Effective, affordable, efficient health care - that is my goal; recipes, What is an Extract?

It was deemed ridiculous circa ~ 2014/2015.

My website effectivecare.info has this as an opening:

“Effective Care are the common sense solutions that can save lives & money.

Health insurance can't insure effectiveness of the care, or access to care if staff are limited. Efficient, effective, economical - 3 goals.” (effectivecare.info)

I need a fourth goal - “safe” - needs to be really crystal clear. Euthanasia may be “efficient and economical” but is it really “effective” for the patient who might have a goal of improved quality of life for themself rather than simply ending their pain permanently?

That site is arranged in chapters and a Glossary at the end that kept getting add on pages like G13. Pomegranate. The information is also in a pdf that I organized like a book - Instinct & Policy. When we write policy we need to keep human instincts in mind because a policy that goes against them is bound to lead to employees that don’t or can’t follow the unrealistic ask.

I got some feedback that my book draft chapter rambles - true. I just had written it stream of conscious style with one brief excerpt from a different work. Reorganizing it into the “Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell it to them, then tell them what you told them,” format is something that takes time to do. That first draft is the ‘tell it to them’ part. I need to figure out what I am trying to say before I can package it neatly into bullet points. As a caregiver for two sick people and a house and myself, I really have little time compared to previous years writing online. Some phases of the last decade I have spent 22 hours online many days in a row - campaign season, following politics and shiny bauble False Flag events and sharing my own ideas.

My work online has been heckled and canceled and mocked. Effective Care? “hahahahahahahaha”.

“She who laughs last, laughs loudest.” Except I’m not laughing. This censored, culling world is too sad. I have too many wounded relatives who believed the con about “safe and effective” experimental U.S.Dept. of Defense bioweapon prototypes.

Daily reminder: you get one citrus peel free with every piece of citrus fruit that you buy, and it is a very potent decongestant, anti-asthmatic, anti-viral, and iron chelator that can help with infection, cancer, or autoimmune disease (unless histamine excess is a problem, then use something else). You also get one pomegranate peel free with every pomegranate you buy and while it isn’t the potent decongestant, it helps reduce mast cell overactivity and reduce histamine excess symptoms.

We learned, didn’t we, that safe and effective care really does have value. And I am really not one to say “I told you so” - but I keep trying to tell you, because pain really hurts and health really is better - AND we are not being given helpful, affordable, effective, or safe advice, far too often with modern medicine. Worse, our food supply is kind of toxic. Really not helping health as much as it is harming health - AND this seems to be on purpose. The Culling is old in the US with policies dating into the 50s that seem to be purposely harmful to health rather than just really stupid mistakes. I am willing to believe in greed and human stupidity but when things seem too controlled and contrived and accurate information suppressed and heckled - then I get suspicious.

How do you write a cheerful upbeat health guide that isn’t too depressing while also telling people that all their favorite and familiar foods and habits are probably harmful to their health?

I don’t know, still working on it.

Feedback from a lay reader in my real world was positive “It doesn’t read like an academic text” - as a positive comment - so goal is to not write like an academic text. She also liked the simple recipes mingled in and thought more recipes at the end would fit in. She thought I had a lot of citations. If I fully cited that information it would a much longer Reference List. How to write a not-academic text that is well-cited anyway. Include the most important ones for the main points of the section was my method.

Just for funsies, I’m leaving the text in the format that I’ve been writing it on the LeanPub site. I need to learn how to do more than italicize and bold. My formatting options are too limited right now.

Given a blank white scroll - How much black pepper can I sprinkle on it? in an attractive way that also makes some sense? That is how I view writing without the bells and whistles of Word or even Google Documents. Some people make outlines before writing. That is an interesting idea…

photo op

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

So, yesterday’s work - recipes and What is an Extract?:

**More simple recipes with an extra helping of herbs and spices.**

**What is an extract?**

Several herbal extracts were mentioned earlier in this chapter as being potentially protective against spike pathology - ill effects from the chimeric SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Black cumin seed extract (Nigella sativa) is an oil. Dandelion leaf extract, Milk thistle extract, and andrographis extract would likely be an alcohol-based tincture that you add one dropperful to a glass of water. ([Halma, et al., 2023](https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2607/11/5/1308), see Table 2)

An extract might be an alcohol-based tincture of the herb, but tea or soup stock is also 'extracting' the phytonutrients from the herbs and other ingredients. Some chemicals are water soluble and will dissolve into a water-based liquid or alcohol and others are fat soluble and need an oil to extract those nutrients or fragrant terpenes. Phospholipids can dissolve in either water or oil, making them helpful in cooking as an emulsifier to help dissolve oil in a watery soup stock or pudding.

**Herbal tea:** Herbal tea made with dried fruit peel, rosemary, thyme, and Star anise or fennel seeds can benefit from a gentle long steep, 20-30 minutes or even longer but not on the heat. Overheating, overboiling, will break down the desired phytonutrients. Bring to a boil and then leave covered off the heat. If you add dandelion leaves and root, then it will be a 'dandelion extract'. Herbal tea is a fresh food product and will spoil in the typical window of 5-7 days. Refrigerate and use the strong tea as an ingredient in baked goods, pudding, soup, smoothies, or other beverage mixtures. I will make hot coffee and add some of the cold tea to cool down and add flavor to the coffee.

Pomegranate, mango, papaya, and citrus peels all have anti-inflammatory benefits. Pomegranate peel adds tang but not a lot of flavor. Mango peel adds a fruity flavor and sweetness. Citrus peel adds a lot of citrus flavor and is an excellent decongestant and anti-asthmatic.

Warming spices can be good in tea including cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, and Star anise. If already powdered, just add a small pinch. If whole cloves or pieces of Star anise, a 20-30-minute-long steep is needed. Cardamom is mildest of those on the stomach. Star anise is soothing to the throat and respiratory system. It has a sweet flavor and very little of the bark like pieces are needed for a whole pot of tea - long steep. Fennel seeds and licorice root powder add flavor and sweetness. Holy basil has a delicious flavor in tea and so does thyme. Hibiscus or sumac is tangy and adds a citrus accent without being citrus in case of sensitivity to that as a histamine trigger.

Pomegranate peel, sumac, and dandelion root or leaf are potent diuretics and that can be a medicinal benefit as it helps with detoxification. And as long as plenty of water is used, it should not be uncomfortable. Use of diuretic beverages like coffee, with too little other fluid intake, can cause a concentrated acidic urine and urgency to urinate what ends up being just a tiny amount - drink more water. Use diuretic herbs earlier in the day to try to reduce having to get up in the middle of the night.

There are many possibilities for making herbal tea. Cooking herbs are tasty and will be savory in a tea or soup stock. Raspberry leaves are nutritious and traditionally made into a long-steeped tea for use during pregnancy. Their flavor is just kind of green - add mint or something else for flavor.

**Delphinidin in tea or soup:** Blue lotus flowers, blue butterfly pea flowers, and chicory flowers (which are pale blueish-purple) are all sources of delphinidin and can be made into tea. Delphinidin is named for the flowers it was first discovered in - beautiful blue delphinium. But don't eat those, they contain a toxin. Soaking black chickpeas overnight in cold water gives a delphinidin rich liquid that tastes good, just drink it as people in India do. Then eat the soaked chickpeas raw as a snack was the tip when soaking only one cup in order to drink the nutrient rich liquid. Delphinidin may protect against misfolded protein conditions and reduce inflammation in other ways. Black or purple varieties of produce generally are good delphinidin sources. Blackbeans are a good source, but also high in oxalates, unlike the black chickpeas.

**Flavorful roots:** Chicory root is also used roasted as a coffee like beverage. Dandelion and other roots may be made into tea or root beer was originally flavored with sassafras roots. The roots more than the leaves of sassafras have a potentially cancer causing chemical and traditional root beer became rare as sassafras root was no longer recommended for use in food preparation. Ginger and turmeric roots are used in beverages. Turmeric root powder is made into a creamy milk-based drink called Golden Milk. Honey or other flavorings might be mixed with the turmeric and coconut or dairy milk.

Tamarind is a seedy fruit made into a paste for easier use. The paste or de-seeded fruit is used in a sweetened cold beverage in India.

An extract allows for more time for nutrients to leave the plant material and enter water or alcohol or oil. The plant material or ground seeds are then strained from the liquid or oil with a fine strainer or paper coffee filter. Mixing tamarind paste in cold water is drinking watery fruit. Adding tamarind into a creamy soup broth near the end of cooking might extract more nutrients into the warm broth than into cold water, and then might be encapsulated in phospholipid liposomes, making the phytonutrients more bioavailable than from the cold beverage.

An extract is concentrating phytonutrients from a plant so you won't have to eat a large pile of leaves or peels or seeds in order to get those nutrients.

**Soup Stock:** Traditional cooks save the peel and ends of some vegetables to make a flavorful soup stock. Not all vegetable types work - cucumber, no. Onion skins and ends, potato peels, celery ends, radish greens - yes. I have found cabbage too gassy - too microbiome friendly - to use for a soup broth. Maybe dose is the issue and I should try less along with other veggie types. If a peel was waxed like rutabaga, compost it, otherwise peels tend to have a lot of phytonutrients because it is the plant's barrier built to repel insects.

**Seasoned Rice or Rice Pilaf**

When cooking rice in a rice steamer or kitchen pot, other ingredients can be added along with the properly measured rice and water. To one cup of dry rice, two cups of water, I might add a teaspoon of thyme or crushed rosemary needles. I also like to add 1/2-1 cup of chopped onion and sometimes two stalks of celery. I cut the celery into long thin strips and then dice for small rice size pieces. Raw pumpkin seeds can be added with additional water, about 1 cup of pumpkin seeds with 1/2-3/4 cup water - I don't have a precise ratio for that but an additional cup of water seems too much for ideal rice texture. Peas also work well for a **Rice Pea-laf** - either canned or frozen/cooked could be added when the rice is done, along with a couple tablespoons of olive oil and any other seasonings you might want.

**Cooking tip - Cutting vegetables for stir-fries or soup:** When cutting vegetables for a dish, a tip in a Chinese cookbook was to consider shape and size. Do you want a spoonful to have a small amount of each ingredient? Or to have larger pieces of crisp vegetable that stands out individually? Cutting things in similar shapes and size also helps them cook at a similar rate in a stir-fry or soup. Food that cooks fast can be cut larger (Nappa cabbage) and foods that cook slowly can be cut into smaller shreds (carrots) to promote everything being done at the same time - or add the carrots first. The rice steamer is cooking food similarly to a soup, just less water is used.

Overheating breaks down phytonutrients and the colorful pigments. Often the medicinal phytonutrient is also the colorful pigment, so it is easy to see if your food still has phytonutrient power - is it still brightly colored? Stir-fries or steaming shorter amounts of time may retain more nutrients and fiber for our microbiome. Softer-cooked vegetables may be easier to digest and have less impact on microbial growth if Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) is a problem.

Foraging for edible plants may help our microbiome and our food budget. Avoid chem treated lawns or areas near gas stations or roadways. Dandelions, Ground Ivy, Garlic mustard, and many other wild 'invasive' weeds were brought to the United States as easy to grow garden plants with beneficial food value. Eating more leafy vegetables helps our health and that of our microbiome. Chimeric spike pathology includes damage to the microbiome, Bifidobacterium species in particular. ([Halma, et al., 2023](https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2607/11/5/1308))

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**Garlic mustard leaves** have a mustardy flavor and have the texture of a tender spinach leaf in a soup broth.

**Early spring dandelion greens** are less bitter than later season and are a nice accent in a salad, especially with sweet strawberries.

**Ground Ivy/Creeping Charlie** is in the mint family and has a minty aroma but the flavor is a little stronger, nearer the oregano and basil area of flavor. It works well in a Pesto or Green Goddess style blended salad or pasta dressing.

**Plantain leaves** have tougher veins like celery stalks which makes them too chewy unless they are very small leaves. As a cooked green the chewing might be worth it for the health value. Making an extract or puree might be less chewy though.

**Violet** flowers are edible and peppery rather than mild.

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**Ground Ivy Salad Dressing**

1/4-1/2 cup Ground Ivy leaves, flowers, seed pods, but not the woody main stem.

2-3 cloves Garlic

1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1/2 cup raw Apple Cider Vinegar

Blend into a green puree, refrigerate covered and use within a week or so. The green color starts to fade.

Image, Moong dal soup with asparagus and a dollap of the thick Ground Ivy dressing for a splash of creamy flavor.

**Vegetarian Nori Rolls without Carrot**

The advantage of learning how to cook your favorite foods, is being able to modify the ingredients to suit your own taste and needs. Nori rolls are the spiral-shaped rice appetizers made with a sheet of Nori seaweed which might include a raw fish or cooked eel. Vegetarian Nori rolls tend to have seeded cucumber, avocado and pickled shredded carrot in the center. I have to avoid carrot, even a little bit, because of over-activation to Retinoids.

My Nori rolls now are made with the Seasoned Rice Pilaf so there is a little more vegetable and less starch than a typical Nori roll, with the celery and onion mixed into the rice.

For a flavor boost and a little protein my carrot substitute includes: one green onion chopped fine; mixed with a rounded spoonful of the Ground Ivy dressing which loses the vinegar somehow and looks like mayonnaise; and a spoonful of sesame seeds and of Nutritional Yeast Flakes, to soak up excess moisture.

**To form the Nori roll:** Spread out a sheet of saran wrap and put the seaweed sheet on it. Cover the surface with hot freshly cooked sticky short grain white rice (I used Jasmine Rice). It has to be patted out in a 1/4 inch thick layer all over the sheet of Nori except for the far edge which will be used to form a seal when the roll is complete. Once the thin layer of rice is formed, line seeded cucumber lengths along the edge near you, and strips of avocado which I rinse in apple cider vinegar to reduce browning, and top with a little of the sesame seed mixture.

**Rolling and cutting the Nori rolls:** The saran wrap can be used to help lift the edge to form a roll but needs to be gotten out of the way as the roll is rolled forward. This just takes a little practice and watching a video would help along with just trying it. Try to keep a firm even pressure on the cucumber row and tuck it under and roll the whole log shape forward until the other edge is met.

Wrap the saran wrap around it and refrigerate for a couple hours. Then remove the saran wrap and cut it into 8-9 Nori rolls. A serrated knife and cutting board helps and not leaving it a full day. The seaweed tends to rip once it is too moist.

Set the spirals in a covered tray and eat them within a day or two. The avocado does brown. Nori rolls are typically served with a horseradish paste called Wasabi and pickled ginger slices.

**Vietnamese Spring Roll Wrappers**

Spring roll wrappers are called rice paper but tapioca is the main ingredient making them a resistant starch food that would be good for our microbiome. The chilled rice rolls or a pasta salad also have increased resistant starch content compared to pasta or rice served hot and fresh.

The Spring Roll wrapper is a flat circle that needs to be dipped in warm water for 3 seconds or a little longer but not much. Lay that on a piece of Saran Wrap, add some lettuce and filling at the side nearer to you. Then the transparent wrapper needs to be folded into an envelope or burrito shape. It is a burrito that will stick together like a glued envelope. It will also rip if you aren't careful. Each one can hold about one medium Romaine lettuce leaf, ripped in pieces, and a half cup of filling. The salad rolls can be eaten immediately but may be better after chilling in the refrigerator overnight or for a few hours. They can keep a day or two but will get tougher and chewier where the wrapper is overlapped more at the ends.

Watching a video and trying it is needed. This is a little finicky if you find Saran Wrap irritating, folding the salad roll wrappers will be more irritating than that. Ordering them at a restaurant might be a better idea - and now you know the cooks deserve a tip too. Or just practice and it may become a new favorite sandwich wrap for you too. I love the texture, but I also love gelatin desserts. Some diners might not prefer the moist rubbery texture.

Tapioca and mucilaginous starches are good foods for our membrane linings as the water-absorbing starches are similar to those of our jelly-like glycocalyx layer. They also provide resistant starch for beneficial butyrate producing species in our colon microbiome.

This biofilm/glycocalyx layer helps keep out toxins or food proteins that are too large still and provides a place for white blood cells to patrol for debris that needs to be removed. Membranes protect us from foreign objects in the environment and from dehydration. Our skin and internal membranes are similar in function and cell type. During inflammation membrane breakdown is more likely to occur and that increases risk of infection, allergy, or autoimmune antibody formation. Adequate magnesium and vitamin D would be protective.

We live in a sea of toxins, internally and externally, and therefore eating defensively just makes sense - and can taste good too!

Disclaimer: This information is being shared for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health guidance.