cookies

Recipe – Apple Almond Flour Cookies

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Organic Apples High in Bacteria

Published in Frontiers in Microbiology, a new study shows that organic apples harbor a more diverse and balanced bacterial community, which could make them healthier and tastier than conventional apples.

“The bacteria, fungi and viruses in our food transiently colonize our gut,” says study senior author Professor Gabriele Berg, of Graz University of Technology, Austria.

The researchers compared the bacteria in conventional store-bought apples with those in visually matched fresh organic ones. Stem, peel, flesh, seeds and calyx – the straggly bit at the bottom where the flower used to be – were analyzed separately.

“Putting together the averages for each apple component, we estimate a typical 240g raw apple contains roughly 100 million bacteria,” says Berg. The majority of the bacteria are in the seeds, with the flesh accounting for most of the remainder. So, if you discard the core, your intake falls to nearer 10 million.

“Freshly harvested, organically managed apples harbor a significantly more diverse, more even and distinct bacterial community, compared to conventional ones,” explains Berg.

Specific groups of bacteria known for health-affecting potential also weighed in favor of organic apples. Lactobacilli – of probiotic fame – was found in most of the organic apple samples.

For those who can “taste the difference,” “Methylobacterium, known to enhance the biosynthesis of strawberry flavor compounds, was significantly more abundant in organic apples; here especially on peel and flesh samples, which in general had a more diverse microbiota than seeds, stem or calyx.” Together the studies show that across both bacteria and fungi, the apple microbiome is more diverse in organically grown fruits.

Excerpts from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190724090255.htm

Recipe – Apple Almond Flour Cookies 

Ingredients

1 small organic sweet or tart-sweet apple (red delicious, gala, Macintosh, Braeburn)

1 cup blanched almond flour

2 tsp. coconut sugar, brown sugar, or maple syrup, optional

1/4 tsp. ground cardamom

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract or 1/8 teaspoon almond extract

1/8 tsp. fine sea salt

Process

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Scrub and cut apple into chunks; process in a food processor, scraping down sides, until pureed (mixture will look like raw apple sauce).

Place the almond flour in a medium bowl. Add the apple puree (1/2 cup only, not packed), sweetener, cardamom, extract, and salt. Stir until completely blended.

Using a small cookie scoop or a tablespoon, drop dough in 12 mounds, spacing 2 inches apart, on prepared cookie sheet.

Bake at 350°F for 15 to 18 minutes until golden brown and centers feel firm to the touch. Transfer cookies to a cooling rack and cool completely.

Food For Life – Common Sense in Dietetic Reform

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“There is real common sense in dietetic reform. The subject should be studied broadly and deeply, and no one should criticize others because their practice is not, in all things, in harmony with his own. It is impossible to make an unvarying rule to regulate everyone’s habits, and no one should think himself a criterion for all. Not all can eat the same things. Foods that are palatable and wholesome to one person may be distasteful, and even harmful, to another. Some cannot use milk, while others thrive on it.* Some persons cannot digest peas and beans; others find them wholesome. For some the coarser grain preparations are good food, while others cannot use them….

“The practice of eating but two meals a day is generally found a benefit to health; yet under some circumstances persons may require a third meal. This should, however, if taken at all, be very light, and of food most easily digested. `Crackers’-the English biscuit-or zwieback, and fruit, or cereal coffee, are the foods best suited for the evening meal.

“Some are continually anxious lest their food, however simple and healthful, may hurt them. To these let me say, Do not think that your food will injure you; do not think about it at all. Eat according to your best judgment; and when you have asked the Lord to bless the food for the strengthening of your body, believe that He hears your prayer, and be at rest.

“Because principle requires us to discard those things that irritate the stomach and impair health, we should remember that an impoverished diet produces poverty of the blood. Cases of disease most difficult to cure result from this cause. The system is not sufficiently nourished, and dyspepsia and general debility are the result. Those who use such a diet are not always compelled by poverty to do so, but they choose it through ignorance or negligence, or to carry out their erroneous ideas of reform.” The Ministry of Healing, 319-322.

Recipe – Millet-Oat Cookies

Place in Blender:
1 cup water
1/3 cup pineapple concentrate
½ cup date rolls or pieces
2 apples peeled and cored
1 t. sea salt
2 t. vanilla

Blend thoroughly then add:
1 cup walnuts or pecans

Blend again and then add:
1 ½ cup millet flour
1 ½ cup oat flour
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1 cup unsweetened coconut
2 t. coriander powder

Drop by spoonfuls on baking sheet and flatten with fork. Bake at 350º for 35-40 minutes

*Further statements about dairy foods: “We know that a free use of these things [salt, sugar and milk] is positively injurious to health, and in many cases we think that if they were not used at all, a much better state of health would be enjoyed.” Counsels on Diet and Food, 468. “Let the people be taught how to prepare food without the use of milk or butter. Tell them that the time will soon come when there will be no safety in using eggs, milk, cream, or butter, because disease in animals is increasing in proportion to the increase of wickedness among men. The time is near when, because of the iniquity of the fallen race, the whole animal creation will groan under the diseases that curse our earth. God will give His people ability and tact to prepare wholesome food without these things. Let our people discard all unwholesome recipes.” Ibid., 356.

Food for Life – Oat Date Bar Cookies

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December! What a month of festivities! Pagan in origin and still pagan in philosophy, but nevertheless, we are surrounded by this element, and our children are bent to the ways of the world. Can we teach them the proper ways? I think we can. Instead of heaping the presents on them on this holiday, let us carefully keep in mind what Jesus went through while on this earth, and let us faithfully guard our children and their minds away from all earthly things to heavenly things. Let us keep His coffers full, instead of our own. God bless you and keep you during this holiday season.

“I should eat regularly of the most healthful food which will make the best quality of blood, and I should not work intemperately if it is in my power to avoid doing so.

“And when I violate the laws God has established in my being, I am to repent and reform, and place myself in the most favorable condition under the doctors God has provided—pure air, pure water, and the healing, precious sunlight.

“Water can be used in many ways to relieve suffering. Drafts of clear, hot water taken before eating (half a quart, more or less), will never do any harm, but will rather be productive of good.

“A cup of tea made from catnip herb will quiet the nerves.

“Hop tea will induce sleep. Hop poultices over the stomach will relieve pain.

“If the eyes are weak, if there is pain in the eyes, or inflammation, soft flannel cloths wet in hot water and salt, will bring relief quickly.

“When the head is congested, if the feet and limbs are put in a bath with a little mustard, relief will be obtained.

“There are many more simple remedies which will do much to restore healthful action to the body. All these simple preparations the Lord expects us to use for ourselves, but man’s extremities are God’s opportunities. If we neglect to do that which is within the reach of nearly every family, and ask the Lord to relieve pain when we are too indolent to make use of these remedies within our power, it is simply presumption. The Lord expects us to work in order that we may obtain food. He does not propose that we shall gather the harvest unless we break the sod, till the soil, and cultivate the produce. Then God sends the rain and the sunshine and the clouds to cause vegetation to flourish. God works and man cooperates with God. Then there is seedtime and harvest.

“God has caused to grow out of the ground, herbs for the use of man, and if we understand the nature of those roots and herbs, and make a right use of them, there would not be a necessity of running for the doctor so frequently, and people would be in much better health than they are today. I believe in calling upon the Great Physician when we have used the remedies I have mentioned.” Selected Messages, Book 2, 297.

Recipe – Oat Date Bar Cookies

2 cups coconut (unsweetened)

1/4 cup almond butter

l/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 cup date pieces, finely cut

1 cup chopped walnuts

2/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup honey

Combine all ingredients, spread out into pan or form into cookies and bake at 350 degrees until light brown.

Recipe – Oatmeal Cookies

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5 cups oats

2 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup raisins and/or carob chips

1 cup water or soy milk

1 cup oil (can decrease or substitute with ½ applesauce)

1 cup honey/maple syrup mixture

2 tsp. vanilla

Mix all dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, mix all wet ingredients. Add both mixtures together. Let sit 5-10 minutes. Drop by 1 spoonful onto cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.