WFMW ~ Whole Grains

This past week with our company here we had fun visiting some about healthy eating. In our visiting the question came up: "Are whole grains actually better than processed for avoiding obesity?"
I maintained they were but was having trouble providing good facts to back up what I believed. So that meant I needed to do some research.

Here is what I found in a nutshell:


“Eating whole grains in place of bakery products, rice, and pasta lowers high cholesterol, lowers high blood pressure, reduces body weight…and lowers insulin level,” says an article from the Framingham Study published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

On the other hand we know that highly processed grains (white flour, white rice, white pastas, etc.) requires more insulin to manage it because it automatically turns into sugar. This causes high insulin levels which do a lot of dangerous things.

High insulin levels stimulate the hypothalamus in the brain which makes you hungry. It also constricts arteries to cause heart attacks. High levels of insulin also stimulates your liver to manufacture fat. Over time, the pancreas gets so overworked that insulin production grinds to a halt, and hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) or diabetes sets in.


The other way that whole grains can help is that because they are a complex carbohydrate they break down much slower and keep you full longer making it so you don't want to eat again so quickly. This is very different from the white flour which will give that fast sugar high that gives you the quick energy but them plummets very quickly and leaves you hungry.

Overall if you are wanting to lose weight or just not gain weight it looks like eating whole grains would give you a great advantage (besides all the benefits in other ways such as the high fiber that keeps you "cleaned" out and in that prevents many diseases, and all the vitamins that you get).

So now the question is: "how can I begin adding them to my diet?" When that is new it can feel pretty overwhelming but if you just take it a couple steps at a time it doesn't have to be.

Grains include wheat, corn, rice, oats, barley, quinoa, sorghum, spelt and rye. When grains are harvested they have 3 parts: the germ, endosperm and bran. When grains are processed, the germ and bran are often taken away leaving only the endosperm. With this you lose many important nutrients. To qualify as a whole grain all three parts of the original seed need to be included.


The easiest way to include whole grains is to substitute whole grain flour (probably primarily whole wheat flour but also flours made from the other grains) for white flour in all your baking. When you are just starting out I would recommend just adding part whole wheat and part white until you can get adjusted and then moving to more and more whole wheat. The way to get the best flour is by having your own grain grinder as you can be sure it is fresh and full of vitamins and that it hasn't gotten rancid sitting on the shelf. A grain grinder is definitely an investment as they don't just cost a few dollars but I do believe they are worth it.

If you don't have a grain grinder what can you do?

• Use a lot of oatmeal. Eat it for breakfast, add it to all your baked goods (you can use your blender to make it into flour if you don't want the big chunks). You can also make some yummy granola bars.
• Start using brown rice instead of white. Now this does taste different and a lot of people find it takes some getting used to but I think if you go into it with an open mind you will discover it has more flavor and begin to really enjoy it as we do.
• When you buy bread be sure to get ones that say "100% whole grains".
• Eat popcorn for snacks. (But I don't recommend the microwave popcorn with lots of chemicals.)
• Add Barley, brown rice or quinoa to soups and stews.
• This little article says you can grind dry grains in your blender. But I have read elsewhere that that isn't the best idea. I guess it would depend on how sturdy your blender is.
• However I was talking to a friend who makes blender pancakes and other things like that by putting the whole grain plus the liquid into the blender and grinding the grain while the liquid is in there which I believe makes it easier on the machine. Here is the recipe that she mentioned complete with pictures (click on the pictures to get instructions).
• Make sprouts from grain and add them to your bread. My sister Anna told me about this site.

I would love to hear how you incorporate whole grains in your diet. Also if you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comments or e-mail me. If I don't already know that answer then it will be a good excuse to do some more research.

Using whole grains really works for me, not only do we enjoy them but they help us maintain a healthy lifestyle.

The making of slippers

I really enjoy working on projects, posting about them and reading about them on others blogs. So I decided it would be fun to make this a regular item at Proverbs 31 Living. I am going to try to post about a project that I have done every Tuesday. Sometimes I will try to include tutorials.

On of our recent activities has been slipper making. It started after we had made sandals in class at church (to go along with the Armor of God class that Emily and I are teaching and we made sandals for the feet shod in the preparation of the gospel of peace.) and then Mara wanted to make some sandals for her dolls at home. She made the sandals for her dolls (they are pretty cute too, I will have to take pictures sometime) but then wanted more shoes so I suggested she could use fabric and make a covered toe which ended up being slippers.After she made them for the dolls then she wanted them for her, then Jonathan got in the act and then they also made them for their younger siblings. They weren't at all perfect but they had a ton of fun making them and they have enjoyed "slipping" around the house in them too.

This past week when the Corders were here, Michelle was lamenting that she hadn't thought to bring her slippers. (She doesn't wear shoes in the house but likes to stay warm and cozy so slippers are pretty essential.) Well if you need slippers at our house that is no problem! We can help you make them. :-)

We pulled out the cardboard and had her trace her feet. Then she cut out the cardboard feet just slightly larger (two copies of each foot). I then went to my fabric stash and found some thick wool scraps. We cut a piece to go over the foot and also one in the shape of each foot. Michelle suggested that we add some cotton batting under the wool for more comfort.

Then using the glue gun we lightly glued the cotton batting on one left and one right cardboard foot. After that we glued down the wool. Then we measured how the fabric should be placed over her foot and then glued it on the under side of the cardboard. I also glued a little wool piece under each heel to keep things even. Then we glued the 2nd set of cardboard on the bottom of each slipper.

The last step was to glue strips of wool around each sole to cover up the cardboard edges. They ended up working pretty well and she wore them all week. The kids also helped make her girls pairs as well.

I actually did a lot of slipper making this week because we had decided it might be fun to have curving pointed toe slippers for a bunch of people in our play at the Winter Retreat so I made this bunch of slippers. We had fun putting bells on the toes of some of ours.

I think there is still room for improvement in our slipper making but we have had fun and it has pretty much all been done using scraps and stuff to be recycled. Our only expense has been glue sticks but I have a pretty big stock that I bought on sale.

Do you have any ideas or suggestions?

A fun and busy weekend

This past weekend we had a couple of families staying with us (the Corders and Davidsons) while they were here for the Winter Retreat at church. We had a lot of fun and stayed very busy (and are tired now! :-) ). This post has a bunch of pictures from various things that we were involved in.

On Friday before the Retreat actually started we and the Corders went over to my parents and had fun sledding. There was a lot of snow plus a steep hill (the picture doesn't do it justice) and the snow was spraying like crazy and left us gasping for breath but we had fun.

We also got a lot of good exercise, especially since not only were we climbing the hill but also hauling little kids up.
Mara got such pretty rosy cheeks.
Friday night was the official start of the Retreat. That night most out of towners are just arriving and we have a time of fun and games, usually relating to the bible. We also end with snacks. We usually use it as an ice breaker and it is for the whole family so we try to make it fun for the kids. We also broke up into teams to try to mix people up.

This year our emphasis was from the verse: "Love the Lord your God with all hour heart, with all you soul, with all you mind, and with all your strength."

For the game that is pictured above each team had a specific colored balloon tied to their ankle and in the balloons were color coded papers that had a portion of a verse on them. All the teams had to try to pop balloons belonging to the other teams and try to find the papers that belonged to their team so that they could find out what their verse was. All the verses had to do with our soul.
We also had some impromptu skits where each team was assigned a story as well as 15 odd words that they had to include in their skit. The picture above includes Billy Wallace (one of the speakers at the Retreat) dressed up to be Daniel's "Wife" for the skit of "Daniel and the "hippo" den." It was quite humorous.

Saturday we had some good sermons by Billy and Jason. They team preached both morning and afternoon. The theme was "Step into the Fire". They spoke a lot on Truth, the need to except the truth, stand up for it and be honest about ourselves and be willing to confess to others the struggles that we have.

The weather was incredibly warm. In the afternoon many played broomball and the kids had fun making snowmen and snow forts. Megan and I had fun working on a snowman and Keren, Peggy and Becky helped us too.

Some used the afternoon for music making. I thought this little scene with Dale (Blanshan) playing and singing and D.J. intently listening was very cute.
Saturday afternoon before the second sermon we acted out the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. It was rather fun. Ken did video it for us but I haven't uploaded it yet.

Saturday evening we went home and hung out there and my sister Anna and her kids came over as well. We had 15 kids in the house. The youth (teens and college age) were having an activity which included doing some service projects. I was asked if some could come over to my house to do some sort of job and then I would "pay" them with something they could take to the homeless shelter (all my Walgreens deals came in handy!).
We had a group of 7 come to our house and that ended up being quite fun. I decided since we had an abundance of children we would have activities that went along with child care. Above Peggy is reading stories to several of them.
Summer also got in on the story reading.

Here Becky was making the kids a snack of popcorn and Joel had volunteered to do the clothes folding (he comes from a family of nine kids and I suppose he has had to do that quite bit). Michelle is in the picture watching and visiting. Anna, Michelle, Christy and I all had fun doing that.


Anya played Dutch Blitz with Alexis and Malia. Dutch Blitz is a pretty fun game, by the way.
Kalai put curlers in Mara's hair and Margaret was waiting in case she would have time to fix her hair too.
Cassie played "Connect 4" with Jonathan.They all did a great job and we had fun having them over for a little while.

On Sunday morning Emily and I taught a class for the kids ages 3-12. We taught on the Armor of God. We kept it pretty active with a little skit/lesson, a game of Hunker Houser (above), a object lesson about how armor protects us, reading about it in Eph. 6, singing a song and playing "pin the armor on the man.". It went pretty well but was a little chaotic with a lot of kids in a wide range of ages. We are a little in awe of how public school teachers manage bunches of kids by themselves day after day!

Though it felt like was almost constantly on the go at the Retreat it was still a lot of fun and quite encouraging. I loved all the fellowship with Christians from near and far.

Speaks-to-me-Sunday

This verse has been running through my head a lot lately and then this weekend at the Winter Retreat Jason used it his sermon as well. It is:

James 1:22
"Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."

This always reminds me that I need to stay in God's word, learning, seeking... but it can't stop there. I need to do what it says. Even when the truth might not be what I wanted to hear, maybe not what I grew up thinking, no matter what, if God says it, then it is true and I need to follow it.




My picture for today is a mud puddle! Yea! It was in the 50s today and so wonderfully beautiful. All that snow we got last week (plus our accumulation from the winter) is working to melt away. The kids were terribly excited and got nice and wet (and dirty!) playing outside. We enjoyed the snow last week but we are also enjoying the warmth now! God is so good to us!

We have company!

I just thought would write a note to let you know my posting will probably pretty scarce this week.
We have company here, our good friends the Corders from Louisiana, and we are looking forward to more company this weekend and we are also getting ready for a weekend Retreat at church.

Talk to you later!

A lovely snowy day

It is snowing today and I am loving it. I know it is March and the idea of Spring is very enticing but there is still something wonderful about a foot of so of snow coming down and making everything look so clean and white.

I also have been enjoying the way it makes our house feel extra cozy! This afternoon we were all tired after a very busy weekend and we enjoyed our naps (everyone slept except Mara and of course Ken is at work). I woke up feeling refreshed and then while the younger 3 still slept and Mara quietly worked on a craft I have been able to work on sewing curtains for my office/guestroom. Though I love being able to have the noise of children around me, a little bit of quiet every so often is very nice too.

It seems like we have all been very busy lately, Ken has been swamped at work, I have had a lot to do with my business, my home and especially right now helping to get ready for our Winter Retreat (coming up this weekend) at church. This day has been lovely for getting rested and refreshed!

Thank you God for times of refreshing!