Meatloaf, New Potatoes and Digestion

Last night's dinner included meatloaf, broccoli, new potatoes, corn and cantaloupe. It was all grown locally. The ground beef came from Meadowland Farm in Clinton Corners, NY. We picked it up last week when we stopped at Wild Hive Farm Store for flour and lunch. It is grass fed beef, but expensive at $7 for the lb I bought. It was very low in fat, though, so no waste, and I made it into a meatloaf, beating my homemade bread into the milk and eggs, which will extend it through 3 meals or 6 servings. Do the math, that's not too bad.

I love new potatoes. They are so flavorful. The only thing I don't love about them is that they don't stay new. You have to enjoy them in July when they are in season, but new veggies are sure good for cleaning you out. I parboil the little potatoes in salted water, saute them on medium high heat for a few minutes in butter and finish with chopped parsley.

This, by the way, was my husband's dinner. My son's did not include green or orange. He liked the corn, loved the potatoes, tolerated the meatloaf. Green things enter his body disguised in dehydrated pill form. Don't tell him.

My dinner did not include the meatloaf, but I had some soft, spreadable, probiotic Fresh Herbed Farmer’s Cheese from The Amazing Real Live Food Company on some bread. These cheeses are available in a variety of flavors, and all are made fresh, in small batches, in the Hudson Valley’s Columbia County. The company's philosophy is to make delicious, wholesome ‘vittles’ for friends and neighbors. Their products contain essential probiotics, dense nutritional values, and key digestive enzymes, which the human body naturally thrives on, helping bodies become healthier.

Our bodies natural ‘gut flora’ are thrown out of balance by the use of antibiotics, medicine, alcohol, stress, diseased states, and exposure to toxic substances. Probiotic rich food like yogurt, kefir and this company's farmers cheese help balance the environment inside our intestines.

If you have any kind of digestive problems, the first place to start is with yogurt or kefir. The second step is uncooked veggies or fruit or fresh juices with every meal to provide natural digestive enzymes. That sprig of parsley on your plate actually is full of enzymes; it isn't just decoration. Probiotics also need fiber to flourish. Do not complain about digestion until you populate your gut with good bacteria and understand that every meal needs enzymes. Believe it or not, our bodies are not asking for the little purple pill.