We are blessed to live in a community where other folks are attempting to grow their own food and live off-grid. It is a blessing in countless ways, one of them being that we are able to walk to our food sources.
I like to call it agrarian grocery shopping.
So, like any other grocery run, we start by rounding up the children. For me that means strapping the baby on my front, putting a back pack on, and saying "Who wants to go pick lettuce?". A little boy chorus of "I do" rings out. I grab my biggest stock pot and we head down the dirt road.
Our first stop is our neighbor’s garden, where they very generously allow us to pick as much lettuce, spinach, and kohlrabi greens as we want. The boys and I pack it into the pot while I chat with one of the Bunker’s teenage daughters about the garden and their little piglet.
Once the pot is full we head to another neighbor’s land to collect beautiful homegrown eggs. She’s not home, but she allows us to collect eggs from the chicken coop and pop into her cabin for a dozen that were already collected. Two cartons of eggs go into the backpack.
I should also mention that twice a week we actually subscribe to one of those fancy agrarian grocery services in which one of the children delivers our jars of creamy raw milk.
Once the eggs and greens are collected we head home to make lunch. I put on a pot of rice, chop up the kohlrabi greens (which taste just like collards) and combine them with carrots, green onions and cilantro from our garden, and those homegrown eggs for an egg and vegetable stir fry over rice.
That afternoon I throw the lettuce into my agrarian salad spinner (also known as a clean dish towel) and we make huge salads with potatoes, eggs, more homegrown onions, and chopped tomatoes for supper.
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The raw milk is either made into baby formula, drank fresh, or soured for pancakes.
This grocery store may not have a Starbucks at the entrance, but the food is exponentially more nourishing and tasty, the air is fresh, and the vendors are wonderful.
I am a totally unfocused eater, and therefore cook. What I mean is that I almost never follow recipes, not even my own, I get bored easily with the same meals, and I am constantly doing totally random things in the kitchen.
Which is why we eat what seems to be supper foods for breakfast. This breakfast fried rice is nothing revolutionary, just rice, eggs, and vegetables. But for some reason we love it so I thought I’d share the recipe with y’all.
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When we first got to Texas I felt like I had been plucked out of my natural habitat and dropped onto the set of an old western movie. I am just now starting to feel settled in the way that only a family can do.
I still spend hours every day feeding this newest member of our family, but the fact that she is two months old now blows my mind. I sit in the corner of the sofa, snuggled up to this little person who smells like the most beautiful thing you could imagine, even after she’s pooped and spit up all day long. I sometimes wish I smelled like her.
I’ve planned and prepared to plant the herb garden for at least a month, and it still hasn’t happened. Maybe this week, once Papa puts up the last of the pallet fence and it can be safe, at least from the longhorns.
We butchered our cow a couple of weeks ago. The simple truth, as I see it now, is that you really can’t fully appreciate the food given to you unless you know it in some personal way – the soil it grew from, the red coat that covered its flesh, the drought it lived through. I think we may be starting to get a glimpse at the real gratitude you can have for your provisions when what once bought 1.5 days of food has to buy two weeks of food.
And right then, when you think all you’ll be eating is eggs and potatoes for weeks, 200 pounds of cow is either canned by generous neighbors or stored in a solar freezer, boxes of food show up at your door from family members willing to ship them, and neighbors with beautiful and bountiful gardens let you pick all of the lettuce and collards you can carry home.
Yes, friends, I could get used to the view from here.
I’m a big believer in reusing, but I am an even bigger believer in doing things well but inexpensively so that we don’t have to be a slave to money.
So when we found a source for free pallets in a nearby town we loaded them up in the trailer countless times and started our own little pallet farm. Those piles have since been used in various projects around our homestead from building the foundation of our cabin to making a chicken coop and more.
You can read about the various ways we re-purposed these pallets to start our homestead as inexpensively as possible over at Saving Money Plan.
For the past five years or so I have been learning everything I can about natural health and healing. You might find me behind the laptop looking up remedies for this or that or tucked into an herbal medicine book.
All of this is well and good, but if there is a systemic health problem treating the symptoms, even if done herbally, is fairly pointless, though it does make one more comfortable.
About three years ago I realized that everything I read, researched, or experienced in our own family points to gut health as the single most important aspect of your health. So from there I was determined to treat everything from my husband’s back pain to our energy levels to some of my children’s attention and behavioral problems by healing the gut.
And it worked.
So today I thought I would share with you the three foods that I always turn to when someone is in need of some gut healing. We have done the GAPS diet and I highly recommend the protocol for anyone who has ever questioned their gut health, taken antibiotics, or had any overall health problems.
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Top Three Foods For Gut Health
Animal Fats. Whenever anyone has ever asked me what to change about their diet first I recommend starting with fats. First realize that the right fats are incredibly nourishing. Second, realize that industrialized poly and mono-unsaturated vegetable fats are incredibly inflammatory to the body and the gut. Third, realize that animal fats are incredibly soothing and nourishing to the gut and the rest of the body.
So incorporating tallow, lard, good butter, egg yolks, and cod liver oil into your cooking and eating can make a world of difference in your gut health. Always remember that fats that come from pastured animals are exponentially healthier than fats from industrialized grain-fed animals.
Ferments. Once you have taken out the inflammatory vegetable oils and are incorporating good animal fats, it is time to get your gut flora in balance. If you’ve ever taken antibiotics or had a diet low in fermented foods and high in sugars then you need to do this.
Fermented vegetables are the best start if someone is sensitive to dairy. Otherwise I say go all out, starting gradually of course. So have some yogurt, kefir, fermented vegetables, kombucha, water kefir, and other fermented foods at every meal if possible. Once your taste buds realize that sweet isn’t the only tasty flavor they will begin to appreciate the nuances of sour, tangy, spicy, etc.
Bone Broth. This food is a marvel, not only for its health value but for its dollar value as well. Bone broth, if prepared correctly, contains all sorts of minerals, joint-healing gelatin, and gut-soothing properties. It also has protein-sparing properties meaning it can help your body absorb and stretch a very small amount of meat into a nourishing amount of protein.
Preparing bone broths are simple, though in off-grid living the storage of them becomes the tricky part. To prepare the broth cover the bones with water, add a splash of acidity (vinegar, lemon juice) to draw out the minerals, and simmer for as long as you can manage. The larger the animal the bones came from, the longer you’ll want to simmer. In the end if your bones easily crumble when you’ve strained them out then you’ve done the job right.
Resources For Gut Health
- If you’re interested in the GAPS diet read more at their website or you can find the book and the recommended supplements here.
- You can find fermented vegetables here.
- You can find starters for all sorts of ferments from kefir to sourdough to kombucha here.
- Our favorite brand of fermented cod liver oil can be found here.
- If you are at all interested in lacto-fermenting any types of foods check out this brand new must-own guide.
- If you’re interested in recipes for grain-free recipes full of broth, ferments, and animal fats you can check out my seasonal cookbooks.
- If you’re new to fermented vegetables try our favorite dill pickles and salsa.
What are your favorite gut-healing foods?
my (grain-free) cookbook
books worth reading
