AmyBuckley.com

Beans in a Rice Cooker?!

    This is absolutely the best kept secret about beans!  Cooking beans in a rice cooker is faster, easier and more delicious than cooking them in a pan (or getting them from a can).  

    Since beans are one of the 5 foods I can eat right now and cost $1.70 a can I was trying to find a way to lower that cost.   Not to mention the salt, preservatives, and all that metal that needs to be recycled when you consume 3 cans a day!  Dry beans cost about $1.70 per pound dry - or about 3 cans worth!  I tried cooking via the stove and the beans kept turning out dry inside.  This method makes pinto and reds firm on the outside and creamy on the inside.  White and navy get a bit destroyed - and almost tastes like soup! 

    How to Cook them:  

                1. Follow pre-soak directions on the package.

                2. Caution! - some beans give off poisonous gases/substances that can make you sick, if they are not properly pre-soaked (ie. boiled for at least 10minutes).  Red and kidney beans are two examples.  Slow cooking these beans has lead to food poisoning.

                3. Rinse and place in rice cooker, cover with water (less than 1" past the bean level), press cook.

                4. When done, cover again with water and press cook a second time.

                5. Rinse, drain, and eat your perfectly cooked beans.

                6. Tip - I make so many at once that I put some in the freezer.

For Best Results:  

- Use small beans (white, navy, pinto, red, etc.).  

- Adding too much water will cause a lot of excess to spill out of the rice cooker during cooking - that can be a mess.  

- Put a few wash clothes around to catch the excess water your first few trys.  

- I have cooked up to 6 cups of beans in my 8 cup rice cooker.

- I pre-soak overnight in the rice cooker too.

Enjoy!

How to Medicate Kids

    Once you've actually decided that a "medicine" (herb, supplement, food, etc.)  is best for your child the next hurdle is how you are going to get them to take it.  You may luck out and find that your 5 year old can swallow pills of any size and tries to impress you by doing it without a drink, like my oldest.  But more likely you'll need to try to get liquids or kids formulations of products and disguise the taste.  

    I've found that 100% purple grape juice is the BEST liquid to put chinese herb tinctures, liquid medicines, homeopathics, herb tinctures, etc. into.  I don't even have to worry about 'boiling off' the alcohol content of tinctures, they don't seem to be able to taste it in grape juice.  Prune/Plum juice is also great - before you say "Yuck"!  You should give it a try - it's so sweet I need to add water to it when I drink it.  It's so healthy (fiber, nutrient content) that it deserves a second chance in your life.  Prune juice has gotten an undeserved bad reputation.  Try mixing prune juice with other juices; grape, apple, pear, cherry, etc. to get your kids to drink it.  

     Making drinking the 'medicine' fun has it's advantages as well.  Forcing medicine down kids throat is messy and unproductive.  Better to have them know they are taking medicine and why.  Get their buy-in.  Chinese herbs are best taken at mealtimes so I used to mix the kids' medicine in their regular juice cups (shown at left the green 8oz. cup with straw).  But this only worked if they drank the whole thing at one sitting or I didn't fill the cup the whole way.  I found it much more effective to have a mini-cup used only for administering medicine.       That would be the clear 2oz. Tupperware^TM cups shown with blue lids.  The center circle on the lid is the perfect size, when cut out, to fit a standard sippy cup straw into it.  And 2oz. of juice is plenty to hide the taste of most medicines.  (There is a clear ballpoint pen with purple cap laying in front of the cups to show scale).  I found I could give this to my child anywhere in the house and they could drink it quickly.  Since it is only used for medicine I always knew if they had taken their medicine or not.  The younger kids always want medicine when an older child is taking some - a sure sign that you've made taking medicine fun.

     For medicines/pro-biotics, etc. that are powders after about 2 years old my kids refused to drink it in their juice.  I found it better to stir it into yogurt or applesauce.  Still, tell the kids it is in there and why because they can still feel the different texture, see the color difference, and/or taste the difference.

When to Medicate Kids

    To intervene or not to intervene?  My husband and I have different views on this topic so when it comes to our children we've talked a lot about it.  Of course Natural medicine is about prevention - so you never get sick.  But while you are on your way to getting healthy or if you get out of balance, then Natural medicines work best at the first sign of imbalance/illness.  When it comes to young children it is often hard to know when an imbalance is first approaching, further complicating the decision to medicate.  

    Here are the 3 rules of thumb I came up with to know when to automatically give the kids some extra immune system help (rather than letting them 'fight it out'):   

    1.   If they are in Pain.

    2.  If they are having trouble breathing (stuffy nose, etc.)

    3.  If they are having trouble sleeping.

    For fevers I try to let it continue and monitor their temperature closely.  Since a fever is the body's way of killing off microorganisms, suppressing it should not be your automatic reaction. Keep a log of their temperature in a notebook or on a calendar.   And note how it correlates with bowel movements, foods, drink, sleep, etc.

    Pain often manifests itself in children as a bad attitude, An increase in violent or aggressive behavior, or incessant/repetitive bouts of crying.  Basically a dramatic shift away from their normal personality.   Since they often won't or can't tell you when something hurts you'll have to watch for these clues and patterns....a notebook comes in handy for that!(see below).

    Breathing is so important I'm sure you can tell why it's on the list.  

    Sleeping:  trouble sleeping and breathing often go together.  If your child can't sleep they aren't going to get better.

    As with all things there are other times to medicate too.  You have to follow your instincts first and foremost.  And if you choose natural medicines then erring on the side of giving a 'medicine' too early won't do the child any harm (and just might keep them from getting 'sick').  

    Keep a Journal.  You are too busy to try to remember when you started a medicine or how the child's symptoms are progressing/ebbing.  Grab a blank school notebook write the day/month/year in the left margin and put down some notes each day or several times a day.                                                  

                                                      
You can look for patterns and clues over several days or months this way (and years too...does your child get pink eye every April?  Then you can start to figure out why and work to eliminate the problem).  With multiple children tracking key health information is a must and often gives you advance warning of the next child's pre-symptoms of a cold/flu/etc.  I keep my journal on the kitchen counter.  Here is a sample of ours (we have 3 kids, First letter of their names are at the top of the page, in birth order to make it simple).   It doesn't have to look pretty, as my journal shows you.

Ears/Nose/Throat/Upper Respiratory...Cold/Flu

The fastest-acting, most effective children's cough, cold, flu, sinus, ear ache, stuffy nose, sore throat, upper respiratory  all-natural remedy I have found so far is a Chinese Herb combination by Kan Herb.  Their children's formulas go by the sub-title "Gentle Warriors" and our go-to formulation is called "Windbreaker".    This is the lightest formulation and then there are four more formulations if the symptoms are more pronounced (see the company web site for info.).  These formulas mix great into juice (100% grape juice seems to cover all herbs the best).  The cheapest place to find them is on e-bay; Tanya from Mom-E-Mineral has prices half of what my acupuncturist was charging.  Shipping isn't the fastest (a week for regular shipping), so keep yourself stocked up!

Personal example:   The first time I used Chinese herbs was with Windbreaker for my 4 year old son, Zach.  He was crying inconsolably about a pain in his right ear.  We happened to be in my Acupuncturist's office at the time and he asked if I wanted to try some Chinese Herbs.  After a quick assessment of my son, I took Windbreaker home.  Zach was crying the whole way and could not be distracted from his hurting ear with a TV program or his lunch.  My husband was rolling his eyes at such an 'unconvential' treatment for an ear ache, so to match his skepticism with optimistic bravado I started the timer on my watch as soon as we had 'forced' the liquid formula into Zach's mouth.  To my surprise and delight, within 60 seconds Zach started talking about his TV program!  Then he kind of remembered he was upset about his ear and cried a bit more.  But by the 3 minute mark, he started to eat his lunch and watch the TV program and never mentioned his ear again!!   As incredible as it sounds, this is a completely true story.  From then on I was sold on Chinese Herbs.

Will you get such a miracle result?  Maybe not.  But it will resolve the ear ache/problem faster than any western medicine could.  We haven't had such an acute situation since but have used the Windbreaker over and over again for all 3 of our kids.  It works expertly every time.

Chinese Herbs/Medicine Tips:  

1. Use it early.   The herbs work best used at the first sign of imbalance/illness.
2. Take it for 3-5 days after your symptoms are gone.  Make sure all the germs are gone!
3. Take it for no longer than 14 days.  Ask your health practioner.
4. After age 7 consider going to half dose of an adult herb. Ask your health practioner.
5. Shelf life is over a year so always have some on-hand.