After my little lecture at the end of the last post about teaching the younger generations real life skills I was listening to an interview that gave a bit more perspective to that personal plea.
It’s with a 60 year old grandma trying to do exactly that on YouTube, and she’s got over a million subscribers, a huge website and a new cookbook. She is bursting with passion and purpose, but it’s well-tempered by her realization that in America, for most folks, we still have a very long way to go.
Folks are intimidated, she insists. And for those of us who have been doing it for the last decade already, we have a tendency to forget where we came from.
She is of the rare breeds who grew up cooking and eating this way, whereas her first students were her friends, who couldn’t even imagine making homemade bread at the time, let alone mastering sourdough. They never bought a whole chicken before, let alone broke the carcass down for a nutritious bone broth. They were not accustomed to shopping on a budget, or to filling their pantries with essentials for emergencies.
She really is the ‘Starting From Scratch’ guru, with the patience, positivity and personality it takes to succeed in such a position.
In a recent Wise Traditions interview, “Why Cooking Traditional Foods From Scratch Is Worth It”:
“Do you get overwhelmed thinking about making sourdough bread from scratch? Or homemade broths and soups? Mary Bryant Shrader of Mary’s Nest is a YouTuber and educator who has a knack for demonstrating how simple (and tasty and economical) traditional cooking can be! Today, she shares some of her own story (including successes and failures along the way) of how she got into becoming a “modern kitchen pioneer”. She goes over the biggest hurdles we face (like feeling too busy or too intimidated to get started), how to overcome them, and even what inspires her to keep going with traditional food cooking.”
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wise-traditions/id1072618042?i=1000681385872
Her YT channel has loads of content, not all for beginners either. Here’s an intriguing one I plan to watch:
The 10 Best Survival Foods for your prepper pantry
If you’re one of those who believe the commercial hype, and think that all food is the same, and what nutrition you aren’t getting from your junk food diet is no big deal, because you take vitamins and supplements, here’s the really bad news from someone who once thought along similar lines, and paid dearly for those mistakes through his poor health at a relatively young age. Something we are witnessing far too often in this country.
Unlike our above super upbeat, positive Granny, Agent is snarky and sometimes downright intolerant—so, much more my style—except he doesn’t like to cook, poor fella.😆
“I get a lot of emails and questions about if a specific product is good to take – in my opinion it is all poison because nutrients come from clean foods, not bottles, but I don’t want you to take my word for it, I want you to know how to find out for yourself so nobody can ever dupe you again. With that being said, today I am going to show you how you can easily learn about any chemical in any product and its health effects, real safety data and more. You can then use the information you found to make an informed decision and never have to rely on a podcaster, famous doctor or Substack author again.”
Become your own master of health! YES, that’s the ticket!
“A Manufacturers Safety Data Sheet (MSDS or SDS) is the easiest way to get real information because, while Google can selectively show you search results to fit an agenda, and while doctors-turned-online-show hosts can recommend a product they are making a kickback off of, the MSDS can’t lie. The reason is because the manufacturer of the chemical must present honest information to avoid being sued out of existence by those who purchase their product and use it to manufacture supplements to sell to the plebs.”
He has a series of articles breaking down the reality of America’s most commonly used vitamins and supplements. You probably already know that some of the chemicals Americans consume routinely are banned in other countries. And A LOT of it comes from China and other far off places where we have little to no oversight.
Not that government oversight is on our side, at all! They pretend to be on our side, only to make more absurd and expensive regulations to ‘solve’ the problems they previously created.
🤪
As an example here’s a ‘solution’ of several states that is a complete non-solution for those who don’t like to cook and can’t afford to out every meal, yet are tired of the grocery store ready-meal options.
Micro enterprise Home Kitchen Operation (MEHKO), a way for the government to further interfere in your kitchen and your health.
Frequently Asked Questions — The COOK Alliance
How do you get a MEHKO permit?
1. Pass a Food Protection Manager Certification exam.
2. Submit your application, including your menu and a Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) form.
3. Pay the permit fee.
4. Schedule and pass a home inspection.
And once you do all that, you still cannot serve the most nutritious meals, because they are on the ‘dangerous’ list (with oysters!) including all raw milk products, smoked or cured products, any food that has been vacuum-sealed, and even homemade ice cream. So. Not. A. Solution.
But let’s at least try to end on a positive note today!
If you have plenty of money, live in a popular urban environment, frequent the very best grocery stores, but don’t like cooking, you have plenty of options available for healthy choices these days, because the ‘free market’ has answered the call and made available all kinds of healthy and natural pre-made meals.
If you live anywhere else in America, or are feeling the economic pinch as we are here, well . . .
May this Season’s Greetings lead to new paths of traditional healthy eating for you and your family!
