Heal With Meal!

Categories of Saccharides

Radek — Thu, 04 May 2023 15:11:53 +0000

I would like to introduce you to some very basic but essential information on how saccharides (carbohydrates) are categorized. Most of us associate this term with "sugars", which is a very inaccurate and confusing word. "Sugars and?" And then I often receive emails from you with photographed labels and ask: "Can I eat this when it has saccharides??!" Even in consultations, the topic of saccharides is brought up a lot. In order to have our North star and not commit mistakes, we need to know WHICH saccharides are in our meals, because they are omni present. I'll try to clear the air so that you can pick and choose correctly by yourself. With SCD it's important to be able to distinguish between the various saccharides, which allows us to know what is and isn't suitable. Don't worry this won't be a chemistry lesson with equations and formulas, I'll name everything in a way that's understandable and so that you can avoid unnecessary mistakes. As Radek says, when you decide to follow SCD, you need to follow it "fanatically", otherwise it just won't work. Dividing Saccharides Saccharides are also known as carbohydrates. They are divided into monosaccharides, oligosaccharides (disaccharides), and polysaccharides. The most important part for us and SCD is that only MONOSACCHARIDES are suitable for our healing, and that's where I will begin. =MONOSACCHARIDES - they consist of 1 sugar unit, sometimes regarded as quick sugar, these consist of: a/ aldose, glucose, allose, deoxyribose, galactose, glucose, glyceraldehyde, manose, ribose and xylose belong here b/ ketose, here we have fructose or ribulose =OLIGOSACCHARIDES - these compose of 2 - 10 sugar units and consist of: a/ disaccharides - comprise of 2 sugar units, e.g. sucrose, maltose and lactose b/ trisaccharides - comprise of 3 sugar units, here we have raffinose c/ tetrasaccharides - comprise of 4 sugar units, etc. =POLYSACCHARIDES - comprise of more than 10 sugar units, we call them complex, compound saccharides - in the category you can find starch, glycogen, cellulose, chitin, heperain, inulin [su_custom_gallery source="media: 8507,8506,8463" limit="3" link="lightbox" width="250" height="150" title="never"] If you want to go deeper on this topic you can search the internet. You can of course take a look at wikipedia (Carbohydrates - Wiki) and added links. Make sure to try various sources, some expert sites state that disaccharides are simple sugars!!! :) So now, what's the deal with labels on products? That's a riddle all unto itself. Labels says saccharides, of which sugars. "What does it mean, of which sugars?" The producer already introduces confusion. We ask, "Which sugars?" "What kind of saccharides is it?" In the vast majority "sugars" mean monosaccharides. If we can't find our food item in the Legal/Illegal list we have to look elsewhere, in the nutritional tables (Nutrition data EN or Nutrition data DE, EN). Be vigilant in your search and research, don't hesitate to ask us too, we will gladly assist. :-) Some details regarding fructose and dextrose. How come that dextrose, a simple sugar is unsuitable for SCD? The issue with dextrose is that it comes in the form of grain (granule). Dextrose that's present in commercial products is not pure dextrose, it's not the same as the simple sugar found in fruit or honey. Since dextrose is manufactured commercially from corn starch, it has been found that the product is a mixture of several different mixtures of sugars: polysaccharides with short chain, trisaccharides, and disaccharides. In spite of all this, it's still regarded as dextrose, which causes all of this confusion. Additionally, such extracted sugar has a variety of possible effects on the gut, which are different from the sugar found in foods, the natural sugar. For example when you eat an apple. If you snack on an apple where you can find fructose and glucose, everything is all right, but if the sugar was artificially created, extracted and inserted into processed food, it behaves differently. If you eat an apple or two smaller ones, it's fine. If you make a smoothie however, which contains 4 apples and other fruits and you ingest all of it, you are tempting your health. Even though fructose is a monosaccharide, it can cause major health issues in large quantities. This goes especially for frutarians, where everyday meals consist mostly of large amounts of fruit and vegetables. Let's posit a question then "Can I eat 4 apples, piece of pineapple and a banana in one sitting?" most likely not. But when it's in the form of a smoothie, it becomes quite managable, and you can easily overdose, even if it's just simple sugar. This is why we cannot recommend such diet. Moreover, if you drink your fruits, the contact with saliva and all the associated enzymes is massively reduced, which hampers the digestive process, and from there it makes sense issues may arise. And then there are other things, such as my personal belief, that if it was intended for us to drink our fruits, Nature would make it so the cocktails grow on a trees. But it seems like it is intended for us to eat the apple whole with the skin and the seeds. That is the beauty of life, that we might have forgotten. PS, if you prepare yourself a beet and apple juice for the purpose of detox, that's a different story. It's good to look for information and see it from different perspectives, there is no singular answer for everything. We have to know what do we want and where do we want to go. What is the ultimate result we are looking for. This is a topic in its own right, but for now I think we can leave it here. This article should give you a good basic overview, if you have any more questions, you can always type us an email. Let's eat a variety of foods and not too much or too little. Any extreme is going to be harmful. Glucose - wikipedia Marky [su_divider top="no" size="2" margin="20"] All rights reserved. No pictures, text, or part of the text can be copied or commercially used without explicit written permission from the administrators of Marky SCD recipes

Bananas suitable for healing

Radek — Thu, 04 May 2023 14:44:16 +0000

For healing with SCD but also for general well-being it is important in which phase of ripening do we consume our bananas. Did you know, that besides all sorts of beneficial substances, minerals and vitamins, they also contain ethylen, which allows them to finish ripening without the sun, water or it's plant base? I should also probably note that while the banana plant is reminiscent of a regular tree, it's not a woody plant, but the largest herb on the planet. The "trunk" of the banana is not a woody stem, as it would be for trees, but structurally it's more similar to petioles of massive leaves. From this "trunk" bloom giant flowers. Brown leaves reminiscent of flower petals are individiual leaves, in other words transformed leaves supporting the inflorescence. So that we can indulge bananas in our region, the harvest happens during what's called a "technological ripeness", which means they are completely green at this point. To transport them, special cargo ships with climatized spaces are used, which allows them to control the atmosphere, monitor carbon dioxide, add nitrogen oxides and later the aforementioned ethylen to regulate the ripening. Saccharides are the largest containing substance in bananas, in unripe fruits these are in the form of starch. As bananas ripen they transform into monosaccharides - information about categories of saccharides can be found HERE. High density of starch in unripe bananas may cause flatulence and indigestion. As we know, starch does not promote healthy function of the gut and its regeneration, and that's why it's imperative to avoid unripe bananas, even if there is only a hint of green. In contrast, when it comes to ripe bananas, the containing starch is reduced to about 1%, which is a low amount in the extreme and is perfectly suitable for the purpose of healing. PHASES OF BANANA RIPENING [su_custom_gallery source="media: 8494" limit="1" link="lightbox" width="640" height="353"] 1./ green color 2./ color with faint hints of yellow 3./ yellow color with green stalk 4./ yellow color with dark speckles 5./ yellow color with dark speckles and darkening stalk 6./ yellow color with brown stalk and prominent brown spots 7./ half brown with only few remaining spots being yellow, brown stalk Which bananas are best for direct consumptuion? It's very simple, the peel will help us understand what stage is the banana in. As the banana ripens it changes from green to yellow, starch transforms to monosaccharides and significantly changes flavor, from strongly bitter and grassy in aroma to honey sweet. You'd be surprised what a freshly picked banana tastes like, that is, from the tree, or the herb itself, more accurately. We've had the opportunity to visit Srí Lanka with Radek, a south Asian region, where you can indulge in fresh bananas thanks to the natural climate. My friends I have to confess, that was an experience of taste that I will never forget. Bananas that are suitable for consumption then (pictures 4 through 7) are the ones with yellow skin, ideally with a spot here and there. The more ripe they are the more sweet. It's common that you will forget about a banana somewhere and it goes completely brown. All you have to do there is to peel it off and smell it. Banana can be a little alcoholic at that point, I wouldn't personally eat it anymore but... different strokes and all. They are not forbidden. Storing bananas in the fridge is a mistake. At lower temperatures banans do not ripen, they lose their aroma, taste, texture and color. They turn grey and black and become just yucky to eat. Don't do that to them :) Adjust your purchasing of bananas for when you are planning to eat them. If you want to eat them right away pick bananas number 4 - 7 which are already yellow, if you want to eat them later, pick the ones that are not completely yellow, which means 2 - 3, you can leave them at room temperature on the window or on your dinner table until they ripen. You know what my favorite part about bananas is? How practical they are, just toss them in a bag, and when it's time, just peel them and eat right there. No washing, no cutting, no preparation. What an amazing fruit :) In closing, I will offer you a link to our favorite banana smoothie recipe. And before I forget, in our cookbook 03 I prepared a recipe for you, Sweet banana bread with date dip. Have a great day, eat only the perfectly ripe bananas and be well :) Marky [su_custom_gallery source="media: 8493,8397" limit="2" link="lightbox" width="360" height="240" title="never"] Sources: Information about the banana plant was sourced from the website of Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences Fotos: banana ripening table - davidwolfe.com, chimpanzee - communitytable.parade.com PS, the monkey in the picture didn't select the ideal banana for SCD, have you noticed? ;) [su_divider top="no" size="2" margin="20"] All rights reserved. No pictures, text, or part of the text can be copied or commercially used without explicit written permission from the administrators of Marky SCD recipes

Myths of Honey: Does warming up honey diminish its benefits?

Radek — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 01:51:33 +0000

This article was translated from a Czech site Pleva.

Do you also wait until your tea is cold before you sweeten it? Or do you find it worthless to use it in baking or cooking because it's going to lose its mojo in the oven? Lot of people are convinced that warming up honey somehow degrades it or makes it less beneficial for us. That's why we got together with experts in the field of beekeeping, and we put together a simple summary of how to warm or cool your honey without a worry.

General Rule for honey warming

Most important rule regarding any work with honey: long-term exposure to heat higher than 70 °C damages the honey and healthy benefits are diminished. Quick heating and temperatures lower than 60 °C have no negative effects on honey.

You can sweeten your tea or coffee with honey

If you sweeten your beverages with honey, you probably already know that it contains hundreds of substances - among which are vitamins A, B and minerals. Some of these may transform due to high temperatures - same goes for this case, it depends on how long is the honey exposed to heat. Concerns regarding degradation of honey due to heat are overblown and exaggerated.

So let's go over one scenario: Good morning! It's about that time, let's have a cup of black tea. As soon as the kettle clicks we pour the boiling water in the mug with the tea(bag). In the moment of boiling water is at 100 °C. But it cools down immediately when it makes contant with the cold mug and goes down to about 80 °C. Now the teabag needs to leach for a bit. Some people leave it there for 5 minutes, others for more than 10. The temperature keeps going down. You stir the tea with a cold spoon and now you are adding the honey to sweeten the tea. This is yet another exchange of heat. So that you can start sipping on your tea, it needs to be around 60 °C. So that would mean you are adding the honey at a moment where the temperature will not harm the honey in any way, on top of that you won't be exposing the honey to the heat for a long time either. And the tea is getting gradually colder, you are not warming it up again. That's why the honey will be intact. So that honey could be damaged it would need to be exposed to 80 °C for a full hour and that is definitely not likely to happen in an every day circumstance. The result of this experiment is clear: Most beneficial substances in honey are very stable and if we don't add it immediately after pouring the boiling water, the tea itself is not hot enough for any damage to happen, either.

We do not recommend heating in the microwave

Reasoning is simple, the heating is not uniform and it's rather fast, some parts will be exposed to higher temperatures than others. Research institute of beekeeing Dol states that several minutes of exposure to microwave heat is comparable to several days of regular hot bath in hot water. Honey will also froth in the microwave, aside from overheating.

If you need to warm up or melt the honey, we recommend hot bath or put the jar on a not too hot radiator, or near a stove or fireplace. Common trick that is used by clever housekeepers is bundling the jar of honey inside of a thick sweater and putting it on a radiator, such solution is tried and true.

When the research institute looked at the question of transformation of "biological value" by use of heat, the term itself, biological value, seemed hard to define. Current research suggests however, that even an event, such as heating in the microwave will not lower the value to half. So if you want to use the full value of honey, just use double the amount.

One other interesting observation was made thanks to the efforts of the researcher Marcela Bučeková, MSc, PhD who examined the heating in microwave and compared it to regular heating. The conclusion of this examination was unambiguous. The microwave heat causes substantial decrease of antibacterial activity in the honey. With regular heating using the hot bath or liquefying at 55 °C these substances do not decrease with a noticeable margin.

Baking with honey depends on the degree of heat

The amount of beneficial subtances in the resulting product after baking depends mainly on how long does the process take and what is the baking procedure. If we're talking about quick baking where the honey is part of a dough, there may be many susbtances left over. For example the oven is set to 250 °C and the temperature of the dough does not exceed 80 °C. In such conditions, most of the benefits can remain.

Smaller treats or cookies that can be done within 3-5 minutes will most likely retain the benefits as well. If the baking takes longer or is for example on the surface, they most likely will diminish.

Low temperatures are OK

If for some reason you need to keep your honey in the fridge or freezer, don't worry about negative effects, honey can stored in the cold without a problem.

There is no research that would suggest there are any negative consequences for honey if it's exposed to freezing temps. The texture of honey and its viscosity should also not change very much - the degree of crystallization is not based on temperature but the origin of honey.

Bees make honey from nectar of flowers or honeydew and the same honey might not have the same form two years in a row. Generally, honeys that stay liquid the longest are acacia honeys. Honeys that crystallize quickly would be honeys made from the nectar of rapeseed. Don't worry about putting your honey in the fridge or freezer, it will not negatively influence the quality at all.

This article was translated from a Czech site Pleva.

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Visiting a Beekeeper

Radek — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 21:52:35 +0000

You send us some questions here and there regarding honey. Opinions on how it's made, how to use it, crystallizing, heating and more. That's why we decided with Marky to take you to our chief supplier of this natural wonder. Mr. Petr Kořínek, who will share with you some interesting observations and experiences as a beekeeper. Please enjoy witnessing the beautiful craft that is beekeeping. CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE WEBSITE OF THE BEE FARM

[su_spoiler title="VIDEO TRANSCRIPT THERE" open="yes" style="fancy" icon="arrow-circle-2"]

Hello there, this is Radek. I'm taking you to a bee farm today. You send us some questions here and there regarding honey. Opinions on how it's made, how to use it, crystallizing, heating and more. That's why we decided with Marky to take you to our chief supplier of this natural wonder. Mr. Petr Kořínek, who will share with you some interesting observations and experiences as a beekeeper. Please enjoy witnessing the beautiful craft that is beekeeping. By the way, Marky looks fantastic with the beekeeping hat and veil :) Conversation outside near the hives. P:…If you're here and you're not scared, I'm gonna open it up… M:…alright… P:…you can take a look…I got an already prepared stock of honey… M:…I have never seen this in person, wow…

P:…there are no bees here, or maybe just a tiny amount

M:…I can see some, staring back at me…. P:…the covered parts are stocks of honey… M:…oh yeah… P:…this part was loaded… M:…oh so they're stocking honey for themselves? P:…yeah…I'll look for a better frame…this is a larva, bees will be born here.. M:…so how do i recognize a bee and a drone? P:…drone is larger, not sure if I can find some here……Look here right of my hand a bee is born right now… M:…here? P:…no no, over here… M:… oh there it is! Radi take a look, right in front of our eyes, a baby bee… P:…she's still kind of grey… M:…I remember Martina saying that the small baby bees are completely grey…so we are witnessing a birth of bees or rather this one bee…Finally I got to meet a real drone…so Peter, I would love to know how is it that you have become a beekeeper, have you inherited the farm or did you fall in love with it? Like "this is the kind of thing I want to do" :) P:… it's kind of a coincidence actually, definitely did not inherit it… I worked part-time at a bee farm, that's my first experience…at first I didn't really like it, I was pretty scared…then I took real interest in it and I got myself my own hives… M:…and these smaller boxes, what kind of bees are there? P:…those are mating nucs.. M:…mating nucs? P:…yeah so when I need to mate more bees, I take some of the bees and put them in 2 or 3 frames and put them into these boxes with bee larva. Bees develop a queen and before autumn comes around, these 2 boxes will be full of bees… M:…so all of these are the nucs…

P:…here she is, i have marked it white, the queen bee…

M:…I see...she's so big…

R:…these mating yards are in polystyrene, is there a special reason for that?

P:…it keeps warmth better than wood, these hives are in plastic and these are wood..

M:..this is plastic? I wouldn't even know…

P:..for spring, polystyrene is definitely better, if the temperature goes to like 15 or 20°C the queens hatch and then if the temperature goes to -5°C bees have keep the warmth to about 35°C, in places with larvae, and this is harder to do in the wooden or plastic boxes…

P:…this is the cutout, they go down from this upper set and then don't come back up anymore, I don't even need to sweep the bees from the set and I just take it empty to honey house to drain...

M:…I see, I was struggling trying to imagine how they fly around the beehive back and forth up and down, or?

P:…yeah, they just go down and don't come back up anymore… M:…looking at you, you're totally chill, you don't need the net or anything like I do… P:…sometimes I do…Most of the time I do wear the hat and veil… it's pretty nasty for eyes and ears otherwise…now with autumn coming, it's not so busy anymore, bees are minding each other and if they feel something they sting… M:…I was just thinking, when I tend my garden and work on the lavender, bees react and I'm kinda taking their food away so to speak, they get pretty aggressive about that, so I was wondering can you recognize the anxiety in the bees, like can you tell when it's better to put on the hat or something… P:…right, I get an idea when I see how it opens… M: I thank God for beekeepers, I was saying it earlier, it's such a marvel. Without bees we would all be gone within 4 years or something… this world is connected in so many ways, and it's not just about honey, but pollen and trees and other things …we have a lot to appreciate when it comes to bees… P:…it's said that honey is 10% of what a bee does, the rest is the distribution of pollen and all the other things bees do, so honey is really the smaller part of their life…

In the honey house, preparation room and basically the technical side of the farm.

P:…first we need to take off the lids from the frames with a knife or fork…then we put it into the centrifuge and that gets us the honey which is drained out afterwards…this honey is poured into a large vessel, here wax reaches the top and pure honey is drained from the bottom… if I'm putting the honey into jars, it's filtered through thin sieves… R:… I think you mentioned that old beekeepers used to do this differently… P:..they used to drain the honey straight into jars from the centrifuge, they might have had a sieve there too, but despite that, some of the dirt from wax will remain, because cold honey will not go through the sieve easily… sometimes the honey can already start crystallizing somewhat in the hives, this crystallization gets into the jars and within a week is fully crystallized… R:…people often talk about the idea that when honey is crystallized, it's because there is refined sugar in it … P:…nah, that's a natural property of honey… I'm not sure where do people say this, maybe in cities but here in the villages, when older people buy their honey they specifically choose crystallized honey, because they are actually worried the honey has been too heated... in the shops they might heat it up to 80°C and then quickly cool it back down the reason for that being, the honey doesn't crystallize as quickly and it's easier to sell in this form… R:..when we were coming back from our visit to Expres menu, we bought honey somewhere in northern Moravia and it was so thick it could be barely poured out of the jar… how come the honey can be so different with regards to color, texture consistency and such… P:… it depends on what did the bees gather.. I assume dark honey would be pine honey… you can separate honeys into flower and pine honeys… flower honey is made from nectar and pine honey comes from aphids… with flower honey the color, flavor and fragrance depends on the kinds of flowers the bees tend to, and it also affects the sugars… each honey has different structure of sugars, glucose, fructose, even higher sugars can be found there… R:… people tell us that refined sugar is added to honey, but I found out that they may be mistaking it with sugar being used to feed the bees, which is an entirely different topic right… P:…true, in autumn months bees are fed with sugar… but we do it in a way, where what's left is put above the hives, so that the bees can make full use of it during winter months…

R:….so it depends on how everyone tackles this issue… the additional feeding is not necessary… if someone does do it, does it affect the honey itself?…Or maybe it's obvious it does affect it, but why is it done in the first place? P:…you mean the additional feeding?… well, it's because in the autumn months or beginning of august it's the last draining (we don't make pine honey here), you use sugar instead of honey, which the bees need to survive winter and spring...it's basically a cheap solution…if the harvest isn't good you need to let the bees keep the honey, we wouldn't drain it in such case… …when I was talking previously about bees, I mentioned that for a bee to hatch you need about 35°C of warmth, this temperature can be even higher during the summer, so for 2 or 3 months the temperature is sort of all over the place but it's definitely very warm in there…

R:… and are you aware of any case where if you for example put honey into boiling tea, that it becomes toxic or anything like that?

P:…nah, only the beneficial properties are being diminished like the vitamins and such…if you managed to diminish everything completely it would just become sweet water and it wouldn't be honey anymore…

I don't know about you, but I loved it here. The energy of these amazing little creatures gives me peace but also invigorates me. It's been a long time since I last waved my arms around in panic when i happened upon a bee, like I was taught once upon a time. And instead, I calmly watch the amazing perfection. I would like to express my and Marky's gratitude to Mr. Petr Kořínek and his family for sharing a beautiful afternoon with us and an excellent treat that sweetens our lives. You can find a link to the website of their farm down below this video. If you are watching this video somewhere other than our site, check us out too, right here www.healwithmeal.net . And leave a comment, like or whatever. It would mean a lot to us if you shared your opinions. And most importantly, eat well and be well. :) [/su_spoiler] [su_divider top="no" size="2" margin="20"] All rights reserved. No pictures, text, or part of the text can be copied or commercially used without explicit written permission from the administrators of Marky SCD recipes

All about honey

Radek — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 21:45:07 +0000

This article regarding honey, its use and all of its benefits has come about thanks to the numerous questions you have sent us. We decided to get together with our provider of honey, Mr. Petr Kořínek to answer your questions. We will answer your questions in the following text. If you can't find your specific question it's most likely because we had a lot of similar questions and it's probably answered in a more broad fashion. If you come up with some new ideas feel free to use the comments section below the article. :-)

Questions and Answers: Zuzana S. Is there such a thing as Bio (organic) Honey and non-bio honey? Is pine honey the best? We buy our honey from the company MEDAR? Are you familiar with this company and would you recommend them? Petr: Yes Bio honey does exist. As a beekeeper though, I can't say there is much of a difference. It depends on what beekeepers do to reach highest quality honey. Which kind of honey is the best? There is none that is better than the others. Pine honey contains more minerals, compared to flower honey, it can contain as much as double the amount of complex sugars (sucrose, melezitose). Flower honey contains more vitamins and pollen, it's easier to digest but also crystallizes more quickly. The best kind of honey is the one that you enjoy the most. We like spring honey paste the best, it comes from the widest spectrum of flowers. Unfortunately, we are not very familiar with Slovakian market and companies. _____________________________________ gabina.j …with honey I was wondering if it's possible to tell whether sugar has been added to it. Also, I have heard that cooking transforms honey from healthy food to something even harmful to the body. Petr: When it comes to refined sugar, it most likely isn't used in honey to "fake" it. More likely, it will be syrups and isosugars. Best fakes are hard to identify even in a laboratory setting. Look at honey paste, it has prominent white coloring, but it has no added sugar in it. Best source of honey would be honey directly from a beekeeper. Radek: Transformation of honey into a harmful or even toxic substance by way of cooking is a myth. Nothing major happens even if you put it in your hot tea. Before anything can really happen to it, you will have drank your tea anyway. There is some degree of degradation, but it doesn't happen instantly. If we use it for cooking, we will diminish its benefits somewhat, but it still retains its function as the solitary sweetener that SCD can allow. If you really want all the benefits of honey, then your best course of action is to take a spoonful and put it straight into your mouth, that is easily the most reliable way. :-) Otherwise I think the myth about toxicity is based on connecting two unrelated facts. It's true that honey may be toxic, but that doesn't happen through heating or cooking, but bees may gather nectar from toxic flowers. But that is a question of the location of the gathering. _____________________________________ aja Can we use honey in spite of overgrowth of yeast? Radek: In moderate amounts yes, but only in the morning and hours before noon, when the body has a chance to use it all up and leave nothing to the yeast. _____________________________________ Marko R. 1. What is the glycaemic index of honey? 2. Is it true you can discern the quality of honey by measuring its electric conductivity? Petr: 1. Glycaemic index is around 35 to 58, depending on its structure. 2. Honey is mostly divided into two major categories: flower and pine. Using electric conductivity, you can discern between these two categories. Conductivity of honey has a wide spectrum. I don't think it's used to verify the authenticity of honey. _____________________________________ Jana B. Good day, I read somewhere that honey is the only sweetener with which you don't gain weight. Is this accurate? Radek: I believe you can gain weight eating anything as long as it surpasses the amount you burn throughout the day. If your metabolism is slowed, as is the issue of most uninformed people of today, you will probably gain weight eating anything even in minimal amounts. _____________________________________ Mirek P. I'm keen to know how is the honey paste made. Does the honey lose any of its common benefits? Petr: Only some kinds of honey are made into paste, most commonly spring honey (it crystallizes very quickly, within a week). The principle of honey paste is simple. During the crystallization process, the honey is stirred, which breaks the crystals of honey into smaller fragments, thus creating the paste. This is how the honey retains its creamy texture for a long time. Nothing is added to the honey. And it loses none of its healthy benefits or features. ________________________________________ Martina K. I would like to know if we can use honey on a daily basis. How is honey different from fructose? I was under the impression that honey also contains fructose. Petr: Honey is recommended for daily consumption. Besides sugars such as glucose and fructose, it also contains vitamins and minerals, enzymes and amino acids. Honey is therefore complex nutrition and belongs to the category of super foods. ________________________________________ A.L.C. I'm interested to know what is the ratio of simple and complex sugars in honey. I started sweetening my cooking and baking with honey, I'm convinced it's the better way. What about honey and diabetes? Petr: The ratio of glucose, fructose and higher sugars is different for each honey. Czech guidelines state that sucrose should not exceed 5%. Analysis of our honey showed that our spring honey contains less than 0,2% of sucrose, second sample was around 1,1%. You can find basic analysis on our site www.medkorinek.cz/o-nas/oceneni (available in Czech language only). In recent years we had a newcomer in the form of melezitose, also known as "concrete honey". I don't dare to estimate what percentage of trisaccharide is contained within it. It can be mostly found in pine and mixed honeys (pine with flower). Radek: Regarding diabetes, if we google around we can see it's an interesting topic. We can find a lot of information and articles that speak positively of the benefits of treating DM not only from doctors specializing in the field but also from people's own experiences. Such experience has been even shared with us over the years from our SCD community. On the other hand, there are still some that advise to maintain the traditional model of treatment and nutrition, despite the fact that they do not lead to recovery. My opinion is... when I wanted to deal with my health, although it wasn't DM, I went and looked for available information and verifiable cases of successful recovery. I think this attitude can be used for most conditions. And the only thing that can really prevent you from healing is your own resistance to new information... ______________________________________ Gabriela H. What is a healthy amount of honey in a day? Radek: Such that you can manage to use for your benefit. _______________________________________ Petra S. Greetings, I was wondering if beekeepers feed bees with sugar and if it has any effect on the honey itself? Petr: It can be safely stated that we feed bees with sugar in the autumn months 100% of the time. If beekeepers maintain proper techniques and procedures (I will not estimate what is the percentage of such beekeepers), the sugar stores cannot reach the honey. Sugar stores in the autumn are only for the benefit of bees and the coming winter and early spring months. They should not be able to get into the honey. _________________________________________ Andrea V. Hello, here are my honey questions. 1. I buy honey from a beekeeper. It's firm and white, slightly creamy. Why is it white and what kind of honey is it? Is it suitable for SCD? 2. I'm not sure what to look for, if I have to buy honey from a regular store. What's the price to look for or containing substances to watch out for? 3. Can I tell how much sugar is in honey? 4. What vitamins does honey contain? 5. How much can I heat honey so that it doesn't lose its vitamins? Petr: 1. It's better to ask your beekeeper directly. It's most likely spring honey, either crystallized or paste. As I stated above, such honey will have this color. For SCD best suited honey would be flower honey. 2. If your beekeeper is no longer available, find another one. It's best to have at least two such sources. 3. Containing sugars, be they simple or complex can only be identified through laboratory analysis. 4. Vitamins will differ based on the kind of honey. Possible vitamins would be B1, B2, B3, B5, B6 and C. 5. There is a lot of misinformation regarding the heating of honey and avoiding the diminishing of its effects. Oftentimes it's overlooked how long has the honey been exposed to the heat. There is a difference whether you exposed the honey to 50 °C for the duration of 10 hours or 2 weeks. If you want to know more about honey and heat, you can check out this article. __________________________________________ jodehnaljojo How is forest honey made? What is pine honey? What does it mean when honey has slightly sour taste? Petr: Pine honey (which is sometimes called forest honey, but forest honey may also be flower honey) is chiefly made using insect filtered sap of flowers (aphids feed on the sap from flowers and the excess sugar from this sap is secreted in the form of honeydew) which the bees gather and process. Sour taste may indicate fermentation of the honey. ___________________________________________ Zuzana P. Hello, I'd like to know how to verify the authenticity of honey. Why do some honeys crystallize quickly and some don't do so even after a long time. Thank you, Zuzana Petr: Each honey will be different when it comes to crystallizing. It's a natural feature. The speed of which depends on the honeys structure, mainly depending on the amount of pollen. Honeys with lower amounts of pollen will crystallize more slowly (more than a full year even). From our honeys, spring honey crystallizes the fastest. It can be as quick as one week. This honey is used for honey paste. The slowest crystallizing honey would be pine honey (they should contain no pollen at all). From flower honeys the slowest would be acacia. ____________________________________________ Janinka S Good day, I get my honey from a beekeeper. And have been doing so for years. I was wondering which honey is better, liquid or solid (white)? Petr: I am not certain what do you mean by solid. If you are talking about honey paste, it's simply a matter of light processing of the honey. Nothing should be ever added to honey. So it's really your run of the mill honey, but in a paste form. It's common for this honey to be purchased in families with kids, since it doesn't drip and doesn't make nearly as much mess. Another benefit of honey paste would be that it doesn't crystallize further and is easy to use as a spread. _____________________________________________ Kamila V. I'm keen to know if replacing sugar with honey can help with losing weight. So how does it look from caloric perspective as a sweetener. Also, how necessary is sugar for kids and are there cases where it's better to avoid honey. Are there instances where it can be harmful. Thank you very much. :)) Radek: You can start losing weight if you secure lower intake of nutrition compared to your energy output. You cannot lose weight by slowing down the metabolism completely with long term starvation or other means of miracles. It's about directing the body to start correctly burning calories and then it's a question of coordination of input and output. There is nothing more to it. As for children, there is a general guidelines - start introducing honey from third year of age, but I'm not sure where did it come from to be honest. I have not been able to find any research on this topic… Avoiding honey is advisable to people whose lifestyles have developed an allergy to it. ___________________________________________ Tatiana Good day :-), I know that good quality honey can crystallize, but is it possible that honey doesn't crystallize at all? I have my honey from a beekeeper and it's still perfectly liquid. No signs of crystallizing. Is this OK? Petr: Some honeys can crystallize more slowly even exceeding a full year. For example acacia flower honey or pine honey. ____________________________________________ If you have more questions regarding honey, feel free to use the comments section below, we will be looking forward to your inquiries :-) [su_divider top="no" size="2" margin="20"] All rights reserved. No pictures, text, or part of the text can be copied or commercially used without explicit written permission from the administrators of Marky SCD recipes

Being our own walking advertisement

Marky — Sun, 17 Mar 2019 16:00:37 +0000

Being our own "walking advertisement" :)

And so it came to pass that our fridge was becoming closer to its former self, that is to say, void of content. One chilli pepper, one bunch of celery, and two shallots. Which demands us to go shopping for some fresh treats. You really can't make much of anything with these final ingredients. Only perhaps if I were to use the magical formula "abracadabra" :) We refuse to throw out any food so we make sure to use every last bit imaginable. Since we buy stuff for Raw and SCD it's not such a hard task to accomplish. Long story short, Wednesday shopping was the plan. Middle of the week so fewer people are milling about. It was just another day doing groceries. It's been some time since we started with SCD so we know where all of our favorite things are. In other words, not only does your shopping take less time, once you know exactly what you want, but also you will find out how many redundant or useless items there are in large shops. Many products that are supposed to make money but offer nothing in return to the consumer.

Largest amount of time is spent in the fruits and vegetables section - well that goes for winter season, in the summer we buy exclusively from local farmer's market. You can imagine what our shopping cart looks like :) And then it's straight to the register. Once there we noticed a new cashier lady that we have never seen before in our years of shopping in this store. We greet as usual and start putting our stuff on the register. Once the lady saw it she remarked: "That's a lot of fruit and vegetables, you will definitely be really healthy now!" We looked at each other with Radek and replied: "But we are already healthy!" :)

From that moment she started to examine us and pondered for a bit. "So what are you having for lunch today?" She asked. I told her that I will write her down an website address where she can find everything for herself. Unfortunately, we didn't have our business cards on our persons, which was a mistake for sure. She stopped marking our things and quickly looked for a pencil, apparently that became more important than her work. I told her the address, and with a satisfied smile she put the paper away and continued her work. Meanwhile, as we were putting the items back in the cart we quickly explained how slender, healthy and full of energy she will become. Our dialogue was overheard by another person behind us, she confessed her own experience with our local Czech lettuce, she said she feels much sharper and thinking on her feet is much easier, probably because I explained earlier that fresh and raw food has a very positive effect on our brain function. She was quite happy that I was able to confirm her experience and asked for the address as well. The cashier paused her work yet again and found another piece of paper and pencil and handed them to the customer.

Interesting to note that the growing line of people was not disgruntled or complaining, everyone was sort of curious what are we talking about. The cashier admitted that it must be working because we look very good. :D

You know we used to have the tendency to explain everything to everyone, how to heal, how to eat, how to cook, how to be beautiful or slender, and it's because our euphoria of health was something we wanted to desperately share. But these days we know that was not the right attitude. There is no sense in trying to convince anyone to go into SCD, even if it's obvious they need it. The only thing we can do is INSPIRE. Inspire with our own story, our own life, our own appearance. And that is what happened today in the best way possible. :)

Help to everyone?

Marky — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 16:00:15 +0000

Radek wishes you the best of health, I will finally start adding to Marky's input and sometimes contribute my own insights and experiences with regards to living with SCD, but also other matters that are intrinsically linked to our main topic - health. This first article was inspired by yesterday's interesting anecdote. Since we want as many people to be aware of SCD, we first started by sending our message to various Facebook groups, that were focused on various illnesses that SCD can tackle. The message was an invitation to your site - Marky SCD recipes. Despite the late hour we have received many positive responses and observed a growth of the likes of our site. One of the comments however, was very negative, it came from the group centered around UC and Crohn's. It was in the spirit of "What is this thing you're pushing? We really love it here when someone healthy comes in here telling us some amazing method that is unproven. I don't know what is going on, but can an admin delete this?" Considering how quickly this discussion appeared, it was clear none of the people engaging in this actually took the time to look at the site, and possibly did not even read the said invitation at all. The invitation mentioned my 15 years with UC... So instead of informing themselves, or even reading our offer of help in full, they simply disregarded everything and were done with it. What am I trying to get at? Health is a decision. It is your decision. Does it take a second? Perhaps, but it affects the rest of your life. Maybe they thought it's some kind of bait or an ad for a new chemical. Maybe they lost faith in recovering, the doctor said it's incurable, right? I don't know... What I do know is that they lacked motivation and so they lacked information. But that in the age of the internet is everyone's own fault. Virtually any human activity has been described on the internet and it's very likely that there is also a video tutorial for it :) So if I'm suffering from UC or other illnesses that our site mentions and I have never heard of names like Dr. Hass or Elaine Gottschal, and statistics of successfully treated people, it only means I simply haven't looked hard enough. We realized with Marky that language barrier could be a deciding factor, which is part of the reason why we set up our site, as a sort of show of gratitude for the grand transformation of our quality of life that SCD gave us. When I first started noticing the positive effects some years ago, I raced to all of my relatives and friends and with great enthusiasm I explained everything and tried to get everyone to follow SCD. Eat what I eat and you will be happy and healthy! I wanted to save the whole world from their self inflicted doom. But quickly I realized, that there is no point in such efforts. Nobody was really interested and nobody felt like they are lacking or suffering. Which is of course wrong. Even the fact that we are aging is wrong. But humans are programmed in a certain way. As soon as they gain "common sense" they start living in a way that makes things as bad as quickly as possible. And the doctor of medicine is pleased. :) I admit that the response did not surprise me, not even health is for everyone, even though everyone is capable of it. But only the people that start telling a new story of their life are really successful. With a bit of courage they start trusting their body, a wonderful creation of the universe, more and become inquisitive. They start listening to what the body is telling them. They realize that the disease is a message, telling us we are doing something wrong and that it is time for change. To close out my first article here I want to say that our site was not created so we can force everyone to be healthy. We also don't put our efforts into this project to make someone's life harder. It's a helping hand for those who seek it. And that is how we will carry on. We will focus our attention on those that are interested and willing. We look forward to those of you and we look forward to seeing your success and improvement, because that is what makes us truly happy. :-) [su_divider top="no" size="2" margin="20"] All rights reserved. No pictures, text, or part of the text can be copied or commercially used without explicit written permission from the administrators of Marky SCD recipes

What is Raw food?

Marky — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 17:00:36 +0000

I decided to go a bit deeper on the topic of Raw Food and explain it further, since it appears in so many of our recipes. So what are we talking about when we talk about raw food. It is food that is raw - live food in which the vitamins, minerals and enzymes are preserved, these are needed for uninhibited and perfect digestion and good health. With any kind of heat based preparation, be it cooking, baking steaming or grilling over 42°C do we not only lose enzymes but the molecular structure is also transformed, our meals are now more acidic, which is undesirable. Such foods lose much of their nutritional value and our digestive system expends more effort to deal with them. What happens in the body when we eat a cooked meal is something I want to cover in a following post, but if you are impatient I encourage you to search on google. ;)

Raw Food is most commonly fruit, vegetables, nuts and herbs. In our country we call it Vitarianism but it's more commonly known as Raw Foodism or Rawism. Favorite helpers in the kitchen for this kind of diet are juicers, dryers, blenders or spiralizers, thanks to which some amazing meals can be made.[su_spacer size="20"] And what does Raw Food look like with SCD in mind? Those healing themselves with SCD have it a tad more complicated. Rawism does not restrict the use of wheat, seeds, cocoa, rice extracts or syrups. As someone who follows SCD you must be aware of these, for example cocoa is toxic, extracts and syrups contain maltose just like beer, wheat is clearly off limits. Always refer to the Legal - Illegal List, or write to us and we will happily help out. [su_spacer size="30"]I would also like to mention oatmeal and blanched almonds. These foods are processed in heat over 42°C so they stop being live. So if Raw Food seems appealing to you, be sure to inform yourself how different foods are prepared and processed, and whether they are suitable for you or not :)

Immunity is in the Gut

Marky — Sun, 24 Feb 2019 17:00:56 +0000

“Immunity is in the gut” … have you heard this one before?

Yes? I would definitely hope so! :)

When you first heard of this, did something occur to you?

Did this short little statement make you think?

Immunity is in the gut.

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Hello, this is Marky, Immunity is in the gut - Have you heard this one before? I'm sure that you must have. What did you think when you first heard of this? Did this short statement make you consider things? Immunity is in the gut. It has been a few years since I first encountered the pairing of immunity – gut. Yes I received this information, but what to do with it? I'm healthy aren't I? At the time I didn't realize what it means to be really healthy the way most of us imagine it. What do I mean? The fact that we overlook small signals the body gives us, on our skin, with headaches, stomachache, joint pain, back pain, etc. body is letting us know “Look, what you're eating or the way you are thinking (for example envy, fear, despair, constant fighting) is not good for you.” Not only do we ignore these signals as signals from our body that we need to attend to immediately, we often think or hope that they will simply go away with time. We don't have time.

I confess freely that the first time I've heard of the gut immunity, I didn't think too much about it, I didn't feel like it concerns me, it went in my one ear and went out the other. Immunity is in the gut, and so what? And today this is one of the most important things in general, simple and obvious. Immunity is in the gut! Our lives are so simple after all. It seemed strange to us that it is this way, so we slowly made things more complicated and harder to understand for ourselves. It's because we as human beings are really amazing at making life as complicated as possible, even the idea that healing ourselves by loving ourselves seems too simple. “Is that even possible?” Of course it is. Immunity is in the gut. If the intestines are healthy and able to absorb vitamins, minerals, nutrients from quality food, then the immunity is perfect. And you can get to this working and healthy state by following SCD. Immunity is in the gut. It's something that really just makes sense to us, in regards to SCD. We often talk about this during our webinars, we talk about how food influences the state of the gut and how SCD helps the gut recover to good health. We talk about how SCD allows us to get our body into a self recovery state. One of the other topics on our webinars is the effect of SCD on the brain – Brain loves Drugs.

We talk about how the process of healing with SCD affects our thinking, what you eat is not only important for the body but also the mind. Everything is connected. When the gut is working, the head is working, they mutually inform each other. I will never cease to be in awe of the human body, how amazing and smart it is. Why do I mention all this. I wanted to put up an article with a picture that says “Our body is a temple, the one car we get for our life”, an affirmation kind of thing. And Radek said that maybe I should expand on this idea. Coincidentally today I saw a video where someone talked about how Brain affects what we have in our gut and what we eat affects our brain. Back to my initial thought. We have only one body. Well and truly.

One for our entire life. We don't have any used bodies shops or brand new body stores, we can't simply toss away our spent shell and buy a new one. It's true that some organs are successfully transplanted but can we realistically count on that? Can we be sure those will work for us fine? Brain influences what we have in the gut. What do you have in your gut? Have a beautiful day

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