Category Archives: Zone 00

Rewilding your Diet by Closing Loops, Waste Steams on the Homestead: Egg Shell Series

RewilderLife Posted on by 
Affiliate links to Amazon below, I do make some financial gain from those. Thanks for your support.

 

I thought I’d talk a little about the subject of waste steams here on the blog. Waste is something we all have. Toilet paper tubes, boxes, packaging, and so on. We can also waste things like water, electric, food, and even time. We can close the gap in waste streams by being creative and by avoiding bringing things home to begin with. One way I do this is by using boxes to make new gardening beds, toilet paper tubes to start seeds, etc.. You know this drill, it’s been talked about a lot for years. One of the things I want to talk about today is egg shells. Not just saving them to give them back to your chickens or composting them but using them for your own calcium intake. Yes, you read right. You can bake or boil, grind and consume the egg shell yourself for your own nutrition.

 

First let’s talk about what is in an egg shell?

The shell itself contains many minerals like calcium, magnesium, sodium, copper, iron, manganese, zinc, amino acids and so on. I will post a few links below for you to read about this yourself. One of the things we often don’t pay attention to is the membrane of the egg. It contains some important nutrition as well. Things like collagen, glucosamine, chondroitin, and again amino acids. All of these you see on store shelves and we as homesteaders have access to without ever leaving the homestead or paying money to companies we often don’t support. This is closing the waste stream loop AND rewilding. The WHOLE egg is literally a nutritional supplement, it grows and sustains a whole life without any input! A baby chick! As the old commercial from years ago stated , “the incredible, edible egg.” It really is incredible. I often eat 4 to 6 a day.

 





I am going to post a few notes below with studies done on egg shells and membranes specifically. I will not cover the egg itself because this is about waste streams. One important things to consider is bioavailability of the nutrition we consume. Animal based products are some of the most well absorbed nutrition on the planet for humans. Eggs should be a huge part of anyones diet, especially if you are a vegetarian or low animal consumption (for any reason). For those with allergies you may want to consider the feed the animal is getting or even trying a different egg type (often soy, corn, or wheat can cause issues for some). In our family we have a couple folks who can’t eat chicken eggs but do tolerate duck eggs (this is more due to different protein and enzymes).

 

Notes on safe consumption:

I save the shells in the freezer until I have enough to do a bigger batch. It works best if you can keep the eggs from stacking inside each other. I bake mine in the oven at 225F for 20 minutes in a single layer (to kill salmonella you need to cook at 150F for 12 minutes according to this) . I then grind them in my Ninja and run them through my coffee grinder. The finer the powder the better you will absorb the vitamins and minerals. I then put them in a jelly jar and keep them in the fridge or freezer. I add them to smoothies, which for me usually contains raw eggs (do so at your own risk, not saying its safe).


How much to take?

We are supposed to get anywhere from 1,000 to 1,300 mg a day to ward off deficiency. The RDA however is the minimum to avoid major issues. Most of the world is deficient in many vitamins due to our modern diets and low stomach acid (caused also by diet, medications, etc). So depending on your diet and need you may want to consume more, and possibly take in some digestive enzymes or apple cider vinegar to create an environment that helps you absorb. One thing to remember is, calcium is absorbed and put into the bones best if you have optimal vitamin D, K, A, and other mineral levels. Guess what contains those things? The EGG! And if your birds are getting quality forage, bugs, grains, and sunshine you have a beautiful nutritionally dense food source wrapped up on a tidy portable and somewhat storable package! Its a beautiful thing isn’t it?!


Folks, those eggs aren’t just for the birds and the worms! They are for us too! So save those shells and membranes, bake them and eat them! Your skin, your bones, your body and your wallet will love you for it!!

 

Links:

Egg Shell Membrane Amino Acid Analysis 

Egg Shell Membrane on Hair, Skin, Nails

Egg Shell to Improve Dietary Calcium

Egg Shell Powder in cakes

Benefits and Risks of Eating

How to Make Calcium Supplement

Calcium Bioavailability (I added this despite it not talking about egg shell or membrane because it does show Calcium Carbonate’s bioavailability. 

Time-Temperature Effects on Salmonella 

Eggs and K2

Egg Nutrition 

 

Amazon Links:

Hand Coffee Grinder: https://amzn.to/4ak7ghC

 

I speculate you can make the egg shell more bioavailable by soaking egg shell powder in apple cider vinegar and then if you consume vitamin C foods like rose hips or citrus peels into the diet. These contain natural vitamin C or Citric Acid (not all forms of this are the same). But this is my non-scientific speculation. ideally we work on proper stomach PH. 

Zone 00: Skin Brushing, Rebounding, Manual Massage…and more

RewilderLife Posted on by

This post could be quite long and detailed, I’m not a fan of making really long posts, so I won’t.  I am a fan of supplying you with ideas and thoughts to prick your curiosity.  Then you can own your own healing, health, and life journey. Because as one of my favorite authors and teachers stated once, “No one can give you an eduction. You must take it.”, John Taylor Gatto

It is interesting to me that many of these methods have been studied and shown to help, but we don’t hear much about them and if we do they are considered woo-woo. None of that has ever stopped me from jumping feet first into things.  I hope it doesn’t stop you. I hope you try these things and some of them fail you.  I also hope you try some of these things and some of them really help you. Lets move on to your Permaculture Zone 00- YOU!

So your body is super complex and needs continual care and upkeep to operate well.  It’s like the computer I am writing this on.  Lots of little things are happening behind the scenes that I can’t see. But if updates and care don’t take place the whole thing comes crashing to the ground.  I admittedly don’t understand a lot about computers. I understand a little more about our health.  I understand A LOT more about what happens when your body crashes and won’t update. Because of this I have learned what MY body needs (we are all different). By the time your body gets to this crash and burn stage your body has been trying to message you, we just have to learn to read these messages and then once we are back up and operating again we have to download the updates.

One of the things we can do for our body is make sure our lymph system is able to work properly.  I really can’t say it any better than this, “The lymphatic system is the metabolic garbage can of the body. It rids you of toxins such as dead and cancerous cells, nitrogenous wastes, infectious viruses, heavy metals, and other assorted junk cast off by the cells.’, Dr. Scrivens (this study on rebounding). To understand what the lymphatic system is and how it works you can read this article from The Cleveland Clinic. Most people know what a lymph node is because often when we get sick we have swollen nodes in the neck.  Your tonsils and adenoids are part of your lymph system as well. Something many have had removed. You can find lymphatic system diagram to help you better understand your body and how some of the following things may help you (video of the gland).

How is this part of the Rewilder Life? Well, I’m doing my best to be my best and healthiest me.  I take brisk walks in the fresh air, stretch outside, expose myself to the sun, breathe deeply, sit by fires, brush my skin, drink clean water, and am working on building muscle. What I am avoiding is chemicals on my skin, in my body, in my lungs, and in my home.  We are also avoiding quality and junk food, water impurities, and stress. We are working diligently to remove all of these things from our lives.

Dry Brushing

I really enjoy dry brushing, but for many it is hard on the skin or too harsh at first.  You can use a dry washcloth to start and you can purchase softer bristled brushes. Dry brushing is exactly what it sounds like.  You use a dry natural bristled brush to gently brush the skin. You keep those lymph nodes in mind when you do this brushing and brush the skin toward a lymph node to encourage movement and drainage. I am placing a video made by a physical therapist on how to dry brush most efficiently, she has several videos on this subject. Proper hydration will help with this process greatly.  One of the other benefits of dry brushing is it stimulates the nervous system, gets rid of dead skin cells, may help with cellulite or the appearance of it.

Manual Lymphatic Drainage

This is basically a massage you do yourself but it is done for the specific reason of helping your lymphatic system drain, it can be helpful for many health concerns.  The same physical therapist I place a video of above has a whole video on this subject as well.  What is nice about this is there is no expense to watching the video and doing it.

Movement

Many people use a mini trampoline for this but any movement can stimulate the lymph system to drain (study).  You don’t need any tools to go on a brisk walk, jump, walk up and down stairs, stretch, or build muscle.  It can even can happen if you must exercise while sitting in a chair.  Your lymph system part of the circulatory system so this is why it is helpful to get moving and get your heart rate up.

 

Cold, Heat, Light and breathing

These are all topics more in the natural health realm, I have not found studies on them but they do make sense.  What these do is get your heart rate up without physical movement.  It’s a pretty passive way to help improve lymphatic drainage. Many people start cold or heat therapies with just turning the shower colder or warmer.  You could turn the heat down or sit outside when its cold. For heating things up you could just pile some blankets on (what many do when they have a fever or are sick). Breathing exercises can be done many ways, I highly suggest starting these laying down (I may have done some Wim Hoff and almost passed out before).

 

And last but the easiest, Hydration

It’s pretty simple, drink water.  Now it sounds simple BUT you can also drink so much that you flush important minerals from your body.  I actually drink sole water and make sure to keep my minerals up (not everyone needs salt or minerals, my diet has no processed food in it so I have to add salt). I add minerals to my water, many may not need them (basic list: calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, chloride, magnesium, iron, zinc, iodine, sulfur, cobalt, copper, fluoride, manganese, and selenium).

Water quality is very important to me.  Even on our well I filter our water using a Zero water pitcher. Water is often not tested until there is a problem and it has been consumed for a while at that point.  In my opinion it is best to be safe.

 

There is more, I know there is, but you get the point.  Lets work on getting that Permaculture Zone 00 in tip top shape!

 

Below are Amazon links, I am an affiliate  and make a small amount of money from purchases, thank you for your support.

Glass Zero Pitcher (my fave): Link

Thrifty Zero Pitcher:Link

Dry Brush with long handle: Link