on a warm mat and wrap it in a warm cloth. By next morning it will have absorbed most of the water and will need only a little more cooking.
If you have or can get a wide mouth thermos, there is a very easy and delicious way to cook whole grains. Put a suitable amount of the grain in the thermos at night, add three times the amount of boiling water, put the lid on and leave it. In the morning the grain will be cooked. You can use wheat, rice, millet, or any grain. If tolerated, chopped apple and sultanas can be included in the thermos for flavour. Try mixing a little millet with rice for a crunchy texture.
SPREADS
HOUMUS:
Small cup of chickpeas, soak in water then whizz smooth and keep in fridge. A pinch of salt improves it. Other optional ingredients are: Cover with water overnight, drain, cook in water till soft. Put them in a blender with about 4 cloves of garlic, a peeled lemon, and a big bunch of roughly chopped parsley. Whizz with a cup of sesame seeds and 1 or 2 tablespoons of cold pressed safflower or olive oil.
Houmus can be made without a blender. Mash the chickpeas, squeeze the lemon juice out, crush the garlic and chop the parsley finely. Mix thoroughly and add salt if you wish.
BLACK CURRANT JAM:
250 gms black currants, whizzed in liquidiser with ½ cup water. ½ cup sago, soak it in 1 cup cold water till it swells, about 15 minutes. Cook the sago in another cup of water till it goes clear. Add the currants and bring back to the boil. Taste it and add a little honey to sweeten it if you wish. This method can be used with any tart fruit. Keep in fridge and store surplus in freezer.
SOY BUTTER
(to replace margarine which should NOT be used): ¾ cup soy flour and ¾ cup of water. Cook over boiling water, (use a double boiler, or a two-part saucepan with a steamer unit and a bowl inside the steamer, or just a bowl in a pot with an inch of water in the pot). Whizz the cooked soy flour with ¾ cup cold pressed safflower oil.
LOW-SUGAR JAM SPREAD OR DESSERT from fruit and sago:
It is a Danish dish. My Danish grandfather taught his wife and my mother to make it. Method: Jelly stewed fruit with sago. Use about half a cup of sago to about a pound of fruit. Before cooking the fruit, fill the half cup of sago to the top with cold water. Cook the stewed fruit in the usual way. By the time it is cooked, the sago will have swelled to fill the cup; if not help it with a stir. Add the soaked sago to the boiling fruit and cook it very gently for a few minutes longer till the sago becomes transparent. Taste it and if you find it too sour, add some sugar or honey to your taste. Bring it back to the boil. Put into heated glass preserving jars. If you wish to preserve it, seal it with preserving lids. It will keep quite well in a cold part of the fridge for 2 or 3 weeks without sealing. This is a good way of using strongly flavoured or acid things such as tamarillos, rhubarb, plums and gooseberries. The sago makes the flavour more bland, so that less sweetening is needed. Mild flavoured fruits are nicer jellied with Davis pure gelatine. Jellied fruit goes further than stewed fruit served in its juice. Jellied with sago the dessert can be served hot or cold. Also sago can be used with some fruit such as plums that cannot be jellied with gelatine.
Use sago-jellied fruits as a spread: I have often used rhubarb cooked like this as a tangy spread on meat or cheese sandwiches, in place of tomato sauce or chutney. The other day I found an icecream carton of frozen raspberries in the freezer, and made some delicious raspberry jam in the same way. We used it spread like jam on hot pancakes, and at another meal as a cold dessert. I cooked the raspberries in about a cup or more of water, and then added sago instead of sugar. (Remember that sugar is the preservative in jam; without sugar you need to preserve in some other way, such as sealing with preserving lids.) Tamarillos are delicious cooked in this way. Cut off the stalks, cut in half, cook them till the skins come off easily, then add sago and a little sweetening if desired. The more water and sago used, the less sugar needed.
RAW PARSLEY SOUP
A quick and easy drink for winter lunches or after school snacks - rich in vitamin C and minerals. Liquidise 1 chopped onion, a small potato scrubbed but not peeled, 1 small level teaspoon of salt in one cup of water. Bring this liquid to the boil to thicken it, do not cook it any longer. Take a good-sized bunch of parsley, chop it roughly and liquidise it in a cup of milk or milk substitute. Add this green milk to the boiling soup and it should be about the right temperature to drink. If too cool, heat it a little more, but do not boil it as this destroys the vitamin C. If the two liquids do not mix smoothly, beat them together with an egg beater.
HINT TO SAVE TIME AND TROUBLE
If you are too busy to cook, don't buy readymade foods; serve as many foods as possible raw, Cooking destroys valuable nutrients. If a food can be enjoyed raw, don't waste time, electricity and nutrients by cooking it. A mother said, "At my child's party the most popular food was carrot sticks made from baby carrots."
PATTIES, RISSOLES AND MEAT LOAF TO REPLACE BREAD
Someone rang me to ask where they could obtain sausages suitable for Feingold children, and my husband overheard the conversation. Afterwards he said, "Why don't you tell people to make their own sausages? We always used to on the farm; they are quite easy to make." I asked him for particulars. They are more like rissoles than sausages and far more delicious This is how to make them:
500 gm mince
1 cup wholemeal flour
1 level teaspoon salt
1 onion chopped finely
1 teaspoon dried mixed herbs, or else some chopped parsley and thyme, marjoram
or sage from the garden
1 beaten egg (optional).
Mix ingredients and work them into a dough with your hands. Shape the dough into patties and dip them in flour. Fry them gently in a little dripping till they are brown, about 12 minutes, then turn to brown the other side. Keep the lid on the pan while cooking. Serve with vegetables and gravy made from stock or vegetable water. If there are any left over, they are fine reheated in gravy. A child might like to eat one cold as an after school-snack.
It is illegal to put preservative in mince, but some small local butchers still do it. One can tell if preservative has been added, because it turns the mince which would be a purplish colour, a bright tomato red. If possible buy mince at a shop which has a quick turnover, because they will sell their mince quickly and will not need to put preservative in it.
RISSOLES OUST SANDWICHES
Many people who have to avoid wheat, rye or corn bread, can have a much more attractive and nutritional lunch or snack with rissoles made from cooked vegetables, cereals, legumes and sprouts. It is often important for allergic children taking lunch to school to be seen eating exciting food.
Cook extra of the allowed vegetables, legumes or cereals of the day: taro, lentils, carrots, parsnips, beans, kumara, rice, etc. Reduce to a thick paste in a food processor, blender or mincer. Add an egg if you wish. Add chopped onion, parsley, herbs, grated ginger, garlic, sprouts, sea salt or kelp, as desired. Make flat rissoles, cover with flour or crumbs of allowed cereal and bake lightly on lightly oiled oven tray. Alternatively the mixture can be baked as a loaf in a casserole dish or loaf tin.
RECIPES USING LENTILS
Soak brown lentils in water for 12 hours, drain, cover with water, cook to a mash with a cup of diced onion, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Add a cup of pea flour or other tolerated flour, two egg yolks or whole eggs if tolerated. Mould into balls in suitable flour and fry in a greased pan.
LENTIL RISSOLES
225 gms cooked lentils 1 onion, minced, grated or chopped finely 1 ½ cups soft tolerated breadcrumbs 1 or 2 potatoes cooked and mashed 1/4 cup sesame seeds 1 tablespoon chopped parsley 1 beaten egg
Mix all together and fry in a little dripping for 10 minutes each side
FISH AND POTATO RISSOLES
A good source of protein and vitamin C. Fish has become very expensive; the cheapest way to buy it is to buy a whole fish. Bake it in the oven in a covered dish with about half a cup of water, or steam it in a big pot, simmering it very gently with half a cup of water to produce steam. When it is tender, lift the flesh off the bones and serve the pieces hot with parsley sauce. Make the sauce with the juice from the fish. Make thickening by mixing any tolerated flour to a paste with any tolerated milk, sesame milk is nice. Flavour the sauce with chopped parsley, finely chopped onion, salt and pepper.
To make rissoles, save 2 cups of cooked fish flakes and mix them with 3 cups of mashed potato, salt and pepper, a finely chopped onion and a bunch of parsley chopped fine. Shape them into fish cakes, dip them in any tolerated flour and fry them gently in a pan till brown on both sides.
ALTERNATIVE TO BREAD/TOAST FOR GLUTEN FREE DIET
From a letter: "Instead of bread I make waffles on a Ralta waffle machine. Recipe: 1 oz cornmeal, 1 oz rice flour, 1 oz melted butter, 1 egg yolk. Mix these together with milk and fold in a stiffly beaten egg white. I serve these buttered and my two year old loves them."
PRESSED TONGUES
A good snack for a child is a slice of cold meat, with a carrot or celery stick or a piece of fruit. Use pressed tongue for this purpose. Pressed tongues are a useful source of cold meat, and much healthier than luncheon sausage or ham. Keep one or two cooked ox tongues in the freezer for a convenience food that only needs thawing. Usually as soon as the butcher gets tongues, he puts them in a brine that contains toxic preservatives such as nitrates. In our case, we order the tongues and say that we would like them fresh and not to put them in the brine. They take very long slow cooking so we usually ask for two ox tongues and six or more sheep tongues and cook them together in a very large saucepan which holds more than 12 pints. We press the ox tongues and freeze them and use the sheep tongues hot with a sauce made from the cooking water, which can be used as stock since the tongues have not been in the toxic brine.
Method: Cover the tongues with water and add the following flavourings. Reduce the quantities if you are cooking fewer tongues. 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon honey, 1 teaspoon vinegar, 1/4 teaspoon pickling spice or a few cloves and peppercorns, 8 cloves of garlic and a few bay leaves if you have them. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 4 hours. You can tell when it is cooked because the skin will peel off easily. Peel the ox tongues. Sheep tongues have thinner skins and peeling is optional. Press the ox tongues by putting them in a basin while still hot. Cover with a small saucer and put a weight on the saucer to press the meat till it is cold. The sheep tongues can be pressed in the same way, or served hot. For the latter, make a sauce of the cooking water, thickened with a tolerated flour, or use stock and a tolerated milk, half and half, and flavour with chopped parsley. Another thing that can be cooked with the tongues, is half a dozen sheep hearts, or half an ox heart. Sliced thin when cold, they make an inexpensive and nourishing meat meal.
QUALITY MEAT AND VEGETABLE SOUP OR STEW
(anything left in an aluminium pot for any length of time can cause nasty tummy aches!!)
1 kilo or more of neck chops, and as many root vegetables as you can muster, onion, carrot, parsnip, swede, potato, artichoke.
2 tablespoons pearl barley, salt to taste. (Soak the barley in water overnight.) Cover the chops with water and simmer for 1 and a 1/2 hours till the meat is cooked. Let it stand overnight so that the fat hardens on the top and can be removed. Next day add diced vegetables and soaked barley and cook for a further half hour. Remove bones and serve, or if you wish make a gravy by thickening the cooking water with a flour and water paste. It is good as a winter time Irish stew dinner, or as an after school meal, or it can go in a wide mouth thermos as a school lunch.
WHEN YOU NEED SOMETHING QUICK AND EASY
Cook a large batch of rice and freeze the extra in meal sized portions for up to six months. Reheat in a casserole, or in a colander or basin above boiling water, or heat very gently in a covered saucepan containing half an inch of water.
An easy way to cook rice or other grains is by the haybox method, bringing the rice and water to the boil in a stainless steel saucepan (which retains heat). Place the pot on a warm mat, and cover with a teacosy or warm cloth to hold the heat in. You will need to reheat the pot to boiling point and cover it again with the warm cloth. Do this once or twice, till all the water is absorbed. The proportion is 1 cup of rice to 3 cups of water, plus a small level teaspoon of salt.
Make a large batch of Meat Balls. Freeze half and keep them on hand to add to any sauce, soup or casserole to use another night. They are also good for lunches or after school snacks. Recipe: (double the recipe for a larger quantity) 500 gm mince, 1 small cup of tolerated flour, 1 level teaspoon salt, 1 onion chopped finely, 1 teaspoon dried herbs, 1 beaten egg to bind (optional), a tomato peeled and chopped, if tolerated and in season. Mix all the ingredients and work the mixture into a dough with your hands. Shape into patties, dip them in flour. Fry them gently in a covered pan with a little dripping till brown, about 12 minutes, then turn and brown the other side. If you are doing a large quantity, it might be easier to brown them on an oven sheet in a very hot oven.
FISH FILLETS
Fish fillets cook very quickly; the less cooking the more tender and tasty they are.
Put a very little water into a large saucepan or frypan with lid, ¼ inch deep. Lay the fillets, singly if possible, over the bottom of the pot and sprinkle with salt. Cover and heat gently till the water boils, turn fillets over, cook a few seconds longer and remove pan from heat onto a warm mat. The fish is cooked as soon as it turns white. If you want a sauce, drain off the liquid, add equal quantity of water or tolerated milk, thicken with tolerated flour, flavour with chopped parsley. If the fillets are from a large fish and very thick, slice them crossways thinly before cooking. Can also be served sprinkled with lemon juice and garnished with finely chopped parsley.
TO ECONOMISE, BUY WHOLE FISH INSTEAD OF FILLETS
Cook in the same way with very little water in a saucepan. It will need longer cooking because it is thicker. It is cooked when the flesh leaves the bone. Lift off the flesh and serve with parsley sauce. Cats enjoy the skeleton, also the fish scraps that can be bought cheaply from fish shops. Poach in water in stainless steel saucepan till cooked. Leave in the water until cold. This forms a delicious edible jelly. Mash with potato masher to loosen the bones and feed to cats. They leave the bones for burial and their coats and eyes will gleam with health. If you do not have a cat bury the scraps in the garden as a fertiliser.
Danish people eat raw fish on open sandwiches: sprinkled with lemon juice, it's delicious. If you do not like the idea of eating raw fish; marinate it in lemon or lime juice till it turns white. It can then be made into a Tahitian type salad by adding chopped additions such as red and green peppers or gherkins and either coconut cream or tolerated mayonnaise.
TRY MOCK WHITEBAIT FRITTERS
With a sharp knife cut some fillets into shreds the size of whitebait, cutting across the grain of the fillet. Make a batter of 1 cup of tolerated flour, 1 cup of milk or water, 1 small level teaspoon salt, 1 egg. Beat it all with an egg beater for as long as you have energy. Then sift in 1 teaspoon baking powder with a little more flour and add the shredded fish. Grease a non-stick pan with a little good dripping and cook in spoonfuls like pikelets.
FISH CAKES MADE WITH SOFT ROE
If ever you see unsmoked fish roe, buy some and put it in the freezer. It is a very good food, full of protein, vitamins and minerals, and it is only available in spring.
Recipe: 1 to 2 cups roe, 1 cup of flour, ¾ cup water, 1 egg, 1 small teaspoon salt. Roe is easier to cut up before it is quite thawed. Slice it thin; if the slices are big, cut them up still smaller. Beat all the other ingredients together into a thick batter with an egg beater, then stir in the roe and beat again with a spoon to mix well. Cook like pikelets in a non stick pan greased with a little sweet dripping.
HOMEMADE ICECREAM
If cream is tolerated the easiest recipe is to beat some cream till it is thick and put it in a freezer. If eggs and sugar are also tolerated, try this: Beat separately, a bottle of cream, 3 egg yolks, 3 egg whites. Add some sugar, as little as you like, to the whites, and beat again till it dissolves. Fold all together till well mixed and freeze.
MILKFREE ICECREAM
A layer of tofu, 1 tablespoon honey, 1 tablespoon of cold pressed safflower oil; chopped strawberries, or any tolerated fruit. Blend it all and chill it in the freezer, beat it again later and re-freeze. Slice some bananas, roll the pieces in toasted sesame seeds. Freeze them and serve them with the icecream.
QUICK AND EASY ICECREAM (my favourite)
1 cup tofu, ½ cup each dates, Brazil nuts, crystallised ginger. Liquidise all in kitchen whizz and freeze.
CREAM OR INSTANT APPLE ICECREAM
2 sliced frozen bananas (if for cream, not too brown). 1 to 6 tablespoons stewed apple or apple juice (the more the creamier). Blend or process the frozen banana slices with the juice. Serve the icecream immediately and freeze any leftovers. If apple is not tolerated, use 2 grated pears with a squeeze of lemon juice and a little water.
ICECREAM (ABOUT A LITRE)
6 large soft bananas 4 tablespoons milk powder soya or goat, 1/3 cup water, handful chopped dates or nuts, 1/3 cup cold pressed sunflower or safflower oil. Blend bananas thoroughly and add rest of ingredients. Blend well and pour into container, cover and freeze. For a chocolate icecream try 2 tablespoons carob instead of the fruit or nuts
WHY HOMEMADE ICECREAM?
There is little control of the use of artificial flavours in food. Our Health Department lists only seven flavours that are not allowed in New Zealand foods, cade oil, coumarin, nitrobenzene, pyroligneous acid, saffrol and isosaffrol, sassafras oil. Apart from these, any artifical flavour or flavour enhancer may be legally used, but its use must be listed on the label as flavour or flavour enhancer.
Laboratory analyses have found the following chemicals used as artificial flavourings in some commercial icecreams, according to an article that has circulated for several years and been sent to me more than once:
Strawberry: benzyl acetate, a nitrate solvent, Banana: amyl acetate, an oil paint solvent Pineapple: ethyl acetate, a leather and textile cleaner whose vapours cause lung, heart and liver damage to employees in these industries. Etc.
I asked the Health Department whether any such substances could be used to flavour New Zealand icecream. The assistant said possibly. She did not know. The only way would be to ask the manufacturer. But he may not know if he buys his strawberry flavour from an American flavour manufacturer. By making your icecream, at least you know what is in it.
A member who had several foster children, said one boy was terribly difficult, the naughtiest child she had ever met. They had commercial icecream as a dessert every night, till one November she said, "No more!" She was over-weight and wanted to get into training for swimming. Within a week the naughty child had changed so much that she wrote to me to ask for the full Feingold diet. His teacher said that whereas the other children were suffering from end of the year lethargy and tiredness, he became more alert and attentive every day.
HOME-MADE SOY MILK, INEXPENSIVE, EASY TO MAKE
Soy beans contain an enzyme that causes a bitter taste if the bean is soaked or in any other way disturbed. The enzyme is less active at low temperatures, hence soaking in the fridge. All enzymes are destroyed at 118° F which is below boiling point. So it is best to bring the milk to the boil as soon as possible, by starting with boiling water; this also reduces the time you have to spend stirring the milk while it is heating.
Flavouring with a little honey and a pinch of salt gives a nice flavour if honey is tolerated. Or put a small bunch of parsley and a vanilla bean into the boiling water at the beginning and cook these with the milk; (remove them before straining). Or use a little pure vanilla essence.
You will need about two feet of cheese cloth. Wash in soap and water before use. Tie a knot in one end to make a bag. Spread the bag in a colander to make a strainer. Using a wooden spoon or clean hands, press or wring as much of the milk out of the pulp as possible. The pulp is called okara; it is rich in protein and can be added when making bread, cakes, cookies, or included in meat or vegetable casseroles or loaves.
SOY MILK RECIPE
We suggest that you make half this quantity the first time. Soak 1 cup of soy beans in 4 cups of water in the fridge overnight. Drain and rinse them and put half into a blender or food processor. Have 3 pints of pure water boiling in a large stainless steel pot. Use about a cup of this boiling water to whizz the first half of the beans to a smooth paste. Repeat with the other half of the beans, then tip all the paste into the boiling water. Bring the milk to the boil, stirring all the time. Use care, it boils over even more suddenly than cow's milk. Put the lid on the pot, remove from heat, place it on a warm surface covered with a teacosy or a warm cloth. Let it stand for 15 minutes. It will keep hot and go on cooking. Strain the milk through a cheese cloth as described above. Muslin can be used instead of cheesecloth. Then put the hot milk and the okara straight into separate glass jars leaving a good space free at the top if planning to freeze and seal with metal lids; (do not put hot things into plastic as the heat causes plastic to evaporate and the vapour is toxic). Put the jars straight into the fridge. Surplus can be frozen when cool.
Okara Cookies, using the pulp left after making soy milk from beans.
2 cups tolerated flour
½ teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups okara
1 spoonful honey optional
¼ cup cold pressed safflower oil
½ cup warm water
1 teaspoon pure vanilla (optional)
Mix honey, warm water, oil and vanilla
Sift flour, salt, baking powder into bowl Add soy pulp and mix well Add liquids and mix well Drop spoonfuls into a greased tray and bake at 200°C or 400°F for about 25 minutes.
Keep in fridge because they have little sugar to preserve them.
MARGARINE
Please do not use margarine. It is made from safflower or sunflower oil, (which are only beneficial if cold-pressed) by changing the chemical structure to make the oil solid. The process converts it into a "trans" fat. The word trans refers to the position of atoms in the molecule. Trans fats are useless and harmful in the body. Some people who are allergic to milk, can tolerate a little butter or ghee. Ghee is made by washing butter in boiling water to remove traces of milk, and then setting it in the fridge. Some can tolerate butter and cream, but not milk. Those who cannot use butter can use cold-pressed safflower oil for baking; (1 cup equals half a pound of butter.) For a spread try hummus or soy butter recipes. For those who use margarine because it is easy to spread, there are two alternatives. Warmed butter can be beaten with an equal amount of oil and then reset. Or little pieces of butter can be softened in three minutes by putting them in coolish tepid water. If the butter melts, the water is too warm. It should feel cool to the lips.
