Maggie's Fridge Fudge 50 mg of Magnesium per piece

Culinary Curiosity Thursday

Magnesium Crusade

    I’ve been on a family and friend crusade to spread the word about the importance of getting enough magnesium in our diets. I’d read The Magnesium Miracle by Dr. Carolyn Dean, but to tell you the truth, 
I felt disempowered it to get more magnesium just through diet after finishing it. I felt that book pushed buying expensive supplements.
  I’m not a supplement advocate, I do take my cod liver oil in the winter, and occasionally some extra zinc when I think of it, but that’s about it. Although, ironically, and I have to be honest, I’ve started taking a teaspoon a day of Natural Calm, a proprietary form of magnesium citrate. It’s great stuff better than drugs.
   It bothered me that she emphasised supplements in her book instead of food, because whenever we take a supplement we're missing out on all the other benefits and synergy the food would have provided us, and not just us, but also our hungry microbiome (gut flora), who’d rather have us eat whole foods with fiber than supplements.

need for magnesium rich recipes

   Scouting around the web, I noticed that while lots of foods are recommended as high in magnesium I couldn’t find people who'd already put together high magnesium recipes and menus.
  What exactly would I need to eat in a day that wasn’t just a bag of beans, and some nuts? I wanted daily examples-- menus, recipes and wasn’t finding them.
So I started creating them myself, and making a game of it. How many different 1oo mg of magnesium per serving meals could I create? It turns out lots of delicious meals and treats. It’s not that difficult to get between 300 and 450 mg of magnesium a day, if you eat whole foods, and don’t waste your calories.

Play the Mag. Game

 It’s kinda fun, especially if you like numbers. Here’s how you play: Make menus that provide about 100-150 mg magnesium per single serving meal, or 25-50 mg per snack, for a total of about 450 mg a day. 
For example, a simple search of “magnesium in pumpkin seeds” will put you in the ballpark for that ingredient. Don't worry about over doing it because not all the magnesium will be assimilated anyway, and if you do over do it, then you’ll know, because magnesium is a natural laxative.
  
What foods are high in magnesium?
   Basically, anything that comes from the seed portion of a plant: beans, grains, seeds, and nuts. Also, foods that are close to the seed, or have seeds in them like avocados, and figs. Sea vegetables are high because the sea is made of minerals. Dairy is also a source of magnesium if the animals are grazed on high magnesium soils. Which brings up another issue-- magnesium rich foods are only available if the soil is not depleted in magnesium.
    Much magnesium is held in whole foods until special enzymes are activated to open the stores. By the way. this is done to insure that the young seedling has minerals to start its life off, not to thwart us! 
The enzymes needed are activated by being in relationship with the microbial world.
 proper microbes + hydration + acidity + warmth + time = activation of enzymes to open mineral stores in food 
Think: fermentation, souring, and culturing.
Roasting and toasting also helps to make magnesium more bioavailable.
  Don't get hung up on doing this all perfectly, just play around with it and have fun, you don't need to be perfect--- just whole.

Maggie's fridge fudge

High in Magnesium Treats
1236 mg magnesium per batch
makes 24 pieces with 50 mg Mag. per piece

​Ingredients
½ cup pumpkin seeds toasted
½ cup sunflower seeds toasted
1 cup dried unsweetened coconut toasted
¼ cup flaxseed (measure then grind)
¾ cup undutched cocoa
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ cup coconut oil
¼ cup raw honey
¼ cup unsulfured blackstrap molasses (or ¼ cup more raw honey)

​Directions
Toast seeds on medium-low until they pop. Cool/ grind in food processor to coarse meal.
Toast dried coconut until golden
Measure/ grind flaxseed
Melt coconut oil
Mix pumpkin seeds, coconut, flaxseed, cocoa, cinnamon, vanilla, salt, coconut oil, honey and molasses together.
Press into loaf pan/chill.
Cut into 24 small squares
Keep in refrigerator.  
​Each piece contains 50 mg magnesium
With Love Enjoy!

Mag. meal ideas 

all amounts are dependant on factors...
Autumn Supper
swiss chard/ 1 cup = 150mg
navy beans/ 1 cup = 96mg
whole barley/1/3 cup = 81mg
winter squash/ 1 cup = 26mg
flaxseed / 2 T = 54 mg

Early Summer Breakfast
oats/1 cup = 63 mg magnesium
pumpkin seeds/ 1/4 cup = 185 mg
sunflower seeds/ 1/4 cup = 43 mg
strawberries/ 1 cup = 18 mg
raspberries/ 1 cup = 27 mg

Lunch Buckwheat Wrap
buckwheat / 1 cup = 85 mg
kidney beans/ 1 cup = 74 mg
sunflower seeds/ 1/4 cup = 43 mg
walnuts/ 1/4 cup = 46 mg
kale/ 1 cup = 23 mg

Links to Enlighten
40 foods high in magnesium
​All about magnesium
​Royal Society of Chemistry Periodic Table Podcast ( I love this ! ) 

key in  Culinary Curiosity