Part of the Casswiki article series Health and wellness
Making food is a necessary skill for anyone wishing to move away from the destructively unhealthy processed foods and diet of the modern world.
The lost art and skill of making food
Many people in modern society are unable to make food for themselves. This can lead to a difficult situation for people who decide to change their lifestyle to avoid the dangers of modern agricultural processed food. Knowing ahead of time the basic techniques for making food efficiently without wasted time or effort will greatly improve the experience of someone moving to a new diet and free up a large amount of time.
Make it easy
Meat
Searing
Roasting
Grilling
Ground Meat
Fat
Eating the amounts of fat necessary to adapt to and thrive in ketosis can be a significant obstacle in moving to a better diet. However healthy fats aren’t naturally unpalatable, but are often made that way by processing, rancidity, or the caretakers of an unhealthy animal. Overcooking can also make fats rancid.
Preventing rancidity during cooking
Rancidity is the result of fat breaking down due to exposure to air or moisture. It is accelerated by heat and the presence of other substances in it such as water, or contact with metals.
The most obvious example of fat oxidizing or going rancid is fat that smokes and darkens while it is used to fry a piece of meat. Small amounts of fat that are degraded this way are sometimes used for flavor, such as brown butter or roasted walnut oil (not recommended). Saturated fats are much more stable during cooking whereas primarily unsaturated fats from plants and birds tend to degrade rapidly if not instantly upon exposure to air.
Another example can be seen in slow-cooking. Rancidification can be a significant problem for slow-cooking fatty foods because of the long cooking duration, constant heat and exposure to water and air. If there is a lot of fat and it begins to rancidify, the result can have a rancid taste.
Ways of preventing rancidity include:
- Eliminating water - rarely possible except for foods like pork rhinds
- Reducing cooking time - pressure cookers are excellent for preserving fats and their taste because they reduce cooking time as well as eliminating oxygen.
- Eliminating oxygen - Probably not possible except for pressure cookers and canning.
- Eliminating contaminants - small quantities of rancid fat added to fresh fat can cause the fresh fat to begin to rancidify.
- When frying, keep the temperature under the smoke point of the fat.
Plants and animals have a natural way of protecting against rancidification than can be taken advantage of to improve cooking. Antioxidants neutralize the byproducts of oxidized fat molecules which would otherwise damage more molucules. In fact, the potency of antioxidants is measured by adding them to fats and intentionally causing the fat to rancidify. The better the antioxidant, the longer it takes for the fat to go rancid. Adding antioxidants while cooking will help prevent rancidity. Examples include:
- Bay leaf
- Oregano and rosemary in particular have been studied extensively for preventing rancidification. Extracts and their oils can be bought.
- Tea - Camellia Sinensis, Yerba Mate
Rendering fat
Bone Broth
The necessary ingredients to a delicious, healthy broth are bones, meat, and seasoning. Broth can be used to make sauces and for flavoring other dishes. It can also just be drank out of a cup for energy and wellbeing throughout the day and into the future. The gelatin in the bone will cause the broth to solidify into a gel when cooled, which can be used to make desserts such as jello, or solid foods.
It is made by adding bones, meat and seasonings to a pot with water high enough to cover the bones and simmering up to 24 hours. The bones can often be reused.
The best bones for broth are marrow bones (such as shank) and bones that have lots of cartilage, which contains gelatin (such as oxtail). To be able to ask for the right bones from a butcher, it will help to know the names of different cuts of bones:
Marrow bones:
- Soup bones - Marrow bones cut about an inch thick. and 2 inches around, will fit in any pot.
- Shank - Same as soup bones.
Non-marrow bones:
- Oxtail - The tail. Mostly gelatin.
- Hoof
Cuts of meat convenient for broth making: Some cuts of meat, such as country style pork ribs, contain bones and gelatin. Useful cuts of meat for broth include:
- Country style ribs - 2lb contains enough gelatin to gel up 2 cups of broth nicely.
- Neckbones - may not always contain much gelatin
When cooking with bones it is recommended to add some sort of acid to the broth to draw out the minerals and nutrients and combine with them to produce bioavailable mineral salts. Because salt tends to buffer (inhibit) the acids, it is best not to add salt while cooking, but after cooking is complete. Using acids in bone broth can be compared to using different kinds of mineral supplements. More effective supplements combine multiple kinds of acids for a given mineral in order to increase bioavailability. Any kind of edible acid can be used according to taste:
- Lemon - Citric acid, ascorbic acid
- Apple Cider Vinegar - acetic acid, malic acid and smaller amounts of other acids such as lactic acid, ascorbic acid
- Cranberry tea - Citric acid, ascorbic acid
- Lactoferment juice - Lactic acid, ascorbic acid and other acids, however it usually contains salt as well which may reduce the drawing of minerals from the bone
A basic procedure for cooking bone broth is as follows:
- At the very beginning, add bones and meat to a stock pot and cover with water (count the cups of water added as you do this, so you know the amount of seasoning to use). If it is convenient you can add a whole roast and cook it this way. Make sure the bones and meat are packed well. If not your broth may be watery. Turn the stove on full blast now at the beginning so that it will be at cooking temperature when you are done with the other ingredients.
- Cut up Onions and anything else you want to add. Add spices, for instance: for every 4 cups water add a few bay leaves, a teaspoon sage, rosemary, black pepper and a bag of dried pure cranberry tea.
- Simmer: this means that the bubbles come to the surface but do not break, instead they shrink back into the water. Cook this way until the meat is tender and falls apart. Take out onions, other plant ingredients and as much of the meat (but not the connective tissue which contains gelatin) off the bones as you can along with the meat you added, as prolonged cooking will make the meat less appetizing. Skim off the fat and refrigerate or freeze.
- Continue to simmer until all the connective tissue falls off the bone. Add in more onions and meat if it is convenient. Separate the bones out and pour the liquid into half-gallon canning jars to be refrigerated. You can freeze the bones to add to your next batch, although if so you will eventually have to choose which bones to discard in favor of new bones.
Fat Bombs
Emulsification
Water
Filtering
- Reverse Osmosis
- Distillation
The important of minerals in water
Tea
In the most basic sense, tea is a drink prepared by heating water, adding parts of a given plant, and allowing it to steep for a specific amount of time to achieve the right strength and combination of flavors. Tea can be made from many different plants, such as dandelion, peppermint, cranberry, and so on.
Most teas are made from the plant Camellia Sinensis which is known to provide a high concentration of antioxidants and other helpful substances. At the same time, it contains caffeine which should be considered carefully. Furthermore, this plant in particular has a tendency to absorb fluoride and concentrate it in the leaves over time. For this reason White tea, made from the young leaves of the plant, contains the least fluoride. Fluoride poisoning has been observed in people who drink large quantities of fluoride-concentrated tea.
Yerba Mate is another tea plant which does contain caffeine but does not concentrate fluoride like Camellia Sinensis.
Variations of tea
- Buttered Tea - A teaspoon to tablespoon of butter mixed into the tea, sometimes more.
- Shredded Coconut - A teasponn to a tablespoon can be steeped with Camellia Sinensis teas for a nice synergy of flavors and a boost of mental energy.
- Acids - a small pinch of ascorbic acid powder or a bit of lemon can bring out the fruity flavors of Black teas.
Decaffeinated Tea
Spreads
Mayonnaise
Bone Butter
Bone butter is made by skimming the fat off of the top of a bone broth made with free range pig marrow bones and storing it in the refrigerator. It is very rich and flavorful and powerfully enhances satiety.
Sauces
Fermentation has been used historically for making and preserving food, as well as enhancing foods or reducing unwanted qualities.
Lactofermentation
Vessels and sealing techniques
Smen
Kombucha
Sweeteners
Sugar has powerful harmful effects on many levels, let alone being incompatible with the ketogenic diet. However there are other sweeteners that can be used.
Stevia
Sugar Alcohols
Xylitol
Use Birch or hardwood xylitol rather than xylitol made from corn.
Erythritol
Marshmallowy flavor. Made from corn, so questionable.
Using Cocoa
Using pork rhind flour
Refrigeration
Refrigeration is generally food storage at a temperature above freezing.
- Since water resists changing phase, if your fridge temperature is cold enough you can put frozen foods in your fridge and they will stay just frozen, whereas other foods will remain thawed.
Freezing
- Flash freezing: place items to be frozen open on a tray in the freezer for an hour, then transfer to an airtight container. This reduces frost and freezes the food immediately.
Pickling
Canning
Fermentation
lacto-fermented mayonnaise: mix in a portion of active ferment such as sauerkraut, then leave it on the counter for 12 hours. Mayonnaise made this way has dramatically increased shelf life. Do not try this without doing doing your own research to understand how to do it safely.
External links
Articles
- Sauerkraut Survivor (Test results of various fermenting vessels and sealing techniques.)