The Importance of Education

You may think that my series title sounds self-evident, but throughout this series I hope to show you not only how important education really is, but how our current educational system and even most homeschooling methods are completely lacking the ability to teach children how to learn. I will also talk about homeschooling: how unoriginal it is, how Catholic it is, and how necessary it is for a complete education. Lastly, but not of least importance, I will introduce you to the idea of “classical education”.

As Dorothy Sayers says, “we have lost the tools of learning,” and with them, our ability to think, reason, speak, and write articulately and logically.

Posts in this series are as follows, but as always, I am sure this list will grow by the time the series is complete.

Post Topics:
Why do we need an education?
What is a proper education?
How do we achieve this?

Homeschooling (sub-series):
A Brief History of Homeschooling
Why is homeschooling so important?
What makes homeschooling different?
The Dreaded “S” Word
Homeschooling and Catholicism
A Short Look at "Unschooling"

Classical Education (sub-series):
What is Classical Education?
The Trivium
The Quadrivium
What All This Means

References: Browse for more information. I will add more as I find good sources.
The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise
Catholic Education: Homeward Bound by Kimberly Hahn
The Catholic Homeschool Companion ed. by Maureen Wittmann
The Read-aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease

Dorothy Sayers’ 1947 essay “The Lost Tools of Learning”
The Well Trained Mind (website)
Homeschooling Catholic (website)
Five J’s (a homeschool blog)

A Note and an Upcoming Series

If you have not realized this yet (because I did not even put it together until recently), I really enjoy writing series! And they always pertain to things I am currently reading. Well, for Christmas, I received four books on homeschooling that I am really enjoying and my attention has been turned away from food for the time being. I will try to come back and finish out the Food, Naturally series sometime soon, but I give no guarantees. The marriage series has definitely lost its place in line by now, but I do hope to come back to it as well, eventually.

So, if you cannot tell, my new series will be about education. This, unsurprisingly, is something I mentioned when I started writing again last year. It is amazing that I have not even referred back to that post, and yet my topics stayed within that list all year! Those topics are very dear to me and I have a passion for writing about and educating others on the important truths of our faith and life.

I hope to finish this new series before baby M comes. I have a feeling I will not have time to write for a while after her birth between a newborn, toddler, everyday wife and mothering duties, packing, moving, and getting settled into a new area!

So, please pray for me and my family and look out for my new series. I will begin writing and posting soon!

Food, Naturally: Article V

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the beginning or the introduction.

Another good article to go along with my series: What's Eating Your Child?

Good information for everyone, not just children.

Food, Naturally: Check Out This Series

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the beginning or the introduction.

Heavenly Homemakers is starting a wonderful series that seems to fit nicely with my Food, Naturally series! So, head over to her site and see what it will be all about.

Food, Naturally: Articles IV

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the beginning or the introduction.

Here are a few articles related to government regulation of the food industry and the ability to make our own food choices. Pretty soon we may not have the ability to buy from a farmer’s market or to choose whole milk at the grocery store. (Yes, I am sensationalizing, at least I hope.)

Amish Milk: The Latest Target of the Obama Regulatory State
— Be careful where you buy milk! Sting operations are in place to catch the Amish selling raw milk across state lines!

Sugary-drink ban starts to affect S.F. sites
— I would bet that whole milk was not on the list of acceptable choices for vending machines …

Department of Transportation Sets Sights on Farmers’ and States’ Rights
— A new multi-million dollar business for the government … CDL training for all farm machinery operators, DOT numbers, and plenty of paperwork and oversight for the farmers.

Wisconsin Judge Denies Basic Property Rights and Fuels Outrage
— Now we will really have to fight for our freedom to choose our own food, even if we produce it! (If nothing else, be sure to read the judge’s clarification of his ruling in the numbered list.)

This is the direction our country is heading. Big government needs to step down or there may be another revolutionary war, unless "We the People" decide to sit back and take it.

Food, Naturally: Know Your Ingredients, Read Your Labels

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the beginning or the introduction.

I talked last time about eliminating processed foods, but let’s face it; they are never going to be totally eliminated from our homes. As long as we eat real food 80% of the time, we can usually afford to compromise 20% of the time and hope our bodies will be forgiving. We should remember that the more “compromises” we make with food, the more strain we are putting on our bodies. As I briefly discussed here, the foods we eat are stressing our bodies to the point of exhaustion. But if you truly want to serve healthy, real food for your family and your budget is cutting you short, incorporating the meal blessing will give you the opportunity to ask and trust God to make up the difference.

So, what about those much talked about food labels? If I have not gotten the point across by now, I will repeat myself: do not trust them!

Here are just some of the many food label problems:
* Expiration dates: Use by, sell by, best by dates are only regulated by the USDA for infant formula. Only twenty states require dates (on some products) by law. Some dates are for store use only (such as sell-by dates) and are not an indicator of food safety. Other dates are given by the company to indicate peak freshness, not expiration and food safety.

* Trans fat: If the product has .49g or less trans fat per serving, the company is allowed to claim “no trans fat” on the box! Just a hint, you should read the serving sizes since they passed that law. Many are so small you would certainly be eating double or triple (or more) of the serving size in a normal meal/snack. So you could potentially be eating 1 - 1.5+ grams of trans fat with that one product. If the ingredient lists partially-hydrogenated oil, hydrogenated oil, and/or shortening, it contains trans fats no matter what the box and nutrition label says!

* “Raw” sugar (ex. Sugar in the Raw) is actually processed. Now how exactly do they get away with claiming “raw” on a processed food? Because there is no law that says otherwise, therefore the company can make any claim they wish to dupe you into buying their product.

* Health food claims: These are the worst. You think the product is healthy because they state all the vitamins and minerals in it, but do you stop to read the food label and ingredients as well? You should. Take children’s sugary cereals for example. They have always been marketed as “healthy” because of the added man-made vitamins and minerals (which are only added because of the poor quality of the original ingredients) and now for the “whole grains!”, but they have way too much sugar! And we all know now why we should limit sugar.

* “Wheat” products: The word “wheat” on a package does not mean anything unless the words “whole” or “100% whole” are accompanied with it. White flour, also known as enriched flour on food labels, is wheat flour. It has just been processed down to the endosperm only and bleached. Almost all the nutrients in wheat are found in the bran and germ. This is why white flour must be “enriched”!

* Multi-grain products: These are made to sound nutritious by claiming multiple grains, but usually these products are made with mostly white flour. Again, read the ingredient list.

Reading Nutrition Labels:
* Ingredients are listed according to weight, so the first ingredient is what makes up the majority of the product and so on.

* Look at the serving size. Because so many people are worried about nutrition anymore, many companies have lowered their serving sizes instead of lowering the sugar, sodium, or other content as claimed on the package. Also, many serving sizes are now much smaller than you would normally eat in one sitting (as stated above).

* Next look at the amount of sodium and sugar listed. For every 600 milligrams (mg) of sodium listed, there is ¼ teaspoon of salt per serving. For every 4 grams (g) of sugar listed, there is one teaspoon of sugar per serving. Most products include massive amounts of salt as a preservative so the product stays “fresh” longer. Sugar is included so often (especially when unnecessary as in the case of my crab) because our culture is now addicted to sugar.

Ingredients List: What to Look For
First, always look for partially-hydrogenated oil, hydrogenated oil, and/or shortening. If any of those words show up in the product list, don’t buy it! I promise, you can find crackers, tortillas, and other baked items without trans fats. You just have to look harder.

Next, how many types of sugar can you spot? Sugar may not be listed first, but that does not mean a product is not mostly sugar, or at least made up of too much sugar. If the company uses many types of sugar, they could all add up to being the main ingredient. Sugar words to look for include (in no particular order): sugar, fructose, sucrose, glucose, dextrose, maltose, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, cane syrup, and honey.

One more thing to look for is monosodium glutamate or MSG. The only problem with this is it can be found among so many names. If you think you are ready to spot them out, read the article linked in the previous sentence and also this Truth in Labeling table.

There are many other ingredients to stay away from in processed foods such as food dyes, chemical additives and preservatives, nitrates and nitrites (in processed meats), and others. If you are ready to tackle all of those, one of the best things to do is start looking for products listed as “natural” or “organic” and read only those food labels. It will narrow down your search, making it a little faster. I will talk more about natural and organic products in my upcoming posts.

For more information on ingredients and food labels, please read the books and blogs listed here.

Food, Naturally: Eliminate Processed Foods

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the beginning or the introduction.

As I have discussed previously, processed foods are something we should avoid for the reasons listed below and many more!

What is Real Food?—processed food is not and cannot be real food!
Why Eat Real Food, Part I?—God made real food. Man made processed food. You decide!
Why Eat Real Food, Part II?—How can we trust experts and researchers to tell us the truth when they are worried only about their own interests?
Article I—The truth about the food industry. We all probably know it, but do not want to believe it.
Article II and More—Do you need more to convince you of the problems with the food industry?
Vegetable Oils and Bad Fats—What type of ingredients are found most often in processed foods (besides sugars)? Vegetable oils … man-made foods.
Article III and More—More about vegetable oils and their problems
Natural Sugars and Eating Less of Them!—The other most common ingredient in processed foods? Sugar, of course!

So, after all that information, I still have more to share, or elaborate on, about processed foods. Most of the links below (but not all) correspond to the pages already linked to above.

The word “processed” should steer us all away from these foods for the simple reason in Why Eat Real Food, Part I. But since some of us need more encouragement and reasoning than that, I will elaborate. Many of us (myself included) love convenience. We crave convenience because we have become so used to it, as our society has “progressed” (and I am using the word loosely here). The other reason we “need” convenience comes from the problem discussed a while back in this post about women. It basically comes down to priorities—what they currently are and what they should be.

Many processed foods can be made at home quickly, cheaply, and far more healthfully than what we would buy at the store. I will start putting links on my Recipes post (found at the top of every page) for “typically processed” foods so that you can see how quick and easy things such as salad dressings, cream of ____ soup, or even mayonnaise are to make yourself! I would also like to point out that breads, muffins, and pizza crust (things we would typically buy already made or mixes for in the store) are quick and simple. The rising time for breads can make them “time-consuming”, but the fact that you get to do other things while the yeast works by itself, equates to a simple, easy, cheap real food option! I already have links available for some of my favorite “bread” recipes.

The other problems with processed foods (on top of too many vegetable oils and sugars) are the chemicals, additives, preservatives, and food dyes found among the ingredients. Are these ingredients safe? Can we trust the people who say they are? Are they God-given? Have they been around for thousands of years, like real foods, or just the past few decades?

Like I discussed here, companies want to make a product cheaply. They do not care about the ingredients they put into the product. It is more profitable for them to use white flour and fortify their food with vitamins and minerals than to give you the whole wheat version because whole wheat is more expensive and will turn rancid faster giving it a shorter shelf-life and thus less profit (because they have to worry about the product being sold quickly). Look at the crackers the next time you are in the store. You will notice the ones with whole wheat expire a lot earlier than the others. Another example is the overuse of soybean and corn oil—two of the cheapest oils available, but both are recent, man-“made”, and can be hazardous.

The third problem is with labels and the distrust they create between consumers and the companies. I will talk next time about reading/deciphering ingredients and labels.

For more information on processed foods, please read the books and blogs listed here.

Food, Naturally: Natural Sugars and Eating Less of Them!

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the beginning or the introduction.

Some sugars are okay, others can be dangerous in large quantities. Care to know which ones you should choose?

Honey – A natural, God-given sweetener with anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal properties. It treats cough and upper respiratory infections, may promote better blood sugar control, contains antioxidants, improves HDL, boosts immunity, and taking 1 T raw honey made from within 100 miles of your home fights seasonal allergies. Honey also contains trace amounts of vitamins and minerals. The most interesting thing about honey is it never spoils! It has been found in Egyptian pyramids still edible!

Maple syrup – Also a natural God-given sweetener that contains antioxidants, 100% DV of manganese in ¼ cup, and is high in zinc. It raises HDL, supports the immune system, has anti-inflammatory properties, helps with male reproductive health and prostate support, has potential benefits for Type II Diabetes, and more than 20 compounds in maple syrup are associated with human health and also believed to have anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, and antibacterial properties (source). Pour that 100% pure maple syrup on your pancakes!

Sucanat – This is dehydrated raw cane sugar. It is better than white sugar (but not much) because it is simply dehydrated cane juice – unrefined, unbleached, and molasses-retained (not added back in). Therefore, it also retains some (minute) amounts of actual nutrients and is metabolized a little slower than white sugar. “Raw sugar” in the store is not the same as sucanat. “Raw sugar” is actually processed. I will talk more about food labels in a future post.

White sugar (can also apply to sucanat) – Since she already did the research and wrote it out, you can read here the bad things about white sugar. Bottom Line: Sugar is an empty food devoid of any nutrient value. It only tastes good and is used far too often in processing today.

Artificial sweeteners – As with everything else, do we trust the research that says they are okay or listen to the research that says they are harmful? Remembering what God made and gave us on this earth will go a long way in using common sense on which sugars/sweeteners to avoid!

Why do we need to eat less sugar?

“Eating sugar depletes B vitamins, which leads to premenstrual symptoms and depression, and promotes Candida albicans, a systemic yeast infection. Sugar also causes bone loss, and of course tooth decay—but not for the reason you might think. Sugar upsets the balance of calcium and phosphorus, which causes teeth to rot from the inside out. … Last but not least, by raising blood sugar, triglycerides, and cholesterol, sugar leads to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.” (Real Food, 216, emphasis original)

Sugar should never be a staple in your diet and does not even have to be included at all. If you want to include it regularly, at least choose honey and maple syrup over other types of sugar, but everyone’s sugar intake should be reduced overall. Try adding only a quarter or half the sugar called for in recipes and look for ways to reduce your dependence on processed foods (almost all of which contain too much sugar). Just for example, I bought artificial crab the other day for a meal—and what was included in the ingredients? Sugar! The generic brand also had almost twice as much sugar as the name brand so I opted to pay more for less sugar.

For more information on sugars, please read the books and blogs listed here.

Food, Naturally: Article III and More

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the beginning or the introduction.

I thought I would give you some additional information on vegetable oils, in case you are interested in reading about them.
**Are Polyunsaturated Oils Healthy? from Kitchen Stewardship

My Thoughts: I find all the information so fascinating that I have come across recently. And I am quickly learning that what we put into our bodies affects so much of everything else. If we all started eating healthy (the way people did a few hundred years ago and more) many of the diseases we see now would disappear. But the even bigger shocker is that, according to what I have read, this would not happen overnight. We have hurt our bodies so much through our food that our children and grandchildren will suffer, even if they eat right! I think, if that statement does not motivate you to research and change your eating habits, nothing will!

I also think that researchers today are sometimes blinded by the fact that "the government" or "experts" have said that particular foods are healthy or safe so they do not even look at food as a cause for so many of our diseases any more. From my reading, many modern diseases including many cancers, diabetes, cholesterol and blood pressure problems, obesity, and heart disease are soley caused from the food we eat. We need to change our eating habits. We need to eat real food. We must demand better for our children, our nation, and our world. Eat Food, Naturally.

Food, Naturally: Vegetable Oils and Bad Fats

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the beginning or the introduction.

Almost all vegetable oils today are recent foods. They are not found in traditional diets, and for good reason. What are these industrial fats? Soybean oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, and any oil or fat (including lard) that is hydrogenated. These fats can cause major problems when eaten in large or small amounts as stated below.

Both omega-6 fats (found mostly in vegetable oils) and omega-3 fats (found in fish) are essential to good health, but the problem is that we should be eating equal amounts of these two types. Instead our grocery stores are bombarded with “low-fat” vegetable oils in every processed food available and we are told to use vegetable oils in cooking instead of saturated fats so we end up eating too much of them.

Because of their properties, too many omega-6 fats cause inflammation, obesity, insulin resistance, premature labor, infertility, blood clots, and depression. They also constrict blood vessels and encourage platelet stickiness and clotting leading to heart disease.

On the other side, our diets are also lacking omega-3 fats found in seafood and fish. Not enough omega-3 fats can cause major problems such as dyslexia, poor motor skills, ADHD, even depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.

Because of the amount of vegetable oils we consume, consequences of imbalance can affect even breastfed babies as shown here in the quality of breast milk:

• Ideal ratio of omega-6 fats to omega-3 fats = 1 to 1
• 2 studies done in the US show ratios of 67.4 to 1 and 175.0 to 1

Another problem with vegetable oils is their fault with heating. Unsaturated fats are easily oxidized during cooking. Oxidized fats contribute to cancer and heart disease. They can also cause diarrhea, poor growth, loss of hair, skin lesions, anorexia, emaciation, and intestinal hemorrhages. The best fats to fry in are beef fat, butter, or coconut oil because they are highly saturated and therefore stable during heating.

We all know trans fats cause health problems. We should avoid them at all costs as they have no health benefits and are dangerous in any amount; even the government health agencies will admit that point, but have you ever looked at the processed food you buy from the store? You will quickly see how they are nowhere near eliminated from our diets as they should be. All hydrogenated and partially-hydrogenated oils ARE trans fats. (I will talk more about food labels later.) Most pretzels, tortillas, crackers, cookies, cakes, and other baked goods are full of hydrogenated oils. Go ahead, look at your labels. I’ll wait.

The problems with trans fats:

• Lower HDL
• Raise LDL
• Raise Lp(a), which promotes atherosclerosis and clotting
• Reduce blood vessel function
• Promote obesity, diabetes, and hypertension
• Alter fat cell size and number
• Reduce fat content of breast milk (a necessary nutrient for babies’ growth and brain development)
• Reduce fertility and correlate with low birth weight
• Increase asthma
• Reduce immune response
• Interfere with conversion and use of DHA and EPA (omega-3 fats)
• Disrupt enzymes that metabolize carcinogens and drugs
• Damage cell membranes
• Create free radicals

When we eat the foods we are supposed to, and avoid all these new man-made concoctions, we will avoid many of these debilitating diseases that now plague our society. It is only when other countries start incorporating the “American way” of eating that they begin to see problems in their health. So what do we do? Eat real food, naturally!

For more information on vegetable oils and other fats, please read the books listed here.