Dihydrogen Monoxide!

WATER.

You know you're supposed to be drinking the famous "eight glasses" but c'mon, that's a lot of water. It's just plain ol' water anyways, nothing special, right? Nope. Not at all. If you're not striving to meet your daily fluid intake, you're missing out on one of the easiest and quickest ways to improve your health.

If you're dieting, water is your best friend. Drink a tall glass of water a few minutes before a meal, and you probably won't eat as much. The concept is stupidly simply, but it works. Replacing sugar-laden, nutritionally void drinks with water cuts out a significant amount of calories per day, which will help you lose a lot of weight in the long run! Just check out this study from the Center for Disease Control: Consumption of Sugar Drinks in the United States, 2005-2008

Another newsflash that isn't new at all? Water is good for you. Humans are mostly water. It is a vital part of how our bodies function, and we must vigilantly replenish ourselves to function optimally. Read WebMD's article Why Drink More Water? and you'll see just a couple of the organs that rely heavily on water.

Are you worried about the cost of so much bottled water? Try picking up a water bottle with a built-in filtration system and fill it up with tap water! Brita makes these bottles in four different colors, Another one that I've heard great things about is the Bobble bottle.

"Eight glasses per day" is just a general rule of thumb. For a better idea of how much water you should be drinking, try this Water Intake Calculator. According to this estimation, I should be drinking the equivalent to three Brita bottles per day. If you just carry some around with you, drinking water will become habitual. Remember, some of your daily fluid intake comes from food!

The life of a gluten-free college student

Hi, I'm Samra, and this is my story of the road to being gluten-free.

For years, I got sick whenever I ate and never knew why. I just assumed that I was a little different than everyone else and that I was eating some unknown allergen. For example, every time I went to Chickfila and got sick, I thought I was allergic to peanut oil--yet I never got sick when I ate peanuts. I knew I was MSG-intolerant and intolerant to many fruits, so whenever I could blame them, I did. For years, I even avoided corn products and Mexican food, thinking that it must be that, since corn was in everything. I looked for things with wheat instead, never realizing that it was making me sicker.

Then came my senior year of high school. I went on a no-carb diet to boost my energy levels, and I felt AMAZING. I had never had so much energy, and being able to eat without fearing that I'd get violently ill or bloated or ache all over like I had the flu was a wonderful feeling. Then I reintroduced gluten and everything went downhill. I was having to leave school multiple times a week for food-induced migraines and doctors appointments, trying to figure out if my gallbladder or spleen were causing these symptoms. They finally put me on generic librax, which seemed to ease the symptoms.

Fast forward two years, and I finally, after having a friend be diagnosed with Celiac Disease, realized that gluten was my problem. I took gluten out of my diet, and like my senior year of high school, I felt amazing. It turns out that my grandmother was celiac for years, which had led to her having colon cancer. Hearing that, combined with this new healthy feeling, there was no going back to a gluten-filled life.

That being said, it isn't easy. As a college student, I'm not exactly able to spend hundreds of dollars on groceries, and that's what it seems like I'm doing sometimes. Plus, not all of the gluten-free substitutes are good, and finding them in a small town is next to impossible. I remember my first trip to the grocery store after discovering my gluten-intolerance. I read every label religiously and wanted to cry when I realized almost nothing was there. I felt like I had no control over what I could eat, and I was so afraid I'd mess up and eat something with gluten and be sick all over again. It didn't help that the one bread substitute I found that day tasted like cardboard. Two years later, thanks to Kroger, Whole Foods, and good friends who've been down the same road as I have, I've been able to find good substitutes, although those have to be done in moderation because of the high calorie content. The way I feel, however, makes it all worth it. This also encourages me to cook with vegetables that I buy at the Farmer's Market and eat lots of protein, which is much better for me anyway!

The only thing I miss, honestly, is convenience. You can't trust everyone who says the stuff in their restaurants is gluten-free, and often, people will believe it truly is because someone who is on a fad diet will say they're gluten-free and then eat a loaf of bread. Question everything, and realize in the long run, it's worth it. As much as I might want to pick up take-out or a pizza when I have a busy night ahead, I've learned that it's not an option for me. It's a medical condition, and I had to accept that. Just like diabetics or people with heart problems or high blood pressure have to monitor and control their food intake, so do I, but that doesn't mean it has to control my life.

If you have any questions about what to eat, here's a couple of things I've compiled that might help. Here is my gluten-free grocery guide that I've compiled on pinterest, as well as a quick link to gluten-free restaurant menus.

All the best,
Samra

What do you mean? Gluten free?

Gluten free? What does that mean? You can't imagine how many people have said that to me. I have Celiac disease, an autoimmune disease, and that means I can't have anything with gluten in it. Wheat, oats, barley, and rye... they all have gluten. MSG stands for monosodium glutamate.... gluten in its purest form. So what is gluten? What does it do? Well gluten is an artificial filler. Food companies put it in their food so they can make more without using more product. Really they do it to save themselves money, but they still charge us the same price. Farmers use it too. Farmers fertilize their crops with gluten. It makes the crops grow much bigger in a much smaller amount of time, so the farmer gets to produce more. The farmer makes more money. See the pattern here? Gluten is actually really bad for your body. It is detrimental to your body and causes a lot of problems as you age. It is a man-made product. The problem is that food companies don't tell you about this. They are required by law to label it on their foods. But if you don't know what gluten is, what does that matter to you? It should. Your health can be affected. Get active. Learn about what you're putting into your body. Become more informed, and then you can tell others. What can it hurt? 

Anne Lea Finn

We want to hear from YOU!

We would love to hear your questions and suggestions! Send us an e-mail at plantingseedsblog@gmail.com! 

Container Gardening

Not everyone has the opportunity to start a garden in their backyard, and even fewer people have the time to maintain it. Container gardening is a great for dorm-dwellers, busy breadwinners and everyone in between! Container gardening can be as simple as growing herbs in the kitchen, and as complex as a patio full of pots. It's just a matter of your needs and desires. It's relatively cheap to start a couple of containers, so it's much less of an investment than a full-scale garden.

For a great starter guide on container gardening, try checking out the Clean Air Gardening Blog.

Our Purpose

We are members of Phi Theta Kappa, an honor society for two-year colleges. Phi Theta Kappa's four hallmarks are scholarship, leadership, service, and fellowship. We strive to exemplify these in all that we do. 



Our purpose here is to educate and encourage others to seek out ways to live in a self-sustained manner, as well as share our own endeavor in making an on-campus garden. We envision our garden being abundantly beneficial by providing wholesome foods to our students, faculty, and community. We also believe in teaching others about the financial and health related benefits of self-sustained living. 

Goats as a Self-Sustaining Food&Dairy Source

Enjoy a guest-written post about goats from Marietta Killen! -Jessica

Now, at the moment, goats can not be a fully self-sustaining resource for me. Due to area limitations, I can not produce my own feed, nor can I grow my own hay. It is still a great way to provide meat and milk for my family. This comes as a necessity for us not only because my husband is disabled so we are on a limited income, but also because a few of my daughters and I are not able to drink cows' milk. We require goat milk which, at our local markets, runs us about $4/quart or soy milk, which none of us care for. With the current state of our economy and previous years of drought,  prices for goods in the grocery store is once more on the rise. Meat, eggs, milk... everything is climbing. Now, for eggs, I am blessed to work for a lady who raises her own chickens and sends me home with a dozen and a half eggs every week. For meat and milk, I am at a loss on because I do not have the room (nor funds) to raise a calf each year for beef, and hogs are not allowed within city limits. Goats, however, are well within city ordinance and would cover both the meat and dairy needed for my family.

This will be a learning process for my family as we are just beginning this endeavor. We are quickly learning the many things you need to find out before purchasing a dairy goat. The first thing I learned was that not all dairy goats are equal. All have different ranges in the butterfat in the milk and can give you anything from the equivalent of skim cows' milk to whole milk. I've had to learn the various goat breeds, which goats are better milkers for your desired butterfat content, the average amount of milk a lactating doe should produce per day, and what forage (stuff the goat eats) could affect the taste of the milk. I searched my state for local breeders after having narrowed down my choice to either Nigerian Dwarves and Nubians. I emailed each farm I found within a four hour drive from me and waited. Not one single response to any email I sent. I was getting frustrated until I found a link buried several pages within Google for a farm about two hours from me that had several breeds of dairy goats, including my much desired Nubians. I sent a simple email out inquiring about deposits and expressing my desires to learn about raising dairy goats. I had a response not three hours later.

The breeder was very attentive to my questions, encouraging them and even sending me her phone number welcoming any calls about her herd or any other questions. She talked about feed and supplements, even some that I hadn’t read about in all of my searching about feeding requirements on goats. She suggested a feed and hay source that they use and that their goats do very well on. When I informed her I could not locate one place around here that sold feed specifically for dairy goats, she even offered to help me locate a good feed resource, She shared that one of the two hay choices that are suggested online as good for dairy goats would give very off-tasting milk. When I call the breeder next week to place my deposit on a doeling (young female goat), I will have to learn about the milking history of her predecessors

I will be breeding my Nubians. I have decided that when we have bucks (male goats), we will castrate them and use the wethers (castrated male goats) for meat. This will ensure that we do not have an overabundance of wethers running around until I can make a proper area to contain a buck. A buck has to be kept far enough from my doe herd so his musk won't sour the milk. We will put all the goat kids to use.

I have big plans for my dairy goats. Once we get to the milking stage, we can evaluate how much milk we receive each day. If we have more than we need, I may begin to make my own goat milk body soap, shampoo, and possibly even laundry soap.

My other venture will be Boer goats for meat. Now, granted, I know that my Nubian girls will produce male offspring that I plan on castrating and using for meat. Nubians, however, are meant to be dairy goats so I want a breed meant for meat. Now, in our community, there are many FFA children that have Boers that breed in hopes of getting a doeling to show, but there will always be the unwanted wethers. I plan to turn to these kids and purchase their unwanted goats. This will be my plan for the first couple of years until I get settled into the breeding of goats. Then, I will look at getting a couple Boer females and breed them for meat goats each year. This will provide a good amount of the meat that my family will greatly need, and perhaps even have some extra to share with some families that could be in need as well.

These are all grand hopes I know. Producing my own milk, the possibility of making and selling the soaps... but I would also love for a way to give back to some in my community that could need a bit of help themselves. The journey will officially start this spring and I look forward to see where it takes me.