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The Family Table That Built Strong Bones Using Real Food and Traditions · Family Tree Food Stories

0:03
Nancy May: Hey everybody, it's Nancy and Sylvia once again from
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Family Tree Food and Stories.
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We're gonna have a great show today, but before we start, I have a couple
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of things I'd like to go over with you.
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Our dear listeners.
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First, would you please like and subscribe the show.
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All you need to do is go to podcast Family Tree Foods Stories.
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Go up to the subscribe, or I think it says review.
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I have to look at that.
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But anyway, it should say, review the show, and then if you look at that,
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drop down menu and you can listen and connect to us on any of your favorite
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podcast listening apps, including just listening to it on the web, which is
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Podcast, family Tree, food and Stories.
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we know that you like the show because you wouldn't be here otherwise,
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but if you would also share it with friends and family members.
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So they have ways and ideas on how to share stories about the meals that
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they love and sit at the table with, with friends and family like you.
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In addition, we are also doing a survey at Podcast Family Tree Food Stories.
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There'll be a link at the bottom of the show notes on this episode.
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and if you would just take a moment and answer some of the questions so that we
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can create even more and better shows for you, because we do want every
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meal to be a story and every story to be a feast like this one, right?
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Sylvia?
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Sylvia Lovely: Oh, absolutely.
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you know, this is an exciting thing for me personally because I'm undergoing
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some examination of bone health, because of medication I'm on for my
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breast cancer that the listeners may know about 'cause I've talked about
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it before, which suppresses a hormone that's essential for bone health.
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when I look around and see, it's like if you have a Chevy, you're
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gonna see a Chevy everywhere, right?
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But bone health is just everywhere these days with supplements.
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Foods fortified with calcium and protein, bone density scans,
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medications and whatever, but.
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All you have to do stand in the pharmacy aisle of calcium and
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it's there blaring out the selling points of their particular calcium
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and absorbant.
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It is a great big word and we're gonna get to that here in a bit.
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Nancy May: And if you haven't figured out already, that's
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what our show is about today.
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It's all about bone health, mineral rich foods and ideas and ways to keep well.
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More than the radio eves going, but
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Sylvia Lovely: Mm-hmm.
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Nancy May: our body's going in many different directions, but ideally,
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strong and healthy so that we can have more rich experiences with
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those that we love and care about.
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But I don't know about you, Sylvia, but my mom used to talk about health as
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it related to the foods that we ate.
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Did yours?
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Sylvia Lovely: Well, not really.
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I just think they just sort of did it.
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I mean, that's in my experience anyway, and, I commend your
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mother for talking about that, but my grandmother just sort of.
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Cooked
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Nancy May: She just did it right.
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Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
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She just did it more so than my mother.
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My mother really didn't, she wasn't a very good cook, but my grandmother
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was good enough to make up for it.
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and my mother's gone, so I don't, I won't insult her with this.
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Nancy May: No.
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Sylvia Lovely: But she would just end up with something really remarkable.
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Traditional recipes often contain, as we have discovered about early kitchen life,
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that combinations of food, they just knew this, trial and error that deliver the
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nutrients we now know are very important.
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Nancy May: Well, my mom used to talk about, make sure you drink your milk.
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It's good for you.
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Cheese was good for you bones.
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Well, cheese is not necessarily as good for you today as it used
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to be because we think of all the cholesterol stuff that's going on.
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Alright.
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So we don't wanna go down that rabbit hole
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right now But milk was extra fortified with calcium, and I'm presuming
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that the milk that we had as kids.
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My mom used to get the milk and the orange juice delivered by the milkman
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Sylvia Lovely: Oh, the
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Nancy May: in the glass bottles.
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it was like the thing that everybody did back then.
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I don't think milk been around anymore that delivered just 'cause
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it would go to the grocery store.
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You had cream, you had, buttermilk, you could have regular milk and then you could
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have orange juice that was delivered, which of course there's lots of orange
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trees in Long Island where I grew up.
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Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
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Nancy May: then there was other issues of bone health because our
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community in Central Long Island was putting, fluoride in the water.
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So there was a lot of issues about health and nutrition that seemed
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to be central to our community.
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As a whole, which I thought was rather interesting looking back At
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the time I didn't even think about it as a kid other than like, ah, and
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all the advertising that went on.
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Um, wonder Bread used to do the Build Strong body's 12 ways.
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Yeah.
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Well, you can also sweat your pipes with Wonder Bread, but
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that's been in other shows.
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Sylvia Lovely: You know, there was a huge movement, drink milk movement
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that really, I think almost was a disservice because it made people
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think that was the only thing that they needed to do was to drink fortified
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milk for a lot of different reasons.
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But, you know, that was kind of interesting because it
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isn't the only thing, right?
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so there's a lot that goes into the foods that our grandmothers and
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people before them, the ancients ate.
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And so she, you should get right to the mineral story.
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Let's talk about that.
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Nancy May: Let's do that, please.
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Sylvia Lovely: Uh, today calcium does tend to dominate the conversation
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about bones, and it's like the king of the pharmacy, but what?
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Nancy May: Well, calcium just doesn't act alone.
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It's kind of like the, um, think of it as the bricks of a building, you
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still need the mortar, but the structure holds those bricks together in place.
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Vitamin D brings the body together to actually help the body absorb
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calcium, think fatty fish and eggs.
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So it's not just milk, like you said, magnesium helps the body use calcium
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property prop property properly.
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Like that needs to be a blooper in the show.
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Think pumpkin seeds and almonds and spinach and delicious black beans.
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I don't know about you, but I love a really good spicy black bean soup.
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And then you have vitamin K and K2 collard greens.
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That's your neck of the woods, turnip creams, kale, spinach.
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Again, spinach.
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Spinach seems to be coming back and I would think that calcium
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would be like the white stuff, but that's not necessarily true.
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Sylvia Lovely: No, greens are really important.
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Nancy May: Right, and lettuce, and then also K2, which we don't hear too much
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about, but these are fermented foods and soft, stinky cheeses and butters.
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I could die for that.
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That is my favorite.
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Just give me a good, nice.
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Chunk of sourdough bread and soft stinky cheese and I, I could
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actually have a cheese and butter sandwich and I'd be very happy.
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Sylvia Lovely: Sounds good to me.
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Sounds good to me.
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You know, you were talking about the milkman and the orange juice.
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Sun and all our, whatever, whoever brought 'em, but it made me think my grandmother
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lived in rural eastern Kentucky, we're mountainous mountains all around,
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and the great anticipated day was when the government cheese got delivered,
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Nancy May: Oh, interesting.
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Sylvia Lovely: she'd
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Nancy May: they deliver with milk too?
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Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, I remember the cheese.
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I remember everybody was so excited about the big chunk of
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cheese and it would get delivered.
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I have no idea who delivered it.
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But that was a delivery that was made back in the day and I don't think
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anymore, but, anyway, you know.
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But here's an interesting story.
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Now, when I was a little girl, did I aspire to be a fireman?
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No.
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Did I aspire to be a policeman?
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No.
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I wanted to be an anthropologist.
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Nancy May: I think that's cool.
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Sylvia Lovely: I wanted to dig in the dirt and find bones.
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I mean, I thought that sounded really interesting.
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Well, fast forwarding, here we go.
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anthropologists, the real ones, studying ancient skeletons sometimes
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note something really surprising.
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Those bones are awfully strong.
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I've been able to figure that out and they think the
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explanation is fairly simple.
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Three things to remember.
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Mineral rich foods, and we'll talk about that.
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Lots of moving around.
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And plenty of sunshine.
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There you go.
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You're in the, you're in the healthy spot.
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Nancy May: Vitamin D3.
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We need that right.
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Sylvia Lovely: And interestingly, this wasn't limited to wealthy households.
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You would've thought that maybe, but actually it was the peasants, it
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was the workers, some of the most nourishing food traditions developed
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in rural and, poor communities.
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'cause they had to make the most of everything they had and they learned
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a lot like the indigenous people and, and all of that kind of stuff as well.
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Nancy May: You know, anthropologists are very interesting people and at one point
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in my life I thought I could do that too.
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Except I have to, I have to confess something.
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As a kid, when you take the museum tours, you go to the big fancy museums,
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we would always have to go through.
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In the Met in New York, the um, the Egyptian section, which had
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the mummies and the skeletons.
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I could not walk through there with my eyes open.
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Sylvia Lovely: Really you.
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Nancy May: I was always afraid of seeing the bones today.
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Not a problem, but I think it took me probably till I was in my thirties
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before I could open my eyes going through looking at mummies and dead bones.
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Sylvia Lovely: Well, next, next, uh, what do they call those?
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Next field trip I take to dig up bones.
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I'm not taking you
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Nancy May: Okay.
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Sylvia Lovely: When I think about
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bone health, I do often think of my grandmother's kitchen.
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She didn't talk about nutrients.
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There were no charts on the wall, explain calcium and magnesium.
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But every meal she made somehow seemed to contain the very foods
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that nutrition experts recommend.
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And I think, , a lot of times, like I said, it.
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It evolves through families that didn't have a lot.
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They had, they picked up greens out of the front yard, that kind of thing.
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This is an Eastern Kentucky Appalachia heart of it.
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beans cooked with a ham bone and cornbread and cast iron skillet
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and buttermilk on the table.
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Nancy May: When you get iron from your cast iron
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Sylvia Lovely: Well, there you go.
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Sometimes there were fish and they were delicate little filets.
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They were the whole thing, all its insides and the bones.
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Now, if somebody tells me that I won't eat fish that has
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all that in it, I just won't.
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I'm, I'm sorry, I'm not, I'm not a back to nature person
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Nancy May: ever had canned mackerel?
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Sylvia Lovely: No, but I've had canned salmon and it contains some bones.
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Nancy May: the can mackerel.
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As a kid, I used to love that stuff and now it, to me it's cat
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food, but that's besides the point.
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It's funny how your tastes change when you get older, but the can
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mackerel, if you opened it always had like the, the backbone of the
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fish in there and it just crumbled.
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And now I couldn't eat, watch the bones in the museum or look at them,
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but I could certainly crunch the bones and the fish for some reason.
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We had two other friends and, and I went to Paris for a big birthday.
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The girls and one of my friends just was, didn't get outta the country really
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that much or really out of New York much.
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she ordered fish at this lovely little sort of bistro in Paris that
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we had gone to one night and they brought the fish, the whole fish
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and the head and everything, and.
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my other friend Diane, and and I were happily eating our snails and everything
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else, and the fish comes and she screams, and the entire restaurant
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looked at her and started to laugh.
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Meanwhile, the waiter ran over really fast and said, Madam,
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would you like me to remove that?
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Sylvia Lovely: Oh yes, please.
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Nancy May: please.
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So we gotta chuckle out of that one.
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Sylvia Lovely: It reminds me of my Escargo story when I was doing a job
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interview for my first law job the, uh, test of the evening was serving Escargo.
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That's snails, right?
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And not telling me that that's what it was.
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Oh, they had a great laugh.
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They had a great laugh over
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Nancy May: Do you like them today?
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Sylvia Lovely: Uh, no, not really.
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Not really.
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And you don't see 'em much anymore either, so Anyway,
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but, but anyway, you know what, what my grandmother did wasn't really a diet.
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it was just supper, but there's one food that really counts.
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And I have a question for you.
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What is the one food you could mention at a dinner party that might help really,
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really help build strong bones, but you get some pretty skeptical looks.
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What is it?
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Nancy May: Oh, I think you're gonna say, well.
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It's gonna be either a salad topping and tint or a pizza topping.
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And that's sardines.
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Sylvia Lovely: Sardines.
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Nancy May: My dogs love sardines.
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Oh
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my
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gosh.
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The juice.
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Yeah.
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Sylvia Lovely: Who likes 'em?
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Nancy May: My dogs
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Sylvia Lovely: Oh,
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oh.
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Nancy May: Bob likes 'em too.
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He will eat a sardine, like,
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Sylvia Lovely: Well, good for him.
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Nancy May: He is worse than the cats.
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Well, we don't have cats, but all the extra juice and the oil that
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come outta sardines, we put it on top of the dog food, and the dogs are
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just happy as climbs are high tide.
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Sylvia Lovely: That is amazing.
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'cause that's really good for them,
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Nancy May: It's good for them.
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It's good for him too.
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Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And you eat the little boogers, you just eat the whole thing.
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All their little bones and all their little I'm not sure.
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Uh, no, no, no, no.
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but it's, eating an entire fish was what people used to do, including the bones.
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And because they're packed with calcium and minerals and all those
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little good things that make it work.
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And because the bones are so small, cooking softens them
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enough that they're easy to eat.
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Nancy May: But kind of crunchy.
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Yeah,
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I like that.
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But you see versions everywhere.
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And actually the Mediterranean fishermen grilling sardines, the fresh
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ones are supposed to be fabulous.
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I've never had a fresh sardine, but they're delicacy and now my, I, my
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aunt and uncle with their kids, spent a couple of years in Kyoto, Japan.
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'cause my uncle worked in, in marketing overseas.
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And my cousins came back with dried little tiny fishes, which were
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considered Japanese candies for the kids.
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Sylvia Lovely: Wow.
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Nancy May: I grew up in the United States and not in Japan.
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Sylvia Lovely: Ooh.
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Nancy May: take bubble gum over sardines any day.
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Sylvia Lovely: yeah.
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You know, the Japanese are sort of, they
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like,
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Nancy May: kind of weird.
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Sylvia Lovely: you know, they're kind.
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Yeah, I was trying, I was groping,
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Nancy May: But I do like sushi, so
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Sylvia Lovely: but, but you, here's the reason.
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fish began in our world.
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One of the things that went away, were eating small fish.
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now we just throw 'em back in, right?
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But fish began arriving on our plates as neat little boneless
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filets or chicken fingers.
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So, I guess that's not fish, but it's nothing, like it resembles
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the original thing, just like small fish, which is kind of.
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Interesting and too bad in many ways.
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'cause people get used to eating things too, and they've developed this thing
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about sardines and small fish and so it's like a mental thing as much as anything.
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Nancy May: there was a fellow on YouTube that, or not YouTube, I guess
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it was on Instagram, that a friend had sent to me and he was cooking sardines
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in a can on his kitchen counter.
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So he, put a, piece of paper on top of the can peeled the, the lid off, and
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all the oil went onto a piece of paper.
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And instead of cooking the sardines in a pan, he cooked
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the sardines by flaming that.
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Paper towel on top of the sardines in the can.
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Now, I wouldn't try this at home.
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It looked very adventurous.
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I showed it to Bob and he said, you are not doing that in our kitchen.
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And I said, but why?
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Sylvia Lovely: Well,
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Nancy May: No, I didn't.
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I didn't cook the sardines in the can with a flame and a paper towel.
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Nah,
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Sylvia Lovely: Okay.
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I thought you were a weenie about the anthropologist thing, but now I'll
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give you some credit that's bold.
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Nancy May: Give Bob the credit for not allowing me to flame the kitchen,
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Sylvia Lovely: Oh, I know, but Bob can't hold you down for long.
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But , anyway, he's some of my other things like when you're ordering a
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Caesar salad, how many people say hold the anchovies, which is related.
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They're related.
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Anchovies are a little more tart, which is what gives Caesar salad
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it's flavor, and why you want
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Nancy May: You don't really taste them.
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I mean, you get the saltiness, but you don't see the
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Sylvia Lovely: That's right.
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So the next time, get the anchovies.
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Okay.
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Do it.
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Nancy May: I like anchovies, actually.
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Sylvia Lovely: But what about bone broth?
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That's our, that's another one.
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Bone broth is popular
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Nancy May: know, before we go to bone broth, let's take a quick little break
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and there's a lot to talk about at bone broth, but we'll be right back.
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So, Sylvia, we're back and we're talking about bone broth.
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Sylvia Lovely: Mm-hmm.
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And it's making a big comeback, you know?
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Nancy May: It is.
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And have you ever made bone broth from like scratch with real beef bones?
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Sylvia Lovely: No, I'm not a big bone broth kind of gal. That's
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just a little too much for me.
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But they say
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it's really good for you, you know?
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Nancy May: it's supposed to be really good for you.
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And I tried the bone broth diet ' somehow there's always like an extra 10 or
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15 pounds that you've gotta lose.
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So I thought I was gonna get on this bone broth kick.
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But, those bones are expensive.
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Probably more expensive.
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I now know they're more expensive than going out and buying it in the.
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In the container.
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But, I tried making bone broth a number of times.
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It is the most disgusting thing I have ever done.
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Sylvia Lovely: it really?
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Nancy May: Most disgusting thing I've ever cooked in the kitchen.
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Well, I'll, let me tell you why we did it in two different ways.
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It was in the slow cooker was one way and the other was in a giant
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sort of soup pot on the stove top.
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The amount of gunk and grease, it's probably not grease.
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It's like bone fat and stuff
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Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
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Supposedly the stuff that's good for you.
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Yeah.
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Nancy May: It goes everywhere and the smell is not that good.
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Now we're talking raw bone broth.
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There's nothing else in it but it, smells kind of even fresh bones.
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It smells kind of gamey to me.
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Sylvia Lovely: I know you can put vegetables in it
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and create a soup out of it?
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Nancy May: I didn't add vegetables, I add seasoning.
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So you know, some salt, some peppers, some basic stuff, some
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Italian seasonings and whatnot.
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But I didn't add anything else because I didn't wanna add onions,
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especially 'cause some of the bone broth I'd give to the dogs.
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'cause you know, the dogs gotta eat too.
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They got some extra treat.
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But it was, the consistency was really, really gross.
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you, you know, sometimes food really is delicious, but there's, something
17:29
about the smell or the consistency that just, yeah, like I can't eat
17:33
cream spinach for that reason.
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It's just like, Ugh.
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Sylvia Lovely: Really?
17:37
Oh, that's interesting.
17:39
We'll do a show on that sometime.
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This stuff like that where it's just doesn't seem right to you
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Nancy May: Foods that
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Sylvia Lovely: or not.
17:46
Yeah.
17:47
Who is at grocery?
17:47
There you, let's just say it.
17:49
but the result they say is deeply nourishing.
17:51
Why?
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Nancy May: The gelatin.
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Well, gel NOx gelatin is based out of bones, right?
17:56
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
17:56
And, collagen, which is a big rage right now, people taking collagen,
18:01
supplements, for, a variety of things and it's deeply nourishing.
18:05
, and I just buy the box kind, okay.
18:07
If I'm making chili for instance.
18:08
But in the Chinese tradition, it was considered a strengthening tonic
18:12
and, nobody poured it down the sink.
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Nancy May: Do you put bone broth in your chili?
18:16
You said,
18:16
Sylvia Lovely: I put bone broth, well, it's not bone broth.
18:19
I'm sorry.
18:19
It's beef broth.
18:21
Ah,
18:21
wrong
18:21
word.
18:22
Yeah, but that's what my, recipe that I love has that,
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um, is what that was, so, yeah.
18:29
Nancy May: Very interesting.
18:30
But you know, so bone broth is not just beef, it's also chicken.
18:35
Jewish moms used to make with all the chicken feet.
18:38
Well, I guess Chinese do that too.
18:39
The chicken, the really good chicken broth supposedly made with the chicken feet.
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Sylvia Lovely: sure.
18:43
It's got collagen and
18:44
Nancy May: I guess so.
18:45
I can't, get
18:46
Sylvia Lovely: No, no, no.
18:47
no, no.
18:47
Don't tell me too much.
18:48
Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
18:50
but here's a fun fact.
18:51
Did you know that the word restaurant.
18:53
Like as in my restaurant, I have a restaurant comes
18:57
from a French word, restore.
18:59
R-E-S-T-A-U-R-E-R.
19:01
I guess it would be re, I don't know, meaning to restore.
19:05
Ah, who knew?
19:06
That's my mission.
19:07
I will restore you.
19:08
Nancy May: you are a fancy dance.
19:10
We're gonna call you a , fancy dancey, Sylvia.
19:12
But the other fun fact is also that people used to use bone broth in the
19:17
early medieval days and even probably the colonial days as a restorative type
19:21
of food and an illness for regular.
19:23
Colds and flus, which makes a lot of sense, right?
19:26
'cause they probably didn't have orange juice, which you mom always told
19:29
you to take when you're not feeling well and childbirth of all things.
19:33
I can't imagine
19:34
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
19:34
Yeah, just kind of restorable kinda stuff.
19:37
And early restaurants served broths meant to restore people's
19:40
strength, including bone broth.
19:42
Nancy May: And that's hot now.
19:43
Fancy restaurants in the cities are now serving bone broth
19:46
Sylvia Lovely: They are, but there was a bone broth store here.
19:49
It closed down.
19:50
I think it was a idea whose time had not yet arrived.
19:53
But then a lot of people talking about it
19:55
Nancy May: A bone broth store.
19:56
That's pretty interesting.
19:56
And bone marrow is the hot thing too,
19:58
where you would, it's expensive as
20:01
Sylvia Lovely: spoon and you dip it out and people love it.
20:04
That would be something.
20:05
I can't stand thoughts of it.
20:06
That's the problem with me.
20:08
if something just doesn't seem right, I can't do it.
20:11
Nancy May: Well see, I think I probably could do that because as
20:13
kids, my sister and I would fight over the, well, actually my dad too.
20:17
We fight over the, bone marrow that would be in a ham steak that had
20:22
the little bone in it, and there's always that juicy little, it was,
20:25
for some reason that was good, but I can't stand making bone broth soup.
20:29
Sylvia Lovely: Alright, well we'll move on to something we both like Fermented foods.
20:33
Nancy May: Oh yeah.
20:33
Pour me a drink.
20:34
Sylvia Lovely: I'm there.
20:35
Okay.
20:36
they appear frequently in traditional diets.
20:38
we know today, sauerkraut, all those things don't have to have
20:42
all that much protein in them.
20:44
A lot of people think all they can, they have, everything has to have
20:46
protein, but fermentative foods appear frequently in traditional diets.
20:50
And do they contain?
20:52
Nancy May: Many contain vitamin K, K2, helps guide the
20:55
calcium to the bones, right?
20:57
It needs a little path, a direction.
20:59
I would say Vitamin K2 is kind of like the road sign to say
21:02
where the calcium has to go.
21:04
And then we talked about earlier, a little bit of.
21:07
Source of calf's liver is good for vitamin K2 and chicken liver.
21:11
Oh god.
21:11
A good chicken liver pate.
21:13
Just gimme that, and the stinky cheese and of course egg yolks add
21:18
that in there and full fat yogurt.
21:21
But that is delicious.
21:22
You know, I wonder if a good scotch on the rocks has a little vitamin K2 on it.
21:27
Sylvia Lovely: No, try it.
21:28
They'll put you in charge of that.
21:30
but another example is nato, N-A-T-T-O, a fermented soybean dish eaten in Japan.
21:36
another little fun fact, and I've never had NATO or nato, I don't
21:40
know what it would taste like.
21:41
It didn't sound great.
21:42
I would have to say, at least that's what I hear.
21:45
It acquired taste as to how you put it kind of politely, right?
21:49
Nancy May: Well, that's okay.
21:50
And apparently areas where that is a common food, they have lower incidences
21:55
of fractures, bone fractures, this must be part of the blue zones where, you've
22:00
got the longevity thing going on too.
22:03
But, it's fascinating to really understand how so many of the foods
22:07
that we do eat impact our life.
22:10
I don't think we think about it as much as we
22:12
Sylvia Lovely: Mm-hmm.
22:13
that's right.
22:13
because osteoporosis, that happens for a variety of reasons.
22:17
Aging's one of them.
22:18
Or if you had a leg disaster like I had on a prescription drug for too
22:22
long, that went the other direction.
22:23
small Caucasian women.
22:25
Are really prone to osteoporosis.
22:28
I'm in that category and that Japanese women are in that category.
22:32
But it's interesting that they have done more with foods it sounds like.
22:36
And I haven't done any large scale study of Japanese women's bone
22:40
health, but it's just kind of interesting because they are prime.
22:44
subjects for this problem, osteoporosis at a young age.
22:48
So anyway, just, just interesting to, to follow all of that
22:51
Nancy May: Well, just quickly on that note, you know how some, you see it here
22:56
more in the states than you do probably in other areas, maybe even in the UK as well.
23:00
They something they called Dowager's Hump
23:02
on.
23:03
Right.
23:04
And I've seen it more on petite women
23:06
than, like you said, an older women.
23:08
There's a, a dear friend of mine up north who is an artist.
23:11
She's well since passed, but, NIAID had what I would call Dowager's
23:15
Hump and just very frail, but I don't see that typically associated
23:21
with the Japanese in any way,
23:22
Sylvia Lovely: Well, I think that may be a clue as to what they're, I do
23:26
have a funny story about meeting with the bone health people the other day.
23:29
Okay.
23:29
About what I'm going through.
23:31
so I. Setting kind of sheepishly at the end.
23:34
He said I was gonna have to have treatment and all that kind of stuff.
23:36
And I said, one other thing.
23:38
I've kind of put on a few pounds.
23:40
when I got diagnosed I was like, the hell with looking at what I'm eating?
23:44
I was gonna eat anything I want.
23:45
Right?
23:46
And he stopped me the truth.
23:49
He said, don't try to lose weight.
23:52
Weight is your friend.
23:54
And I hear the reason being that what makes osteoporosis improve even if
24:00
you're taking the supplements or whatever you're taking is the pounding on your
24:03
body because it strengthens your bones.
24:06
They have to be stronger to take that pounding.
24:08
Isn't that good?
24:09
I've never had anybody tell me I didn't have to lose weight.
24:12
I
24:12
love that.
24:13
Nancy May: my hips are good for my bone health.
24:15
Sylvia Lovely: Oh, please.
24:16
Thank you.
24:16
Give me another scoop of ice cream, please.
24:19
Nancy May: So we're gonna go on to another section of what we're
24:22
talking about on bone health, which is the mystery of the pot liquor.
24:26
Now I'm sorry.
24:27
I think that sounds kind of perverted.
24:30
Sylvia Lovely: Oh, no, you're gonna love it when I
24:31
explain it to you.
24:32
one of my favorite food traditions comes from Appalachian kitchens.
24:36
You knew I'd get there eventually.
24:37
and if you've ever watched or know about a pot of collared greens,
24:41
now that's, they're serving them a lot in nice restaurants.
24:43
Our restaurant has collared greens.
24:44
I've seen 'em all over menus in town, and they simmer slowly.
24:48
Stove and something wonderful happens over time.
24:51
The green soften, the flavor deepens, and the cooking liquid
24:54
becomes rich and dark, and it has a name and it's called pot liquor.
25:00
Nancy May: So, wait a second.
25:01
Wait a second.
25:01
This is the juice,
25:03
Sylvia Lovely: that juice is called pot liquor, now what comes to mind
25:06
when you hear the word pot liquor?
25:07
Where would you think that comes from?
25:09
Nancy May: Okay, so I think of probably, a disgusting old man licking
25:14
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
25:14
Nancy May: the pot with his tongue.
25:16
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, that's what I thought.
25:17
But another alternate spelling I love this is pot liquor, L-I-Q-U-O-R.
25:24
Nancy May: Now that I can handle.
25:26
Sylvia Lovely: Which sounds like a lot of fun, right?
25:28
I'll lick it.
25:29
you get enough pot liquor and you,
25:30
Nancy May: Add a little
25:31
Sylvia Lovely: anything, right?
25:32
Nancy May: twist.
25:32
I'm good.
25:33
Sylvia Lovely: But what's happening there in that pot liquor is
25:36
something really remarkable.
25:37
Minerals from the greens dissolve into the broth, so people for
25:41
generations understood that.
25:43
Pot liquor was the very best part.
25:45
Nobody poured it down the sink.
25:46
You just sopped it up with cornbread and that was another thing.
25:50
And suddenly, what looked like a humble pot of greens became
25:53
a deeply nourishing meal.
25:55
Nancy May: So let me ask you, , something about, these greens
25:58
because I'm a northern gallon collard greens were not a thing.
26:02
does it get gray and disgusting looking?
26:05
Sylvia Lovely: No,
26:06
no.
26:06
I had 'em just last night.
26:08
Nancy May: and crispy.
26:09
Sylvia Lovely: Had it just last night, one of the sides
26:11
on my menu and, it's green.
26:13
It's big.
26:14
You know, I'm sitting here thinking, I don't know, what
26:16
do collared greens come from?
26:18
but it's green and it's just big leaves and they're
26:22
Nancy May: Okay, well there is some kind of green that I have seen that
26:26
it turns sort of like a grayish, greenish, I'd call it like green
26:30
cardboard looking kind of stuff.
26:32
So maybe it that's,
26:33
I'll have to.
26:34
Sylvia Lovely: doubt it.
26:35
Yeah, I doubt it.
26:36
But
26:36
Nancy May: I'll have to find out what that is.
26:37
Either that or somebody's grandmother
26:39
Sylvia Lovely: No,
26:40
Nancy May: wrong way,
26:41
Sylvia Lovely: no, this is definitely not gray.
26:43
It's very green and it's a good thing to order 'cause you're getting that
26:46
little extra, juice, that comes with it.
26:49
But.
26:49
Before that though, I want to recognize an important piece of
26:52
knowledge that indigenous people, behind some of these, traditions and
26:56
I guess it happened Native people.
26:58
I've heard Native Americans, but it really started, I think when
27:01
the Spanish came over and, and in the Caribbean and places like that.
27:05
I, I'm gonna say this and I'm gonna probably say it wrong, but it's a
27:07
process called Nixtamalization . Ah, It's soaking corn in alkaline water
27:14
made with lime or wood ash, which kind of weird thinking in my mind, but they
27:19
filter it, I guess, through wood ash.
27:21
but what is important about it?
27:22
The process releases niacin and it made the corn easier to digest.
27:27
And it adds calcium in the process, but it releases the niacin.
27:32
Now the reason that got so cool is that corn-based diets, especially
27:37
where the settlers relied heavily on corn, 'cause corn grows very
27:40
well in this country, that could lead to a disease called pellagra.
27:44
And that was from an overdependence on corn that did not have niacin.
27:49
So it puzzled early American settlers until.
27:52
People discovered the cause and the indigenous people
27:55
had already figured it out.
27:57
It's like a skin disease, mental disorder.
28:00
all kinds of really ugly things start happening to you
28:02
with that particular disease.
28:04
Nancy May: But it's a way you process the corn
28:06
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, and let me add one more thing.
28:08
I researched whether the cornmeal.
28:10
we buy on the shelf.
28:12
Today is not, but what the corn that we, or the corn meal we buy is enriched.
28:18
If you see, in this country, we've chosen to enrich things so that.
28:23
The people get a whole host of vitamins and minerals.
28:26
Not just niacin, but everything else if you look on the
28:28
package, that's what's going on.
28:30
So they don't go have to go through that process, that, they discovered
28:33
and used for a long, long time.
28:35
Nancy May: So is this kind of like when they, how many
28:37
grits that are all puffed up?
28:38
Is that.
28:39
Sylvia Lovely: Now that's the, that's the ones that are
28:41
treated through this process.
28:43
Yeah.
28:43
Nixtamalization.
28:45
They go through that process and it puffs those corn kernels up.
28:49
And they're the more natural version of it, I would say.
28:52
Nancy May: What surprises me?
28:53
'cause I had never seen these things.
28:56
I'll call 'em these things before.
28:57
It's like white puffed up.
29:00
Things that, you know, it's like, I can't describe these white, puffy things.
29:04
It kind of looks like, thick popcorn.
29:06
Right.
29:06
You know, you would, I I, I'm trying to figure out how to describe
29:09
it on from an audio perspective versus a visual perspective.
29:13
If you haven't seen hominy, they call, I guess hominy corn or hominy grits, right.
29:17
But it's a corn kernel that's, it's white it looks like a, thickened popcorn.
29:24
that's the best way I can describe it.
29:25
of a thickened looking popcorn is What it looks like and lie.
29:29
The fact that they use lie sounds like it would be
29:32
Sylvia Lovely: I know
29:33
I know it does, doesn't it?
29:34
I guess they knew what they were doing, but maybe we should just like
29:37
the fact that they enrich it and.
29:40
Nancy May: I have to admit, I have seen it.
29:41
I have never eaten it.
29:42
I should be a lot more adventurous,
29:45
never eaten it.
29:45
And when we,
29:47
Sylvia Lovely: back in the other
29:47
direction.
29:48
I gave you all
29:49
Nancy May: week, at my first week in college in Virginia, they
29:51
served us that with, bean and bacon soup and strips of bacon.
29:56
And we all said from the north, they're trying to kill us.
30:00
Sylvia Lovely: I love that.
30:01
So maybe you should switch to what we call the peasant bone diet
30:05
Nancy May: Okay, I'll
30:05
Sylvia Lovely: alright.
30:06
All right.
30:07
A peasant bone diet.
30:08
Tell that to your dinner party that the next time.
30:10
Okay.
30:10
I'm serving tonight a peasant bone diet, It's a pattern that you start
30:14
to see emergent, and that's why they call it the peasant bone diet.
30:18
Lots of lentils, whole grains, leafy greens, fermented
30:21
foods, small fish and dairy.
30:24
Things like yogurt, which I think is also fermented, isn't it?
30:27
Isn't yogurt fermented?
30:28
Nancy May: Has a bit of fermentation, but I am presuming
30:31
they don't do these all together.
30:32
I can't imagine like the fish and the yogurt and the
30:36
leafy greens alta. One stew.
30:39
Sylvia Lovely: Okay.
30:39
Nancy May: be kind of gross.
30:40
Sylvia Lovely: But if you can get these foods, in your belly on a regular basis,
30:44
then they can provide a whole round kinda wholeness that, makes us healthy.
30:50
At least for our bones.
30:51
Nancy May: Do you like yogurt?
30:52
Sylvia Lovely: I eat it every morning and, yeah, it's something I've just
30:56
built into my system for things like bone health and just health in general
31:00
because.
31:01
Nancy May: for your gut health.
31:01
Do you have a particular brand that you like?
31:04
Sylvia Lovely: Yes.
31:04
Chobani all natural, no sugar and,
31:08
Nancy May: Plain
31:09
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
31:09
Plain.
31:10
Nancy May: the, and the Greek style or the regular style?
31:12
Sylvia Lovely: Greek style.
31:12
And it's the blue lid.
31:14
Nancy May: I know what you're talking about.
31:15
Well, yogurt, it's interesting, we'll just sort of take a
31:18
side detour here for a second.
31:19
yogurt is very different in taste from brand to brand.
31:23
Sylvia Lovely: It is,
31:24
Nancy May: you're gonna love this.
31:25
I found a new brand down here.
31:27
I absolutely love better than any of the commercial brands you
31:31
could find in the grocery store.
31:33
I found it at Sprouts.
31:35
It's called Nancy's yogurt.
31:37
Sylvia Lovely: well of course you're gonna like that.
31:40
Nancy May: It's really, really, it's better than Chobani in anything.
31:44
It's very good.
31:45
'cause I used to like the Chobani, so I'm a convert to Nancy's yogurt.
31:49
I think we'll have to put it a, a
31:50
Sylvia Lovely: What's the taste that makes it so much better
31:53
because it's pretty plain stuff.
31:54
Nancy May: you know, the Chobani, to me is good, but it, it tastes a little
31:58
mealy, you know, it's like a little dry.
32:00
and the Nancy's yogurt seems to have a little bit more.
32:04
It's, that's sweet.
32:05
'cause it, it doesn't have a lot of sugar though.
32:07
Yo yogurt, surprisingly has enough sugar in it, even its
32:10
natural sugar from the milks.
32:12
But, there's something that's just very delicate and nice about it that still
32:16
has some substance that I really enjoy.
32:17
So if you're ever at a sprout or, or anything, go try it.
32:21
Nancy's yogurt,
32:22
Sylvia Lovely: Hmm.
32:22
Well, what I find is that I don't like yogurt.
32:26
So what I do with yogurt, I'm never gonna find one I like, I suspect,
32:30
Nancy May: Bob doesn't like it either.
32:31
He likes Nancy's.
32:32
Sylvia Lovely: okay, well, I, I'm fine with Chobani, but I put
32:36
walnuts on it and blueberries in a little bit of a spray of honey.
32:41
Nancy May: I was about to say honey.
32:42
Yep.
32:42
Sylvia Lovely: And that gets it down in my palate.
32:45
cause I'm just like, not a big fan, but it's good for you.
32:48
So I'm gonna do it.
32:49
Nancy May: I'm gonna convince you if you can find it, try Nancy's yogurt
32:52
Sylvia Lovely: Well,
32:53
Nancy May: a try.
32:54
Sylvia Lovely: anything Nancy says is good.
32:56
You
32:56
know, I'm, I'm a, I
32:57
am a convert.
32:59
Nancy May: Fancy Nancy.
33:00
Sylvia Lovely: Oh, look at Whole Foods.
33:02
I don't know.
33:02
We don't have a Sprouts, but we have a Whole Foods
33:04
Nancy May: Well maybe they'll have at whole foods.
33:05
But anyway, if you can't get it, just ask your grocer and
33:08
they should be able to help you.
33:09
Sylvia Lovely: Order me some Nancy's.
33:11
Nancy May: Fancy
33:12
Sylvia Lovely: Nancy's yogurt.
33:13
Okay.
33:14
Very good.
33:15
I'm sure they'll know you too.
33:16
You are a force of nature.
33:18
Nancy May: Well, it's not my brand about whoever she is.
33:20
She's brilliant.
33:21
Sylvia Lovely: Mm-hmm.
33:22
Nancy May: Well, on that note, the whole idea of understanding how foods
33:26
can help us build strong bones 12 ways, or build strong bodies 12 ways.
33:30
It's all about everything that we eat and making it not just
33:33
delicious, but good for us.
33:36
And that's important like.
33:38
Trying some new things.
33:39
Maybe I'll have to try some of that Yucky pot liquor.
33:42
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, but remember, just think of it as L-I-Q-U-O-R.
33:46
That'll
33:46
Nancy May: Yeah, that's right.
33:49
I'll add a dashes something.
33:50
A splashes
33:51
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah, there you go.
33:52
So you can make, you can play with your mental state here, but you can also
33:55
keep on the anchovies, and say, yes, I'll have double anchovies on my Caesar
34:00
salad thing very
34:01
Nancy May: like anchovies.
34:02
Well.
34:03
We'll have to try that at a next dinner party, and maybe we'll ask Meredith
34:06
to say, Hey, Meredith, what have you done with your dinner party lately?
34:10
Something that's
34:11
Sylvia Lovely: She's gonna kick going with that.
34:13
Hey, another food that I love and I try to add it like to chili, is chickpeas
34:18
They're, yeah.
34:19
Very high in protein and minerals too, so that's good.
34:22
Nancy May: Well, the hip bone is connected to the collarbone.
34:24
Let me know, the hip bone is not connected to the collarbone.
34:28
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
34:28
But, but some
34:29
Nancy May: neck bone.
34:33
I did walk through the Egyptian section with my eyes closed,
34:36
Sylvia Lovely: there you go.
34:37
You didn't know.
34:38
Nancy May: and the wrist bone is connected to the hand bone,
34:41
and the head bone is, well, it's
34:43
Sylvia Lovely: And it's all a holistic thing, right?
34:46
Our bodies are connected in, that way.
34:49
But, the potluck thing, reminds me of something my grandmother used to say.
34:53
Someone started to pour the liquid, she'd practically chop your hands off.
34:56
they saved everything.
34:58
and they, you certainly didn't throw away that because it was that piece
35:01
of cornbread and sopping it up.
35:03
You had to sopp it up.
35:04
And so pee pee.
35:06
Ed, onto your cornbread.
35:07
and wisdom wasn't written in a cookbook.
35:10
It was written in the way people cooked, and I'm proud
35:13
of that Appalachian heritage.
35:14
There's a lot of people bringing that out now and talking more about that
35:18
because there was a lot of wisdom there, and I'm sure in every part
35:21
of the country, even where you were raised, that wisdom came through, right.
35:24
Nancy May: Absolutely in, very different ways.
35:26
And I think some of it has to do with the generational, not just from where
35:29
you are, but what our parents went through and our grandparents through
35:33
World War I, world War ii and, and other battles and even economic
35:37
times where things had to be saved.
35:39
My dad would save everything that was left over and would eat them, it didn't matter.
35:44
There could be a little hard piece of steak in the fridge and
35:47
he wouldn't wanna toss it away.
35:48
And he referred to those little leftover bits as his sniggles, so he would have a
35:53
Sylvia Lovely: I love that.
35:55
love that.
35:56
I'll remember that.
35:57
That is great.
35:58
Nancy May: a little piece of leftover, it the sniggle, and it could be
36:01
lunch or a snack along the way before you got a little too hungry.
36:05
Sylvia Lovely: Yeah.
36:06
and I, I think even if you're not ill for any specific reason, like I have
36:10
this and I have to deal with it, but you really ought to take a look at your diet.
36:14
I'm not a big fan of dieting, and now I've been given permission.
36:17
I don't have to, By my doctor, I would say.
36:19
But, really look at yogurt in the morning as such a fortifying thing.
36:23
And like you said, gut health is an increasingly important thing.
36:27
And so you have that.
36:29
And then, trying to eat plenty of protein, and all of those minerals
36:33
and things that come from the greens and, bone broth if you can tolerate it.
36:37
I can't.
36:38
But anyway, I'll do all the other things.
36:40
All right.
36:40
Nancy May: Right.
36:41
A colorful plate is a good plate no matter where it comes from, whether
36:44
it's from mineral or plant or animal,
36:47
Sylvia Lovely: Yep.
36:48
Nancy May: So.
36:48
The next time you sit down at a meal, look at everything that's on your
36:52
plate, maybe how it impacts your body and your bones and your health.
36:56
And remember that every meal has a story and every story is
36:59
a feast, including where it came from and what it can do for you.
37:02
And please remember to like and share the show.
37:05
And don't forget, you can share your stories with everybody
37:09
that you know and you loved.
37:10
in our book, My Family Tree, food and Stories, because.
37:14
As we said earlier, every meal has a story and every story is a feast Until later,
37:20
we'll see you soon and we'll hear you soon at Podcast Family Tree Food and Stories.
37:24
Sylvia Lovely: Goodbye.