Dateline: 8 June 2006
I was on my hands and knees weeding around my garlic yesterday evening and James came walking out of the house towards me with a glass of some sort of beverage in his hand. It looked like—and I hoped it was—a glass of iced tea for me.
As he got closer, I asked him what he had. He told me it was milk with molasses. That didn’t sound very appealing to me, especially since I was expecting iced tea.
“Here. Try it. It’s good.” he said to me as he held the drink out. I took a tentative sip. It wasn’t bad. So I quaffed down some more. Seeing that, James quickly reached out to save what remained in the glass.
“I thought you brought it for me.” I said, just a little disappointed.
“I just wanted you to try it.” he said as he walked back to the house.
“How’d you come up with that idea?” I asked after him.
“I dunno.” he replied.
I grew up putting stuff like Ovaltine and Nestle’s Quick chocolate mix in my pasteurized, homogenized, store-bought milk. My son is putting unsulphered blackstrap molasses in raw milk from Esther Thornton’s cow. What a contrast.
=========
I did a little research on blackstrap molasses. It is what’s left after the third boiling of sugar cane when it is refined into crystallized white sugar. White sugar is downright bad for you but blackstrap molasses (unsulphered) is downright good for you. In fact, it’s considered something of a health food because it is packed with iron, calcium, copper, manganese, potassium, magnesium, and even selenium. You can get organic unsulphered molasses, which would be even better.
=========
It’s interesting to note that molasses (imported from the Caribbean) was a common & popular sweetener in the U.S. until the late 1800’s. These days, most of it goes into animal feed. Isn’t it ironic that we humans feed cattle the mineral-rich blackstrap while we consume the sugar, which has no nutritive value at all!
Posts
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
7 comments:
Just like we feed the animals the molasses, we also do the same thing with wheat. They separate out the bran and give to the cattle. They separate out the oil that is packed with vit. E and then we go pay big dollars for it at the health food store. If you grind your own wheat for your daily bread, you get all that in your wheat. =)
Where does one get blackstrap molasses? Normal Grocery store or does one have to go to a health food store? Is it different than the molasses my wife uses in cooking?
I read once where whole wheat has 19 essential nutrients removed from it to refine it as we find it on the grocery store shelf today. And not only that but they bleach it too. In case you did not know, we call this "progress"! :{
Black strap molasses is good for you. Here is what my teenager has to say about it and much more:
"Why is it, all the stuff that is good for you smells and tastes so nasty?"
As you can see I have a lot of work to do on my oldest. He does tend to eat all the good stuff though adding a few comments here and there.
I was pleased to hear this comment when I bought Kraft singles to use in cooking a month ago:
"EEEWWWW, fake cheese. Guys, come look mom got fake cheese. We should go out and start gnawing on trees. It would be better for us."
I use black strap daily by the tablespoonfull just to get the vitamins. I always have a glass of water handy. Now, I am game for putting it in our milk. Thanks James for the experiment!
Blackstrap molasses is in most grocery stores in the baking section. Good point on the wheat. White flour is like white sugar—nothing good about it.
Herrick, your book arrived yesterday. I was reading parts of it to my husband last night. OH, you are singing my song. So, this morning, I wrote a letter to all our customers and most of our family and told them occasionally in life something comes along so good that you can not keep it to yourself. I told them 2 such things have come into my life lately. One is the movie, The Future of Food found at: http://www.thefutureoffood.com/ and the other was your book. I included a link to your website and told them it was well worth the money. So hopefully, you will get orders and people in my world will begin to wake up to reality. Thanks for taking the time to write it down for us!!!
Farm girl..
Wow, that is very nice of you to do. Thanks! I will check out the movie you linked to.
Oh, and speaking of movies, I see that you are a fan of Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea. Our family watched those movies for the first time last winter and they were wonderful!
My daughter calls milk with molasses "Taffy Milk". We've been drinking it for years!
Post a Comment