I had not been taking the vinegar and the result was that from the night of February 10, 2010 until the morning of February 11, 2010, I had a severe attack. The pain was bad, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I threw up twice, both times heaving on an empty stomach. It started about 9pm on the 10th and lasted fourteen hours to 11am on the 11th when the pain and nausea finally went away. The next day I was completely wiped out. I hadn't had any sleep, it hurt to breathe, I was dehydrated, and I had no energy. I had drank half a can of ginger ale the night before, but I simply threw that up the second time. Now, I was extremely thirsty and so I drank the other half of the room temperature ginger ale. Two hours later I managed to get out of bed and make some hot chocolate. I got back in bed and it took me four hours to drink all of it.
I assume my experience was not unusual for other people who have gall stone attacks. The pain makes it impossible to sleep, the vommiting causes dehydration, and you throw up so strenuously that you pull muscles in your stomach and it hurts to breathe. I had also apparently scraped my throat either the first or second time and so there was a small amount of blood clearly visible in the ginger ale when I threw up the second time. It was only a small amount so I knew it wasn't serious. And, I knew that since it was bright red it had to come from the stomach or throat. If for example, my gall bladder were bleeding the blood would turn dark and would show up looking like coffee grounds due to the action of the pancreatic enzymes. So, I was not concerned, however someone not as familiar might have been much more panicked at seeing traces of blood.
This was in every respect a severe attack. I didn't eat anything on the 11th and only ate a can of soup on the 12th. On the 13th I started taking the vinegar again. Last night, February 27, I ate half a package of Nestle Toll House cookies which is 54 grams of fat. That would be enough for two gall bladder attacks, but I was fine. So, now I have a second measurement of how long it takes to get from severe attack to back to normal. That was two weeks exactly. During that two weeks I drank 1 - 1 1/2 tablespoons of vinegar with orange juice three times a day. And, I drank coffee every morning.
Let me be more specific about this. There are only two things that I know of which will inhibit the liver from producing colesterol: citric acid and vinegar. I know that each of these work separately because I was able to reduce my gallstones using vinegar alone and my mother was able to reduce hers using citric acid alone. I assume that drinking the vinegar with twice as much orange juice would give me some citric acid as well and I'm assuming that that would have worked more quickly. Basically, the vinegar and citric acid inhibit the liver from making colesterol. However, the liver still recycles the bile acids so these circulate through the gall bladder and slowly disolve the colesterol crystals which are what the gallstones are. The problem is that if you limit your diet to little fat as I did because I was afraid of having another attack this also reduces the circulation of the bile acids. Yes, this is a viscious cycle. The colesterol crystals won't dissolve unless you inhibit colesterol production and maintain bile acid circulation but the bile acids normally only circulate when you eat fat. And, you have to limit fat to avoid attacks. During the more than one year when I first had attacks I knew that 20 grams of fat was enough to cause an attack.
So, taking vinegar and/or citric acid does the first requirement of inhibiting colesterol production but you still need some way to maintain circulation. I drink coffee in the morning and I know that the caffeine in coffee stimulates the gall bladder. So, I was pretty certain that I was maintaining circulation of the bile acids. For those who don't drink coffee I would reccomend peppermint. I know for a fact that peppermint stimulates the gall bladder because one day I ate seven starlight mint candies and had a severe attack after consuming no fat at all. That was my personal experience but I've done research and confirmed this from other sources as well.
I don't how the evidence could be any clearer than this. I had gallstones and attacks for a year and a half, they were getting worse, not better. I tried other claimed cures like eating apples and drinking unpasteurized apple juice, taking the anti-oxident vitamins, taking taurine, and taking omega 3. The result was nothing, no improvement whatsoever. These quack diet cures simply do not work. However, I started taking vinegar and I was free from attacks one month later. Since that time I have twice stopping taking vinegar and the gallstones returned. You know the gallstones have returned when you have an another attack. After the second time I took vinegar and got better. This third time I again stopped taking the vinegar and had the severe attack I detailed above. But, today I am again free from attacks.
Vinegar and citric are the only two non-prescription substances I know of which reduce gallstones. And, from my experience, it can apparently work in as little as two weeks.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Update
I hadn't had a gallbladder attack since before I wrote my last article. However, about three weeks ago I had another one. The pain started just under the lower ribs on my right hand side and then moved to the center. This became severe pain that felt like it was in my stomach and made it hard to breathe. Classic symptoms for me with a gallbladder attack. I hadn't been taking the vinegar and hadn't had an attack in nearly two years (which matches what my mom had said in my last article). So the next day I got back on it. I started with two Tbs of vinegar and took it four times that first day. I cut back to one Tbs three times a day for the next few days. I also took some peppermint to help make certain that the bile acids would circulate. I often just use a starlight mint candy in hot tea, hot chocolate or cappuncino. However, this time I bought a bottle of Creme De Minth and put a spoonful of this in my capucino. It seems like if you take it everyday you can often get by with just a single dose. This would be typical for me:
I use a measuring glass that looks like an oversized shot glass. Full to nearly the top it would hold half a cup. This is 4 ounces or 8 tablespoons.
I start with one tablespoon of vinegar.
Here I added two more tablespoons of orange juice to make three tablespoons altogether.
Someone has asked me to give links to the studies I found when I was trying to figure out how vinegar could have any effect at all on gallstones. This is one:
British Journal of Nutrition, 2006.
In the present study, we explored the efficacy of vinegar for prevention of hyperlipidaemia and examined whether a diet containing 0·3% acetic acid, a concentration corresponding to that in sushi, a traditional Japanese food, would affect lipid metabolism in rats fed a cholesterol-rich diet.
In conclusion, dietary acetic acid reduced serum total cholesterol and triacylglycerol: first due to the inhibition of lipogenesis in liver; second due to the increment in faecal bile acid excretion in rats fed a diet containing cholesterol.
Someone has asked me to give links to the studies I found when I was trying to figure out how vinegar could have any effect at all on gallstones. This is one:
British Journal of Nutrition, 2006.
In the present study, we explored the efficacy of vinegar for prevention of hyperlipidaemia and examined whether a diet containing 0·3% acetic acid, a concentration corresponding to that in sushi, a traditional Japanese food, would affect lipid metabolism in rats fed a cholesterol-rich diet.
In conclusion, dietary acetic acid reduced serum total cholesterol and triacylglycerol: first due to the inhibition of lipogenesis in liver; second due to the increment in faecal bile acid excretion in rats fed a diet containing cholesterol.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
What I Did To Treat My Gallstones
I've been wondering what to write about. Before I wrote about lowfat recipes because I was trying to keep my fat intake really low. Then my gallstones went away and I had nothing to write about. But then I realized that there is so much misinformation about gallstone remedies that I should probably write something about that. I'm not selling anything; the information is free.
I remember my first attack. The pain was awful and I wondered if I were having a heart attack. It went on and on for about 12 hours until I finally got sick and threw up. But then I talked to my mother and found out that my symptoms were the same as hers and she had gallstones. My father had had his gallbladder removed some years earlier for the same reason. So, with both parents having gallstones I guess it made sense for me to get them too.
The pain would start under my ribs on my right side. It would get worse and then move more towards the center. It could make sweat pop out on my forehead and double me up. And, there was nothing I could do about it. I think my shortest attack was 11 hours and my longest was 16. Often it would end with my getting sick and throwing up; once I threw up three times after being nauseous for 7 hours.
Knowing that the attacks followed fat intake I tried to restrict this. I knew that 20 mg's would give me an attack so I tried to keep it below 15. However, after doing this for more than a year my attacks were getting more frequent and I was trying to stay below 12 grams per meal.
There was a lot of confusing information that went on and on without getting any clearer. Nothing made sense. I had paid $15 for a so-called eHealth book called, "Gall Bladder Remedies, How To Dissolve Gallstones Naturally (Without Painful Olive Flushes)" from the Natural Health Librarian. The eBook was written by health journalist, Bill Sardi. This is where it got interesting. The book explained that the so-called olive oil flush that was being pushed all over the internet was nothing but quackery. It explained that drinking a quarter cup of olive oil with lemon juice does nothing to actually expel gallstones. However, due to the chemical interactions in the intestines some of the oil turns into chunks of greenish soap that show up in the stool. These are then mistaken for gallstones. I suppose that is a good con.
Now, back to the useful information that is supposed to be in the book. This is where it got confusing for me. My mother had said that her gallstones had gotten better and that she had been able to eat whatever she wanted for the last two years. She had used information from a local health store. I compared the information in the eBook with what she had been taking and they were quite similar: Taurine, anti-oxidant vitamins, omega-3, apples or unpasteurized apple juice. The only additional thing she took was lemon juice and pills with a beet extract. So, great I thought with the same information from two different sources, this should work. I ate apples and drank unpasteurized apple juice (an entire gallon). I took vitamins A, C, and E. I took taurine pills and omega-3 and even took the beet extract pills like my mother did. And . . . nothing happened; I didn't improve at all.
So, I restricted my fat intake and my gallstones slowly got worse. I tried to keep below 15 grams per meal but the attacks were getting more frequent. Then something interesting happened. A friend of mine pointed me to a website where people talked about drinking apple cider vinegar with apple juice. I didn't expect it to work but I thought I would humor my friend. She had earlier tried to be helpful by pointing me to a website touting the olive oil flush. So, I drank apple cider vinegar mixed with apple juice. I didn't take the taurine, the omega-3, the vitamins, or the beet extract since I already knew they didn't work. I only took vinegar and apple juice.
A month later I hadn't had any attacks so I decided to take the plunge and try something higher in fat. I had a Deluxe Breakfast from MacDonalds. I thought at the time that this was probably just a bit over 20 grams of fat. But, when I looked it up when I got home I found out it was more than 40 grams of fat. I waited, dreading that I would have an attack. Five hours later I hadn't had an attack so I went to Burger King and ate a Whopper Junior Meal with french fries. And, no attack.
I this point I was happy but very puzzled. I couldn't understand how drinking vinegar had had any effect on my gallstones. So, I started at the bottom of the hill and did my own research. And, eventually I got it figured out. First of all, common gallstones are not made of calcium or bilirubin; they are made of cholesterol. This is way the process normally works: The liver manufactures cholesterol and then from this substance it makes bile acids which are used to dissolve fats. But the liver only produces these slowly so they are stored in the gallbladder. The gallbladder then can release a larger amount when you eat a meal with fat. So far so good.
However the process of making bile acides isn't perfect so there is some cholesterol left over and cholesterol won't dissolve in water. But cholesterol will dissolve in a weak acid (like bile acids) so it doesn't normally cause any problem. However, in some individuals this balance tips just slightly and the cholesterol becomes too much to stay dissolved. You then begin to form crystals of cholesterol in the gallbladder and these get larger over time. Eventually, one of two things happens: either they get large enough to block the bile ducts or they begin to irritate the lining of the gallbladder. The former kind where it blocks the bile ducts can cause jaundice but the pain is of shorter duration and not associated with eating fat. The eBook I bought only mentions bile duct blockage as the cause of gall bladder pain but this in fact is not the most common kind.
The second kind where the lining is irritated is what I had. Essentially, the gallbladder is a muscular bladder that can squeeze the bile acids out when needed. As long as the gallbladder is full it doesn't rub against the cholesterol crystals. However, when you eat fat it begins to release bile acids and shrinks like letting the air out of a balloon. The lining then comes into contact with the crystals and it works like having a stone in your shoe. The lining becomes irritated and this then causes the gallbladder to contract which increases the irritation which increases the pain and leads to nausea. In other words, the pain is self supporting and this is why it lasts so long. Eventually, the muscles in the gallbladder become exhausted and stop contracting and the gallbladder refills with bile acids.
So, what does apple cider vinegar do? Good question. I finally found two studies that showed that vinegar inhibits the liver from making cholesterol. If the liver produces less cholesterol then the balance tips back in favor of the bile acids and the gall stones begin to slowly dissolve. My mother never took vinegar but she did drink lemon juice and I found another study showing a similar effect with citrus juice. Now it finally began to make sense. The vitamins, omega-3, taurine, and beet extract had no noticeable effect. My mother's gallstones got better only because of the lemon juice and mine didn't because I was not drinking lemon juice. Mine got better when I started drinking vinegar. You usually see this refered to as apple cider vinegar and apparently this notion is fostered because apples contain malic acid which is known to help dissolve gallstones. The problem is that I ate apples and drank unpasteurized apple juice (with plenty of malic acid) and still had gallstones. Also the two studies I referred to worked with acetic acid (vinegar); not apple cider vinegar.
In other words, apple cider vinegar might taste better to you but if all you have is distilled vinegar handy go ahead and use it. You mix it with fruit juice so that you can stand to drink it but it really doesn't matter what kind of vinegar or what kind of fruit juice. I've mixed it with apple juice, apple cider, grape juice, and even plain water. This notion will be heresy to some who insist that only apple cider vinegar has this magic property. Sorry, but the magic is in the acetic acid (vinegar), not in anything else like malic acid.
So, how much do you need? Yeah, good question. This is one of those areas where it would be great to have data from a study of people who had gallstones. Where different dosages were tried and gallstone size was monitored with ultrasounds. Unfortunately, drug companies can't make money off of something as common as vinegar. And, a doctor not too far from me in Bloomington, Indiana advertizes that he has performed more than 2,000 gallbladder removal surgeries. Since he has probably made more than $4 million from this he also has no incentive to do a study. So, I'll try to give you some guidelines. I drank about 6 teaspoons of vinegar a day for the first month. Now, I drink about 1 tablespoon about twice a week. However, I sometimes drink more if I get bad heartburn because for some reason a teaspoon of vinegar also stops the heartburn. Yeah, that seems backwards to me too but before I started taking vinegar I made sure that I always had Tums (or generic equivalent) handy (at home, in my car, and at work). I sometimes used four or five tablets to stop bad heartburn. Then I used acid reducers like Pepcid Complete. But since I've been taking vinegar I haven't used any of them.
There are other factors though. My mother tried vinegar and said it didn't seem to work as well for her. I think that is probably because I drink coffee most mornings and she doesn't. See, coffee stimulates the gallbladder so a bit of coffee would speed the process along by keeping new bile acids moving through the gall bladder. If you don't drink coffee then I would probably reccomend eating a starlight mint each day. Mint also stimulates the gallbladder to release bile acids. I know this for a fact because one day I was sucking on starlight mints and the fifth one gave me a really bad attack even though I hadn't eaten any fat. Since it took five for me one at a time should be fine. However, if you are pushing your fat limit at a meal then I would wait and take the mint between meals. In other words, if we keep bile acids moving through the gallbladder while reducing cholesterol the gallstones should dissolve faster. And, by the way, if you have high cholesterol, vinegar can knock your serum level down by 25%.
Again, I'm not selling anything and I don't want anyone to get ripped off by buying fake treatments like I did. Nor should anyone have to suffer with frequent attacks like I did. Hopefully, this will help.
I remember my first attack. The pain was awful and I wondered if I were having a heart attack. It went on and on for about 12 hours until I finally got sick and threw up. But then I talked to my mother and found out that my symptoms were the same as hers and she had gallstones. My father had had his gallbladder removed some years earlier for the same reason. So, with both parents having gallstones I guess it made sense for me to get them too.
The pain would start under my ribs on my right side. It would get worse and then move more towards the center. It could make sweat pop out on my forehead and double me up. And, there was nothing I could do about it. I think my shortest attack was 11 hours and my longest was 16. Often it would end with my getting sick and throwing up; once I threw up three times after being nauseous for 7 hours.
Knowing that the attacks followed fat intake I tried to restrict this. I knew that 20 mg's would give me an attack so I tried to keep it below 15. However, after doing this for more than a year my attacks were getting more frequent and I was trying to stay below 12 grams per meal.
There was a lot of confusing information that went on and on without getting any clearer. Nothing made sense. I had paid $15 for a so-called eHealth book called, "Gall Bladder Remedies, How To Dissolve Gallstones Naturally (Without Painful Olive Flushes)" from the Natural Health Librarian. The eBook was written by health journalist, Bill Sardi. This is where it got interesting. The book explained that the so-called olive oil flush that was being pushed all over the internet was nothing but quackery. It explained that drinking a quarter cup of olive oil with lemon juice does nothing to actually expel gallstones. However, due to the chemical interactions in the intestines some of the oil turns into chunks of greenish soap that show up in the stool. These are then mistaken for gallstones. I suppose that is a good con.
Now, back to the useful information that is supposed to be in the book. This is where it got confusing for me. My mother had said that her gallstones had gotten better and that she had been able to eat whatever she wanted for the last two years. She had used information from a local health store. I compared the information in the eBook with what she had been taking and they were quite similar: Taurine, anti-oxidant vitamins, omega-3, apples or unpasteurized apple juice. The only additional thing she took was lemon juice and pills with a beet extract. So, great I thought with the same information from two different sources, this should work. I ate apples and drank unpasteurized apple juice (an entire gallon). I took vitamins A, C, and E. I took taurine pills and omega-3 and even took the beet extract pills like my mother did. And . . . nothing happened; I didn't improve at all.
So, I restricted my fat intake and my gallstones slowly got worse. I tried to keep below 15 grams per meal but the attacks were getting more frequent. Then something interesting happened. A friend of mine pointed me to a website where people talked about drinking apple cider vinegar with apple juice. I didn't expect it to work but I thought I would humor my friend. She had earlier tried to be helpful by pointing me to a website touting the olive oil flush. So, I drank apple cider vinegar mixed with apple juice. I didn't take the taurine, the omega-3, the vitamins, or the beet extract since I already knew they didn't work. I only took vinegar and apple juice.
A month later I hadn't had any attacks so I decided to take the plunge and try something higher in fat. I had a Deluxe Breakfast from MacDonalds. I thought at the time that this was probably just a bit over 20 grams of fat. But, when I looked it up when I got home I found out it was more than 40 grams of fat. I waited, dreading that I would have an attack. Five hours later I hadn't had an attack so I went to Burger King and ate a Whopper Junior Meal with french fries. And, no attack.
I this point I was happy but very puzzled. I couldn't understand how drinking vinegar had had any effect on my gallstones. So, I started at the bottom of the hill and did my own research. And, eventually I got it figured out. First of all, common gallstones are not made of calcium or bilirubin; they are made of cholesterol. This is way the process normally works: The liver manufactures cholesterol and then from this substance it makes bile acids which are used to dissolve fats. But the liver only produces these slowly so they are stored in the gallbladder. The gallbladder then can release a larger amount when you eat a meal with fat. So far so good.
However the process of making bile acides isn't perfect so there is some cholesterol left over and cholesterol won't dissolve in water. But cholesterol will dissolve in a weak acid (like bile acids) so it doesn't normally cause any problem. However, in some individuals this balance tips just slightly and the cholesterol becomes too much to stay dissolved. You then begin to form crystals of cholesterol in the gallbladder and these get larger over time. Eventually, one of two things happens: either they get large enough to block the bile ducts or they begin to irritate the lining of the gallbladder. The former kind where it blocks the bile ducts can cause jaundice but the pain is of shorter duration and not associated with eating fat. The eBook I bought only mentions bile duct blockage as the cause of gall bladder pain but this in fact is not the most common kind.
The second kind where the lining is irritated is what I had. Essentially, the gallbladder is a muscular bladder that can squeeze the bile acids out when needed. As long as the gallbladder is full it doesn't rub against the cholesterol crystals. However, when you eat fat it begins to release bile acids and shrinks like letting the air out of a balloon. The lining then comes into contact with the crystals and it works like having a stone in your shoe. The lining becomes irritated and this then causes the gallbladder to contract which increases the irritation which increases the pain and leads to nausea. In other words, the pain is self supporting and this is why it lasts so long. Eventually, the muscles in the gallbladder become exhausted and stop contracting and the gallbladder refills with bile acids.
So, what does apple cider vinegar do? Good question. I finally found two studies that showed that vinegar inhibits the liver from making cholesterol. If the liver produces less cholesterol then the balance tips back in favor of the bile acids and the gall stones begin to slowly dissolve. My mother never took vinegar but she did drink lemon juice and I found another study showing a similar effect with citrus juice. Now it finally began to make sense. The vitamins, omega-3, taurine, and beet extract had no noticeable effect. My mother's gallstones got better only because of the lemon juice and mine didn't because I was not drinking lemon juice. Mine got better when I started drinking vinegar. You usually see this refered to as apple cider vinegar and apparently this notion is fostered because apples contain malic acid which is known to help dissolve gallstones. The problem is that I ate apples and drank unpasteurized apple juice (with plenty of malic acid) and still had gallstones. Also the two studies I referred to worked with acetic acid (vinegar); not apple cider vinegar.
In other words, apple cider vinegar might taste better to you but if all you have is distilled vinegar handy go ahead and use it. You mix it with fruit juice so that you can stand to drink it but it really doesn't matter what kind of vinegar or what kind of fruit juice. I've mixed it with apple juice, apple cider, grape juice, and even plain water. This notion will be heresy to some who insist that only apple cider vinegar has this magic property. Sorry, but the magic is in the acetic acid (vinegar), not in anything else like malic acid.
So, how much do you need? Yeah, good question. This is one of those areas where it would be great to have data from a study of people who had gallstones. Where different dosages were tried and gallstone size was monitored with ultrasounds. Unfortunately, drug companies can't make money off of something as common as vinegar. And, a doctor not too far from me in Bloomington, Indiana advertizes that he has performed more than 2,000 gallbladder removal surgeries. Since he has probably made more than $4 million from this he also has no incentive to do a study. So, I'll try to give you some guidelines. I drank about 6 teaspoons of vinegar a day for the first month. Now, I drink about 1 tablespoon about twice a week. However, I sometimes drink more if I get bad heartburn because for some reason a teaspoon of vinegar also stops the heartburn. Yeah, that seems backwards to me too but before I started taking vinegar I made sure that I always had Tums (or generic equivalent) handy (at home, in my car, and at work). I sometimes used four or five tablets to stop bad heartburn. Then I used acid reducers like Pepcid Complete. But since I've been taking vinegar I haven't used any of them.
There are other factors though. My mother tried vinegar and said it didn't seem to work as well for her. I think that is probably because I drink coffee most mornings and she doesn't. See, coffee stimulates the gallbladder so a bit of coffee would speed the process along by keeping new bile acids moving through the gall bladder. If you don't drink coffee then I would probably reccomend eating a starlight mint each day. Mint also stimulates the gallbladder to release bile acids. I know this for a fact because one day I was sucking on starlight mints and the fifth one gave me a really bad attack even though I hadn't eaten any fat. Since it took five for me one at a time should be fine. However, if you are pushing your fat limit at a meal then I would wait and take the mint between meals. In other words, if we keep bile acids moving through the gallbladder while reducing cholesterol the gallstones should dissolve faster. And, by the way, if you have high cholesterol, vinegar can knock your serum level down by 25%.
Again, I'm not selling anything and I don't want anyone to get ripped off by buying fake treatments like I did. Nor should anyone have to suffer with frequent attacks like I did. Hopefully, this will help.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Coffee Prices
These are pictures I took in the morning in the middle of April. Typically in the morning I drink coffee.
I've noticed that coffee has risen sharply at Walmart. The same Maxwell House coffee is now $7.50, about the same as Folgers and nearly twice as high as Master Chef which has not changed in price. After my experience with Maxwell House I may have to give the off brand Master Chef a try.
Since I can't eat much fat I tried this lowfat cake. I used apple sauce instead of oil. The topping is made with instant pudding and Dream Whip. This works but the lack of oil does make the cake a bit harder to cut since it sticks to the knife more. Also, the topping has to be refigerated. I would suggest keeping it separate until the cake is served.
You can find the recipe for the topping on the back of a box of Dream Whip but it isn't complicated. Basically, you use the same amount of milk you normally would for the Dream Whip but use only half what you would for the box of instant pudding. The picture on the Dream Whip box shows the cake nicely frosted with this topping. However, keep in mind that this topping is water based rather than oil based so the cake will tend to absorb moisture from it. I would only icing the cake completely if it will be eaten the same day.
This next dessert is something my mother used to make called Cherry Delight. It's basically a type of cherry cheesecake which is not baked. To be honest I don't like the traditional baked cheesecakes as well.
There are a few differences though from my mother's recipe: First I used fat free cream cheese instead of regular cream cheese. Secondly, I used Dream Whip instead of whipped cream. And, third, I reduced the amount of butter in the graham cracker crust. These changes are not straightforward and require a few changes to make them work.
For a 13 x 9 pan you need:
2 cans cheery pie filling (refrigerate these to get a headstart)
2 packages Dream Whip
1 8-ounce package fat free cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup milk
2 Tbs butter
lemon juice
1/2 box graham crackers
sugar
honey
Basically, you make two envelopes of Dream Whip just as you normally would. This is where the milk and vanilla is required.
In a separate small bowl you put the cream cheese. It will be like a solid chunk of rubber so you cream it with a fork. Just keep working it until it is nice and smooth with no chunks. Add about three tablespoons of sugar and mix this up. Fat free cream cheese tends to be a bit blander than regular cream cheese, so I would suggest waking it up a bit with a couple of squirts of lemon juice. Let's say 1/2 to 1 teaspoon. Taste it before and after you add the lemon juice and you can tell the difference. You may want to add more sugar or lemon juice. I make mine with about 1/4 cup of sugar. Then take this mixture and add it to the Dream Whip. Taste again. You may notice that it doesn't taste sweet enough when mixed with the dream whip but again you can always add a bit more sugar. You can set this in your refrigerator to let it chill. Basically, you now have a sweetened cream cheese base with whipped cream added to make it lighter and less heavy.
You need a package and a half of graham crackers. One package is 9 crackers so 14 1/2total. The crackers are divided into 4 pieces so breaking one in half is no problem. A typical 14 ounce box has 3 packages of graham crackers so you are using half a box. I put mine inside a gallon zip lock bag and crush them a bit by hand. Then I use a rolling pin to crush them more. You may have to adjust the amount of air in the bag since your rolling pin will tend to trap it. You periodically shake the bag to bring the larger pieces to the top. Keep going until you have small crumbs. I usually add a couple of sprinkles of salt to mine. This makes the crust stand out a bit more as a separate flavor and works well with the butter and somewhat offsets the extra sweetness of the honey.
Normally at this point you would add 1/4 cup of melted butter to make the crumbs stick together. However, that is a bit much for me so I cut that in half and only use 2 tablespoons of butter. But, that isn't enough to make it stick together. So, I add about 3 tablespoons of honey to the pan when I melt the butter. Make sure this is mixed well before you add it to the cracker crumbs. You can either add it in the bag or put the crumbs in another bowl.
Mix them thoroughly with the honey butter. Now see if the crumbs can be pressed together. If not, add another tablespoon of honey. When your crumbs are ready you spread them out and press them down in your 9 x 13 pan. Then pour your cream cheese mixture on top. Spread this out evenly. Then get your chilled cans of cherry pie filling and pour these on top spreading them as evenly as you can. You'll probably need a rubber spatula to get the rest of the filling out of the cans and you'll probably need to adjust the cherrys and filling a bit to get everything even and covered. If you pre-chill the cans of filling and have had the cream cheese mixture in the refrigerature it won't take long to get it completely chilled.
I've noticed that coffee has risen sharply at Walmart. The same Maxwell House coffee is now $7.50, about the same as Folgers and nearly twice as high as Master Chef which has not changed in price. After my experience with Maxwell House I may have to give the off brand Master Chef a try.
Since I can't eat much fat I tried this lowfat cake. I used apple sauce instead of oil. The topping is made with instant pudding and Dream Whip. This works but the lack of oil does make the cake a bit harder to cut since it sticks to the knife more. Also, the topping has to be refigerated. I would suggest keeping it separate until the cake is served.
You can find the recipe for the topping on the back of a box of Dream Whip but it isn't complicated. Basically, you use the same amount of milk you normally would for the Dream Whip but use only half what you would for the box of instant pudding. The picture on the Dream Whip box shows the cake nicely frosted with this topping. However, keep in mind that this topping is water based rather than oil based so the cake will tend to absorb moisture from it. I would only icing the cake completely if it will be eaten the same day.
This next dessert is something my mother used to make called Cherry Delight. It's basically a type of cherry cheesecake which is not baked. To be honest I don't like the traditional baked cheesecakes as well.
There are a few differences though from my mother's recipe: First I used fat free cream cheese instead of regular cream cheese. Secondly, I used Dream Whip instead of whipped cream. And, third, I reduced the amount of butter in the graham cracker crust. These changes are not straightforward and require a few changes to make them work.
For a 13 x 9 pan you need:
2 cans cheery pie filling (refrigerate these to get a headstart)
2 packages Dream Whip
1 8-ounce package fat free cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup milk
2 Tbs butter
lemon juice
1/2 box graham crackers
sugar
honey
Basically, you make two envelopes of Dream Whip just as you normally would. This is where the milk and vanilla is required.
In a separate small bowl you put the cream cheese. It will be like a solid chunk of rubber so you cream it with a fork. Just keep working it until it is nice and smooth with no chunks. Add about three tablespoons of sugar and mix this up. Fat free cream cheese tends to be a bit blander than regular cream cheese, so I would suggest waking it up a bit with a couple of squirts of lemon juice. Let's say 1/2 to 1 teaspoon. Taste it before and after you add the lemon juice and you can tell the difference. You may want to add more sugar or lemon juice. I make mine with about 1/4 cup of sugar. Then take this mixture and add it to the Dream Whip. Taste again. You may notice that it doesn't taste sweet enough when mixed with the dream whip but again you can always add a bit more sugar. You can set this in your refrigerator to let it chill. Basically, you now have a sweetened cream cheese base with whipped cream added to make it lighter and less heavy.
You need a package and a half of graham crackers. One package is 9 crackers so 14 1/2total. The crackers are divided into 4 pieces so breaking one in half is no problem. A typical 14 ounce box has 3 packages of graham crackers so you are using half a box. I put mine inside a gallon zip lock bag and crush them a bit by hand. Then I use a rolling pin to crush them more. You may have to adjust the amount of air in the bag since your rolling pin will tend to trap it. You periodically shake the bag to bring the larger pieces to the top. Keep going until you have small crumbs. I usually add a couple of sprinkles of salt to mine. This makes the crust stand out a bit more as a separate flavor and works well with the butter and somewhat offsets the extra sweetness of the honey.
Normally at this point you would add 1/4 cup of melted butter to make the crumbs stick together. However, that is a bit much for me so I cut that in half and only use 2 tablespoons of butter. But, that isn't enough to make it stick together. So, I add about 3 tablespoons of honey to the pan when I melt the butter. Make sure this is mixed well before you add it to the cracker crumbs. You can either add it in the bag or put the crumbs in another bowl.
Mix them thoroughly with the honey butter. Now see if the crumbs can be pressed together. If not, add another tablespoon of honey. When your crumbs are ready you spread them out and press them down in your 9 x 13 pan. Then pour your cream cheese mixture on top. Spread this out evenly. Then get your chilled cans of cherry pie filling and pour these on top spreading them as evenly as you can. You'll probably need a rubber spatula to get the rest of the filling out of the cans and you'll probably need to adjust the cherrys and filling a bit to get everything even and covered. If you pre-chill the cans of filling and have had the cream cheese mixture in the refrigerature it won't take long to get it completely chilled.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Flowers
There are some definite signs of Spring. The dandelions are as robust as ever.
The bulb flowers are definitely on their way.
The tulips aren't quite open yet.
The trees are looking good.
The bulb flowers are definitely on their way.
The tulips aren't quite open yet.
The trees are looking good.
Coffee And Soup
I had some trouble finding the Campbell's Tomato Soup at the store a couple of days ago; I had to look and look before I found it. I think from the picture you can see why:
The green label wasn't quite what I was expecting. Something else I wasn't expecting was the aroma of the last coffee I bought which is Maxwell House Original.
Usually when you open coffee you get a wonderful strong coffee smell that makes you anticipate that first taste. When I open the Maxwell House, however, I get assaulted by a smell like musty gymsocks. That was a surprise. I have no idea why MH smells like that because every other coffee I've ever used has smelled like coffee. I usually just get the generic Walmart brand of coffee but MH is also 100% arabica beans so that isn't a difference. Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise given the cost of MH which is quite a bit cheaper than the Walmart brand and Folgers. It is even cheaper than the light roast version of Folgers and less common brands like Master Chef. However, in MH's defense the coffee does taste okay in spite of the less than enticing aroma.
I usually drink mine as cappuccino made on my low end, consumer model, Mr Coffee machine. I like chocolate so I typically just add hot chocolate mix. However, I've always wondered about the steamed milk. I've tried making it with powdered creamer and no milk but that does not have the proper cappuccino taste. It seems to need at least some actual milk to get the flavor right, but surprisingly it doesn't seem to need much. You can actually get a cappuccino taste with as little as 1/4 skim milk and 3/4 water and powdered creamer. The steaming is also overrated. I've tried just adding the cold milk directly to the cup and then heating it in the microwave and it tastes the same. The only benefit you get from the time consuming process of steaming is the froth and you could easily froth one pitcher and spread it among four cups. You can froth it more easily though if you hold the steaming nozzle just above the milk so that it jets in air with the steam. However, what I really like in my cappuccino is Baileys Irish Cream. Just a teaspoon or so is enough to enhance the flavor and especially the aroma. It seems to work well with chocolate.
I made some chicken noodle soup which you can see here. It only takes a little bit of chicken. I included one small carrot and a couple of stalks of celery. The nice thing about soup is that you can use the celery even if it is getting wilted. I usually add a touch of Italian seasoning a little seasoned salt.
I use chicken broth if I've just cooked some chicken but in most cases the flavor simply comes from chicken base like this. The only other requirement is about half a package of noodles.
The green label wasn't quite what I was expecting. Something else I wasn't expecting was the aroma of the last coffee I bought which is Maxwell House Original.
Usually when you open coffee you get a wonderful strong coffee smell that makes you anticipate that first taste. When I open the Maxwell House, however, I get assaulted by a smell like musty gymsocks. That was a surprise. I have no idea why MH smells like that because every other coffee I've ever used has smelled like coffee. I usually just get the generic Walmart brand of coffee but MH is also 100% arabica beans so that isn't a difference. Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise given the cost of MH which is quite a bit cheaper than the Walmart brand and Folgers. It is even cheaper than the light roast version of Folgers and less common brands like Master Chef. However, in MH's defense the coffee does taste okay in spite of the less than enticing aroma.I usually drink mine as cappuccino made on my low end, consumer model, Mr Coffee machine. I like chocolate so I typically just add hot chocolate mix. However, I've always wondered about the steamed milk. I've tried making it with powdered creamer and no milk but that does not have the proper cappuccino taste. It seems to need at least some actual milk to get the flavor right, but surprisingly it doesn't seem to need much. You can actually get a cappuccino taste with as little as 1/4 skim milk and 3/4 water and powdered creamer. The steaming is also overrated. I've tried just adding the cold milk directly to the cup and then heating it in the microwave and it tastes the same. The only benefit you get from the time consuming process of steaming is the froth and you could easily froth one pitcher and spread it among four cups. You can froth it more easily though if you hold the steaming nozzle just above the milk so that it jets in air with the steam. However, what I really like in my cappuccino is Baileys Irish Cream. Just a teaspoon or so is enough to enhance the flavor and especially the aroma. It seems to work well with chocolate.
I made some chicken noodle soup which you can see here. It only takes a little bit of chicken. I included one small carrot and a couple of stalks of celery. The nice thing about soup is that you can use the celery even if it is getting wilted. I usually add a touch of Italian seasoning a little seasoned salt.
I use chicken broth if I've just cooked some chicken but in most cases the flavor simply comes from chicken base like this. The only other requirement is about half a package of noodles.
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