Shoulders, Uncured Hams, and Eating Healthy
My friend, Jim, was having a birthday and he mentioned he how much he enjoyed an uncured ham and it had been years since he had one. A surprise birthday dinner party was on. I called Al’s Value Land and got the butcher department and said I wanted to order an uncured ham. Now, this is when your mouth is running faster than your brains, the butcher says on the phone, “Do you know what you are buying?”, and I said, “Of course I do, I looked it up on the internet.” I should have slowed down and asked why he was hesitant. I had to tell the butcher three times yes, I want a 35 pound bone in uncured ham. Because that is the only size they come in and he would have to see if his supplier had one and call me back later that day. He did call me back and said he found one and asked again, “Are you sure you want this thing?” I am ordering a ham right? I wondered why this was such a big deal but shrugged it off.
A few days later, I get a call that my prize is in. I showed up at the meat counter and introduced myself with a great big grin on my face, “I can’t wait to see this thing.” The butcher looks me up and down and says, “Oh so you are the one who ordered this, we were wondering about you.” Now I am a little puzzled but still smiling and then he comes back with this giant lump sealed in heavy industrial plastic and with an ooph plops it in the grocery cart. It took up the whole grocery cart. Now I have the dumb look on my face and this guy is smiling at me. There is a “gotcha” feeling coming on. C’mon it is a ham right and of course I know how to cook this baby, I looked it up online on Food Network’s website.
Now this thing is heavy and when you take the plastic off you get a real view of fat covering your ham. The directions say to trim off the excess fat. A sharp knife and a few pounds later I have my trimmed ham, it was a lot of fat. I have it in my head that this is going to be really greasy and when I put it in the roaster I did not put enough water in the bottom of the pan. I figured it would be floating in grease, why do you need water? About halfway through cooking, hmm sniff sniff, ah I need water in the pan it is starting to burn a little and it is time to turn it over. To my surprise there was not that much fat and the ham is now stuck to the bottom of the roaster.
This ham is a good thirty pounds and I am pulling out the rack and I realize that I am bending the big fork I had planned to “roll” my beast over. It was not budging. I got the silicone pot holder in one hand and the big fork with the other and started to wrestle. I had a flash in my head on what was I going to do if I dumped this out of the oven onto the kitchen floor. How was I going to pick up a hot thirty pound ham and all that grease. You do have to wonder if that butcher was smiling right about now. I grabbed the ham by the shank bone and it just kind of spun. I could not turn it by the small end, I would have to go for the meat. I stuck my head in the oven further and grabbed the ham by the big meat end and lifted. I’ll just say “ouch” was not what I said. The ham was winning and my shoulder was not. A third time and I finally got that thing rolled over. When the ham was done cooking I heaved ho and that shoulder pain is not going away.
The first thing Monday morning I am texting my friend Chris asking him if he is attending the Chicago seminar on shoulder and knee adjustments. I have torn something and mis aligned my shoulder. I have to get this shoulder fixed. Luckily the seminar was that weekend and I got the alignment I couldn’t do on myself and added a new technique to my list.
The shoulder is considered a simple joint as the rotator cuff literally holds the arm in the socket of the shoulder blade. This simple joint gives us a lot of free movement but can be easily mis aligned. Your thumb is considered a complicated joint as it is locked in how far it can move. The trade off is that it is a very strong joint giving us great grip strength.
The bone going into the shoulder is called the humerus and it can twist. It is not a true dislocation but is enough where you can lose mobility and it can be painful. Muscles can tear and they may not heal right resulting in chronic pain.
The chiropractic adjustment to the shoulder aligns the humerus with the shoulder blade socket. I use the Repair Guard for the absorbable Quercitin to help knit the muscle back together. I also use the pure co enzyme Q 10 called Mito Guard to accelerate the healing. My shoulder was better in a week.
If someone has arthritis in the joint we have to rebuild the cartilage and the person’s pH becomes a real issue. An acidic person will not rebuild cartilage.
Now back to my ham. It tasted like a giant pork chop, I want to do better next time. By October I will be ready to take on this challenge and win the battle of rotating the ham. First, the plan is to use the grill. Second, I will get a new pitch fork as my rotating tool. I’ll fix that ham. I’m going to call that butcher up and with a challenge in my voice say ” It’s time”. I bet he even remembers me.
In the meantime we need to eat healthy and last week we talked about prebiotics – fiber and healthy eating. This dish is the best tasting healthy eating there is. The goal with all of this is to come up with things that taste so good we want to make it again. So for now I am gladly trading in thirty pounds of pork for one pound of lentils. The below lentil salad blows that pork chop away.
French Lentil Salad with Blue Cheese from Saveur, April 9, 2015. https://www.saveur.com/…/french-lentil-salad-with-blue-chee…
The trick with this recipe is to buy Blue Cheese in the plastic triangle packaging. Get a bottle of Frey White Organic Table Wine from Strack’s or Al’s and soak the Blue Cheese for four days. Keep the cheese in the plastic container and pour wine on top letting it soak for four days in the refrigerator. If you are not a fan of Blue Cheese do not be turned off, the soaking of the cheese in wine removes the harshness of the cheese and mellows its flavor. This is really good and easy to make.
Ingredients
2 cups of small size lentils. If you use the big green ones that the grocery store has use one cup. What is called for are Puy lentils. Meijer had a mixed bag of the small ones with the bigger ones. The health food store may have the small ones. It’s worth the effort to find the smaller ones, my mixed package was fine.
2 Carrots. The recipe called for one, I like carrots. Chopped.
1 Medium onion. The recipe called for a small onion. I wanted the extra sulfur from the onions for healthy detoxification and I like onions. Chopped.
10 tablespoons of olive oil.
5 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste.
6 ounces of Arugula salad
One container of Blue Cheese, 8 ounces.
2 tablespoons of fresh Parsley minced.
1 tsp. fresh Thyme minced.
Lemon wedges for serving.
Instructions
Add the onions and carrots to a stainless steel pot or 4 quart saucepan with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and salt and pepper. Stir under medium heat for 3 minutes. Add in lentils and cover with water and bring to a boil. Simmer until lentils are tender, about 30 minutes; drain off the water. We want tender not mushy.
Whisk 5 tablespoons of oil with vinegar and salt and pepper in a bowl. Toss with lentils and set aside.
Toss Arugula with 3 tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper; divide between plates and top with lentils, cheese, and herbs. Serve with lemon wedges. Room temperature is fine as this is a salad.
Everything in this recipe is alkaline forming for the body and it tastes great.
Thanks for reading and a Happy Mother’s Day,
Dr. Brian McGuckin
May 21, 2019 at 1:57 AM
Your friend should have just said he likes pork roast because that is what an I cured ham is , as you found out !
May 21, 2019 at 4:55 PM
Yes, I will let you know about the next adventure in cooking an uncured ham.