Okay to Eat

Okay, just to have a record, here is our list of foods that are okay to eat.  Some of these I am still testing.  N has these weird specks in his poops that the doctors don't know what it is...in reading it looks to me like he is dumping oxalates.  So I need to be watching high oxalate foods.  He also seems to have some issues with foods rich in salicylates.  So those need to be watched as well (So, things like almonds, coconut, watermelon need to be rotated).  Also, I am not putting on here foods like eggs that are low histamine that we can't eat anyway due to allergy.  Although I do hope to get eggs back into our diet,  I sorely miss them!! At the very least the yokes....

Anyway, so here is is our list of foods:

Fresh Meats (not including beef, rotating turkey, and no smoked or aged cuts...like sausage or bacon)
Fresh Fish (Can't eat tuna, salmon, mahi mahi, makrel, anchovies, or sardines.  No shellfish).
Gluten Free Grains (but we have some issues here too...)
Fresh Fruits: mango, pears, watermelon, kiwi, canteloupe
Fresh Veggies (with the exception of avocado, eggplant, spinach, tomatoes)
Dairy Substitutes: coconut milk, rice milk, almond milk
Cooking oils:  (there seems to be a lot of discrepancy here...but olive oil and coconut oil are listed as okay)
Leafy Herbs
Herbal Teas

This means no citrus, fruits, no dairy, no chocolate, and *fresh* is the key here.  The more a food sits around, the more histamine it accumulates.  This would also likely apply to souring and/or sprouting our grains...those would be high histamine.  Bummer.

But this shouldn't be forever.  And really, the hard part is getting N to eat right.  And prepping for our meals is a super PITA, especially because the food needs to be fresh, and I have a crazy one year old running around!!!

Methylation and MTHFR

Stream of consciousness post...I have been reading a lot lately about methylation.  It started out after I started to break out in a very itchy and uncomfortable heat rash.  the consensus for heat rash is to, get hot less.  Ha ha.  But I was interested in two things...can diet affect rash status the same way it can have an affect on the bodies propensity to burn? And, why would I see an inflammatory reaction to the sun?  The answer seems to be histamines.  I wasn't reacting to the sun, but to my own sweat.

The reaction isn't an allergic reaction per se, but it meant that something in my sweat was causing an inflammatory response.  Thanks to some knowledgeable people on a forum, someone steered me in the direction on histamines.  Food histamines.  So not another food allergy, but more on how foods can effect bodily responses, and how our bodies can and can't work efficiently enough to handle food chemicals.  And not artificial chemicals, like actual compounds in foods.

So, there are certain foods that are high in biogenic amines (Like histamine), and when we eat too many, our bodies get flooded with the chemical.  Most people can break down food histamines and never see issues.  But some people are lacking the right enzymes to do this.  Histamine receptors are all over our digestive tracts as well as in our brains.  (Histamine acts like a neurotransmitter in our brains).  So, the fact that I was reacting to histamines means that I am not able to break them down enough, and my body had been over exposed.  This is a common issue with people who are undermethylated.  Methylation is the process of adding a carbon group onto a molecule, and happens for cell communication...like signaling which genes are turning on and off.  It's a huge part of cell signaling in general, and can manifest in many different ways.

People who have methylation issues tend to have a mutation called MTHFR.  I had seen the term thrown around a lot, but hadn't thought too much about it.  Until, again, in a forum, someone was asking about tongue and lip ties and how they contribute to the gut issues we see.  People with ties usually have the MTHFR mutation, as "midline defects" are a physical symptom of the mutation.  A has an upper lip tie.  In fact most people in my Mother's family does.

This is huge! This means that I have a testable and therefore tangible diagnosis...and with that comes treatment instead of trying to fish around looking for the cause of all of our digestive issues.  The best part is that the treatment for this mutation is simply supplying my body with the missing nutrients that will allow the methylation process to continue....Food still wins!!!

So, methylation relies on b vitamins to work, and if we are undermethylated, as being high in histamines would indicate, then, all I need to do is supplement with the right doses of the right vitamins and I should see a huge relief of symptoms.  There are also some trace mineral deficiency or overabundance profiles that I will likely fit into, and will have to supplement and/or avoid those nutrients as well.  (For example copper and zinc rations are a huge issue).  this all comes together with a book/doctor that my Mom introduced me too my senior year of high school.  Dr. William Walsh.  Its fascinating and wonderful that these ideas are coming into the forefront and how this all comes together.

Now, I have ordered a DNA test from 23andMe, which will now only give ancestry information.  But they also provide you with your raw genetic data, which I can have analyzed elsewhere to see if I do, in fact have this mutation, and which polymorphisms are present.  Then I can have my blood tested for other markers and nutrients and then we should be well on our way to healing.  And if this all works for me, then I can have the kids tested too, and besides supplementing and eating a clean diet, we should be able to feel normal!  Hallelujah!

For right now, I need to be more aware of my histamine levels and high histamine foods.  And nightshades (since they cause big problems for me too).  It is exhausting to be this thoughtful about food.  But on the other hand, I get so miserable when I don't.  So I am hoping that this is the answer.

Notes For Me

Wow, it's been a long time since I picked this up.  It's amazing how much things. Hangs and yet how much they stay the same.  I am restarting this more for myself than anything else, just as a way to keep notes.  Why not? It's public, so it's kind of weir that I will be sharing some pretty weir details on here, but at the same time, if we don't share this stuff, how to others learn? So here we are.

Since I last posted, I have had another baby...a baby who is now one! How time flies, and how much less of it I have! Luckily with all of the gut healing I did, she seems pretty healthy.  Not too much to worry about this one food wise.  Beyond strictly adhering to my crazy hippy food requirements, lol! No birthday cake for this one.  It's okay though, she loves all things food and noshes on everything under the sun.  She has a particular affinity for bones, asparagus, and summer squash right now.

N was doing really well for a while, but as my surprise pregnancy progressed and I became more stressed, we fell off of the paleo wagon, and fell into a more traditional foods paradigm.  Which lead to various episodes of take out.  For a little while things seemed to be going pretty well.  But increasingly N's symptoms began to resurface, and now that he was getting older some sensory stuff starting becoming more obvious.  He continued to have GI issues, mostly constipation.  He continued to be be finicky with his meals...as do most toddlers, I suppose.  His behavior just got worse and worse, and I remember it like a dark cloud over us.

Once we started to get back to a more paleo approach, his symptoms in terms of behavior improved significantly....but again, baseline was still eluding us.  We brought him to a GI specialist, who told us to give him mirilax indefinitely.  If removing gluten made us happy, then that as cool.  But she didn't "deal" with allergies.  It was a waste of time and money.

Next we went to an integrative medicine place.  It was awesome.  The doctor knew our story, since he has seen it hundreds of times before.  He was familiar with our dietary ideas and endorsed them.  He even had a few of his own to offer.  First we did a stool test, then a food reactivity test.  I was alittle skeptical   of the food reactivity test, called electro dermal skin testing.  But you know what, it worked, so I am not complaining.  Then the stool test told us N's levels of inflammation were through the roof high....like one of the highest the doctor had ever seen high.  There were a couple of other markers that were elevated, and evidence of yeast overgrowth.  But no way to really address the other issues until we get his inflammation down.

The food tests eliminated a lot of our go to foods, and combined with the what I already know he reacts to, gives us more than 20 major foods to eliminate or significantly reduce exposure too.  Foods like eggs, and bananas, and apples, and dates, and beef.  In addition to the dairy, soy, corn, and gluten.  Even rice and avocado.  So that's what we are working on now.  Plus I think that we are seeing more things crop up.  It's like what is happening with me...the more I heal, the more my body is healthy enough to react to.

Currently, by removing eggs, N has gone from chronic constipation to diarrhea.  And I am having some pretty rotten symptoms myself.  So that is where we are.  I will be posting lists of the food chemicals that we will have to test, then trying to come up with a rotation diet to test them.  Or do the GAPS intro diet and figure out the best order to reintroduce....but I am afraid of dumping high levels of toxins into the bloodstream....along with actually getting N to eat.

I Love Breakfast!

Surprise, for the first time in forever, I am writing a post!! My lack of updating has been because I've been busy with pregnancy stuff.  Yay!! I've been all over the map with food, and as usual have settled back into the "simple is best" routine.  Being as thin as I was to start, my body really needed to gain weight at the beginning of pregnancy, and my body wanted CARBS! Like crazy, and dairy. 

I realized when I started craving the carbs that my diet was lacking in them to begin with.  I actually realized that two weeks or so before I got pregnant.  In those two weeks I gained enough weight, and then BAM, pregnant.  Eating the carbs (in the form of grains - yeah, I know!!) helped me to feel more stabilized.  I also craved dairy like crazy, and these cravings were different than the typical "I want that because it looks good", but were more along the lines of "If I don't have that I am going to kill someone".  So I indulged, figuring it was something that my body needed.  Unfortunately, I am an "all or nothing" type person, and since i was indulging in grains and dairy, I found it really difficult to be as choosy about which grains and dairy that I was eating as I should have been.  And, of course it eventually caught up with me.  To the point where my more bipolar symptoms returned.  Bad.  But luckily, I know how to fix it!

Instead of going back to where I was before pregnancy, I knew that I needed to incorporate some level of grains and dairy because it was obvious that I needed the nutrients.  I just had to be more discerning about they types and how they are prepared.  And I've been pretty good, and it makes SUCH a big difference...but we already knew that!

By far my favorite meal is breakfast.  And that has not changed.  I still devour eggs on a daily basis - packed with protein, fat, and cholesterol - the very building blocks of cells! And of course bacon is super important.  One of my smallest yet most effective changes is that I have been adding fermented foods (finally!) to each meal.  Most typically I use a lactofermented salsa, sauerkraut, and home made raw milk kefir.  I can handle doing the kefir - a very small amount - if I stick to just eating that as my source of dairy.  Unfortunately my grains allow me to make WAY more that I can eat...so if any of you are local and want some, please, please, please come over and I will share - this stuff is almost like liquid gold.  It's amazing!

This is my kefir sitting in my jar on my counter.  This is all there is to making it.

Anyway, making the kefir is super duper easy.  Just put milk over the grains.  Strain and put new milk in every day or every other day.  Drink the cultured milk, or strain out the whey to make kefir cream cheese and use the whey to ferment whatever else you want! To make the cream cheese, just layer some cheese cloth and let the kefir strain overnight.  That's it.  It works better if you have let the milk ferment for 2 days, since it will be thicker.  Then season the cream cheese with cinnamon and maple syrup.  Or onion or chives.  Or whatever other flavour you like!

So, I totally took pictures of half of my breakfasts on my phone and the photos aren't on my computer.  Boo! So you will have to use your imagination, and maybe I will add the photos when I have more time.  (If N is still sleeping when I'm done typing I'll go back and add some).

That is a photo of my egg drop soup.  Another breakfast item that is really, really good and filling.  I make the soup ahead of time (typical bone broth) adding in the carrots, celery, meat, and whatever veggies I have around, except the spinach.  The spinach can make the broth look unappetizing if it sits for too long, so I add that when I add the egg.  Then in the morning all I do is drop the spinach and the egg into the simmering broth and cook for about 3-5 minutes, depending on how "well done" you like your egg.  Then I add a small scoop of sauerkraut over the top with some of the juice.  It tastes way better than you think it does. This obviously can work really well for any meal.  But don't be fooled, this is a filling soup, you won't need to eat much. 

My typical daily breakfast is a quick scramble consisting of one slice of bacon (okay, sometimes it's more...but this is a loaded scramble, so you really only NEED the one), spinach, a couple of eggs, and a scoop of lactofermented salsa.  Usually this works on it's own, but sometimes I add a gluten free bagel with the kefir cream cheese or lactofermented guacamole on it.  So good!! This is an easy dish, just brown the bacon, strain excess fat, add butter, then wilt the spinach.  Add the eggs and pan scramble.  At the very end add the LF salsa - just to warm it, but not enough to kill off the probiotics.  I have also topped this with sauerkraut and a dab of home made mayo - also delish! It looks beautiful, so it's super appetizing, and is loaded with tons of nutrients, of course!!

Nick eating his bagel with kefir cream cheese.

Breakfast scramble with bagel and kefir cream cheese

 My last favorite breakfast is this baked oatmeal from the Nourished Kitchen.  I am just going to include the link because I really didn't change much, except that I am going to have to start using a milk replacement when I make this.  Which is sad, but I think a necessary adjustment - cultured milk only from now on.  Although, I suppose I could just use the excess kefir I have, but I feel like cooking it is going to destroy the parts that make it tolerable for us.  Wah.  Anyway, this baked oatmeal is awesome and it really holds up well in the fridge.  It hasn't lasted long enough to freeze yet, although I will be making a double batch of this to feed my freezer soon so that we will have some easily accessible snacks/breakfast when baby comes.  We usually garnish with kefir and a dash of maple syrup.  I don't have a picture of this either!!!! Dammit! I'm a bad blogger. 

Anyway, here is the link - there ARE photos on her website :)  http://nourishedkitchen.com/baked-oatmeal/

I hope everyone is healthy and happy.  And remember that we all fall off the wagon sometimes - the important part is that we get back on!

Braising!

Okay, I've been promising a post on braising - so here it is! We are still just getting into winter, so there will be plenty of nice gray, stormy, Sunday afternoons to spend getting cozy and cooking an awesomely good meal.

 To braise meats, you don't need too much.  You should have some fresh bone broth, a dutch oven, oven, red wine, meat, aromatic veggies, and seasoning.  And time; this is a slow cooking meal and that's what makes it sooooo good.  I have had short ribs cooked in a pressure cooker, and it just doesn't compare.  Cooking this way really lets all of the flavors penetrate the meat and meld together to make a nutrient dense aromatic, warm, gravy with a depth of flavors.


First, well after making sure that you have some good bone broth on hand, is to get some meat to braise.  We like to braise short ribs, but any cut of meat that would be otherwise tough is a good choice for braising.  I get my short ribs from The Weir River Farm when they sell their meats. Grass fed meats can definitely be more gamey than factory farmed meats, so they braise really well...although if you can think "low and slow" for any grass fed meat, you will have a better result all around.

When we braise meats, they are cooked in liquid at a low temperature for a long time.  The amount of liquid you use, will therefore determine how thick the resulting sauce will be.  We like to have extra gravy to add a punch of flavor to sauces or crock pot dishes later, so we tend to use a fair amount of liquid.  If you want a thicker sauce you could easily cut the liquid recipe in half.  Also, the size of your dutch oven will determine how much meat and sauce you can cook at once.  We have a large 12 quart dutch oven.  Our previous one could not have handled this recipe. 

For this particular recipe, we used 8 good sized short ribs, olive oil, 1 cup of red wine, probably 3-4 cups of broth, some aromatic veggies - I think we used 2 carrots, 2 celery, 3 whole shallots, 10 cloves of garlic, and an onion.  And a hefty pouch of herbs like parsley, thyme, oregano, rosemary.  You can use onion, leeks, or other aromatics you have on hand.  We also used some flour (my special gluten free corn free flour blend) to thicken the gravy at the end.  And that's it!

The first thing you want to do is brown the meat.  To do that heat some oil in the dutch oven so that it is hot.  Brown each side of the meat.  Use enough oil so that it doesn't burn, but enough that you get some good meat "bits" on the bottom to get some really good flavor.

After the meat has been browned, remove it from the dutch oven.  Add chopped aromatic veggies and saute for 5-10 minutes or until softened...reserve the garlic until the last few minutes to avoid burning it.  While the veggies are cooking, pour about 1 cup of red wine into a pan and heat.  You can touch a match to the wine to burn off the alcohol, then let the wine reduce by about half.  Deglaze the yummy goodness in the dutch oven by adding the wine and making sure that all of the yummy bits from browning the meat are scraped off the bottom of the pan.

Then you can position the meat in the dutch oven and cover with broth.  We got some herbs from the garden and wrapped them in cheesecloth so that the twigs wouldn't get mixed in the sauce, but you still get all of the flavour.

Bring the broth up to a simmer, then put the entire dutch oven in a 250 degree oven.  Let cook for about 4 hours, checking half way through to skim off fat if there is an excess (there shouldn't be with grass fed meat).  When you take the meat out, it should fall off the bone, and you will have an AMAZING sauce to work with.

Most often we eat this with some dumplings, red cabbage, sauerkraut, and an array of veggies.  And then the sauce is made into a gravy which is used with this meal, and then to flavor many meals thereafter.  I wish I had a nice picture of a plated meal, but after waiting THIS LONG to eat, I didn't pull the camera out! We just devoured it.  And you will too!

I'm Still Alive!

No, I didn't give up blogging, although I know it seems that way.  I have about 3 or 4 posts started that I haven't quite rounded out (researchy stuff) and a few recipes that I have just been waiting for the time to get down.

Hopefully soon to follow is a braising recipe (perfect cold winter weekend project), and meals to make from left overs.  But for now, I just wanted to say Hi! And remind everyone that fresh food is paramount! And absolutely delicious.  This just reiterates how long it's been since I have posted, but here are the last set of pictures I loaded - an end of summer garden delight! Ha!

Fresh tomatoes and onion drizzled with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Fresh cucumbers in oil and vinegar with dill, salt and pepper, and fresh steamed muscles in butter and white wine.  OMG! So Good!

To cook the muscles, melt a couple tablespoons of butter in a deep pan, then put in a bit of garlic.  After about two minutes, add a cup or so of white wine (water will work fine too).  After the muscles have been cleaned (and make sure they are all healthy looking and closed tight), add them to the pan and let them simmer for about 10 minutes, or until all of the shells have opened. 

 Drain the water and serve! This worked out really well with the tomato and cucumber salads, and it was just enough food for a nice lunch on a hot summer day :)

Hopefully, you will see me soon!!!

Chicken Soup to Kick Cold Season's Butt!

So, school started, and immediately following everyone gets sick. Blech! Tis the season, jumbles of kids and adults sitting in close proximity to each other for hours at a time.  How do you avoid the dreaded cold? Well, you need to make sure that you are healthy so that your immune system can focus on what it does best - killing bad invaders! And you can make sure your body has plenty of nutrients to help keep your defenses strong.

This chicken soup is made from a bone broth, so it's got tons of good nutrients and fat to help nourish your gut and keep things in tip-top shape.  Add in some of your favorite chicken soup veggies, a bit of meat, then right before serving, swirl in a bit of juice from your fermented veggies.  Probiotics, to keep up the good flora!

So, from the very beginning we take a nice chicken and roast it! I like to slather on some dijon mustard and sprinkle with paprika.  This makes a crispy, yummy skin.  Cook for about 20 minutes per pound, and typically at least 2.5 hours no matter what the weight.  When the chicken is done, enjoy it! Eat it as is and/or make some chicken salad.   Save a little to add to your chicken soup when your done though.

 

Take the remaining bones, joints, and whatever tissue didn't come off and the organs and throw them in a pot.  Cover with water and bring to a low boil. Add some apple cider vinegar, sea salt, peppercorns, and any other flavors that you would like (i.e. onion, carrot, bay leaf, thyme, etc).  Let simmer for as long as you can.

When it's done cooking, strain the bones and other left overs and keep the broth.

Next cut up some of your favorite chicken soup veggies.  I like carrots, celery and onion.  Add in a sprig of fresh thyme. And if you have a cold, adding a bunch of garlic will help fight it off.  Saute in butter or oil until they are tender, then add broth and chicken breast, and you get a fabulous, warm, healing, nourishing, healthy soup that will get you through any cold and help ward off any more.  This is also good when you just want a hug.  There is just something about chicken soup.....

Ah! Just look at the beautiful, silky broth! Yum! This is another one of those foods where I can just FEEL my body absorbing all of the nutrients.  It's wonderful.