The Nourishing Gourmet

Nourishing. Satisfying. Gourmet.

Q and A

Q & A: Best Choice with Limited Meat Options and Is Venison Nourishing?

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Last week kept me glued to the computer getting all of the giveaways ready to roll. Wow! What a week! Three of the giveaways are still open to new entries, enter here to win three nourishing “must read books”, or here to win a wondermill grain mill, and here to win 25 pounds of sprouted flour. All three of these giveaways end on Wednesday night.

Since last week kept me so busy, I got a little behind on some other projects. So today, instead of sharing a recipe or a long post, I share part one to the Q & A series that I promised. Instead of spending two hours typing out a post, I thought I would do it the fast way and just do a little video for you.

Now, I warn you that I am unusually calm in this video as I really needed to be taking a nap as I was quite overtired. But instead I grabbed the labtop and curled up in front of the fire to answer the first two questions you had for me. Next time I will try to be a little more lively. *smile*

The two questions I started with were in brief, 1) Should I eat animal products when all I can get is badly produced meat? 2)Is Venison Healthy?

Q & A: Should We Soak Almond Flour?

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One frequent question I receive is whether or not we should soak almond flour when using it for baked goods. I know that many of my readers like to use not only gluten free flours, but also flours that are grain free as well. Almond flour is a popular choice.

I am not completely clear on everything in regard to this topic. But here’s my current understanding.

Nuts may contain phytic acid, but it’s the enzyme inhibitors  that are the big problem

As you may have noticed, we leave the salt out of any grain product that we are soaking because it prevents the phytic acid from being neutralized. But when we soak nuts we use a lot of salt. The reason, according to Sally Fallon, (besides the fact that this is a traditional method like the Aztec practice with pumpkin seeds) is that the salt helps activate the enzymes that neutralize enzyme inhibitors.

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Q & A: More on Natural Sweeteners

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I’ve had a boatload of questions regarding sweeteners which I’ve been needing to answer. Ever since I did my original post on sweeteners, It seems that I’ve gotten a question every week about sweeteners! Today I would like to answer a few common ones (paraphrased by me).

It’s been amusing to me to see everyone’s reaction to my sweet treats on my blog. Some people say that they have to “up” the sweeteners I use a lot to taste right, others half the sweetener and say it’s much to sweet. Some reprimand me for having desserts at all on the site. It just goes to show that my readers have diverse opinions about sweeteners. We are probably all in a different place in regard to the big “sugar” question.  I think that we need to be kind and understanding in dealing with those with differing opinions than us.

Also amusing to me was when I was on a grain and sugar free diet for a month (though I didn’t mention it on my blog), my daily traffic fell that whole month, but when I added them back in and started sharing grain/sweet recipes- my blog started growing again.

There is something about grains and sweets that we just like, isn’t there!

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Q & A: Nourishing Food for a Single Gal on a Budget

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I recently got a question from a reader, Jen. I wanted to give some hopefully helpful tips for her (three frugal overarching tips, a list of frugal whole foods, and Asian Market finds), but I also would love for you all to weigh in and give her some advice. So please, leave a comment and share your tips! Here’s the question.

“Hey Kimi!

I’m a bit of a lurker, but today, I realized I have a question for you. I’m a young single gal, with an extremely limited budget (seriously, $100/a month would more than double my monthly food budget–and my roommate and I share quite a bit of the food that I buy). What advice could you offer someone in my situation? I normally cook for one (and am hesitant to spring my…shall we say developing??…cooking skills on anyone else in the guise of blessing them), and have the aforementioned limited budget, but I’d like to do better for myself than frozen dinners and canned soup.”


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