18 years ago Norman had quadruple bypass surgery.  He vowed never to go through that again.  Everyone told him he would have to face it again in about 7 years, even the doctors didn’t promise it to be a perment cure so he set out to alter his life style to make this a perment cure.  This life change was two part, exercise in the form of walking 3 minles a day and eating healthy.  The exercise part was no problem but the eating change was not as clear cut.  The diet the hospital gave him was vague and was not working for the people we met in the hospital who were there of a second time.  It told him to cut down on the animal fats.  So if a little was good, alot must be better and he wanted all fat removed from his diet.  This meant no meat and no shortening added in the baking.  I had to run two different menus as I could not stand to eat that way and he soon found that did not work as his blood cholesterol level went up not down.  Our daughter, Kathy explained to him that you need some fat in your diet or else your body will take other foods you eat and turn it into fat that you need and since you are an animal the only fat you can make is cholesterol.  She suggested he use olive oil for his fat and he also needed some meat so instead of all the meat substitutes he was eating to have small amounts once in a while and make it chicken or very lean pork.  This idea worked well and we began to develope a menu that we could both live with, so I joined the new life style.  There were not recipes for baking with olive oil so I experimented and developed my own.  As the years passed and research was done in this area ideas changed.  What was in one year was out the next.  First you could not have eggs at all, then eggs were the wonder food.  Butter was out and margarine was in, then margarine was out and olive oil dipping was in.  At first meat substitutes were in and then they were out because of the high salt content.  We collected enough recipes to publish a safe book and six years ago we published “Gourmet Cooking for a Healthy Heart” which is still available on Amazon.com published by Carol Petts.  Since that book came out a few things have changed and new research has altered the recipes a little.  For example, now I know that olive oil breaks down at high temperatures so most of its advantage over other oils is lost when you try to deep fry using olive oil.  Now I use peanut oil to deep fry but use only Extra Virgin Olive Oil in all my other cooking.  I even use a little butter for flavor once in a while.  I have also made changes to take into account my health problems such as arthritis and colitus.  I am now collecting more recipes and health tips and hope to publish this when I have tested all of them and am satisfied with the results.  Eating is an age related problem.  The young need more than the old, they can take more salt for example because they sweat it out, so keep that in mind when cooking for the young as I will be doing for the next three months.  I will try to make not of such things in my recipes as I go.  I will try to put on one new recipe each day and in that way have a record of ones I have tested.  Today I will just give a recipe for breakfast which is how we start every day.  First I operate on the premise that a person needs 7 servings of fruits and vegetables every day.  We rise each morning at 6 a.m.  We both do about 10 minutes of stretching exercises which helps my arthritis alot. My husband has a cup of coffee and watches the news for about 15 minutes then goes out for a 2 mile walk, here on Baker Mountain he goes only two miles because of the hills.  In Florida where it is flat he walks longer distances.  Then after a short rest we have breakfast about 8 a.m.  I use that time to check my email, do my blog and get the day started.  When the gardens take more time I do some weeding then or other small chores.  Breakfast is always started with a dish of fruit.  This varies but always includes 6 to 12 cherries and 6 to 10 raisins that have been soak in gin.  The cherries and raisins are for arthritis pain, don’t laugh at it until you have tried it, they really work and as you get older you really need this extra help.  I get my dried cherries from Amazon.com I get 4 pounds for about $22 and by getting some figs at the same time I get free shipping and that price sure beats about $4 for 3 ounces in the store.  If you want more information on this email me at backyard820@peoplepc.com .  Then I usually have two figs, and some fresh fruit, either a few grapes, half a banana, or some melon.  This is followed by steel cut oatmeal with either pear and pineapple conserve or raisins and 1/2 teaspone brown sugar or honey and a little whole milk.  We used to use Soy Milk but new research has convinced us to use whole milk again and we are enjoying that.  A cup of tea rounds out breakfast and we are ready for a full morning of work on the farm.  More tomorrow.  Have a great day.