All Diseases Begin (and End) in the Gut

by Andrea on November 2, 2011

in GAPS,Healing,Nutrition,Wellness

All Diseases Begin in the Gut.

You might be familiar with that quote. It’s from Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, who lived 400 hundred years before Christ. That’s a long time ago, and nevertheless, the guy was right.

This is a truth that makes plain sense; it’s right under our nose. Is it so close that we can’t get it? What that statement means is that if you are sick — no matter the nature of your illness — you will find the cause right in your gut.

But, by the same token, you can find the solution right in the same place: your gut.

I know you can understand that, if your illness is obviously digestive — say IBS, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s, Celiac — then it probably has something to do with your gut. But modern medicine doesn’t consider that, if you suffer from heart disease, then you really are sick in the gut. What about arthritis? Or asthma? Or cancer? Now, what about depression? Or ADHD?

Am I saying that not only physical diseases, but also mental ones, start in the gut? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

The desperate doctor who got disappointed on medicine.

Once upon a time, there was a smart Russian doctor who was going her merry way, living her life, being a doctor.

And then she became a mother.

At the beginning everything seemed fine with her son. But as the months went by, she started noticing things weren’t quite normal. At the age of 3, the boy was diagnosed with autism.

The doctor was confident that she could find what she needed to help her child within the realms of her profession (and you probably would think the same, if you were a practicing neurologist and your child were suffering from something that’s considered a learning disability).

So she searched and searched, but found nothing. Medicine, the way this doctor had learned it, had nothing meaningful to offer to an autistic child.

Luckily for us, this woman ain’t no quitter. She wouldn’t settle until she found legitimate help. Hippocrates’ wisdom dawned on her; was it possible that this disease too, began in the gut?

She went back to school and got yet another masters degree — this time in human nutrition, and took up as her duty to learn everything there was to learn about nutrition for autistic children.

With much patience, love, experimentation, and the help of a few experts, the boy started making progress; the dramatic changes came about from changing his diet. Nowadays, this boy is almost an adult and if you hadn’t heard this story, you would never know he was sick once.

The name of this doctor is Natasha Campbell-McBride. Her experience with her son became the seed that would sprout into what I believe is the most powerful digestion healing — and hence body healing — protocol there is.

What a tree wants, what a tree needs…

“A human body is like a planet inhabited by huge numbers of various micro-creatures. The diversity and richness of this life on every one of us is probably as amazing as the life on Earth itself! Our digestive system, skin, eyes respiratory and excretory organs are happily co-existing with *trillions* of invisible lodgers, making one ecosystem of macro- and micro-life, living together in harmony. It is a symbiotic relationship, where *neither* party can live without the other. Let me repeat this: we, humans, cannot live without these tiny micro-organisms, which we carry on and in our bodies everywhere.”

Excerpt from Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride

Let’s say you have a tree. What’s the most important thing the tree needs to grow? You could say water, or you could say sun. But what if the tree had plenty of sun and water, but didn’t have a place to root? It could not grow because trees intake nutrients by soaking them up through the soil using their roots.

We also have soil; only we can’t see it because it’s inside of us. There are layers of micro-organisms covering organs and tissues everywhere in the body, but especially along the digestive track. These *trillions* of tiny, microscopic inhabitants make up the soil of our body.

Just like the soil supports the tree, our internal flora supports our tissues and organs. And just like the nutrients get filtered and modified through the soil so the tree can utilize them, so do the nutrients in our body get filtered and modified through our internal flora, and in this way, we can utilize them.

The good guys and the bad guys

There are opposite forces, forever attempting to balance each other, everywhere in nature; our bodies are no exception.

Not all the micro-organisms that live inside of us are beneficial. Some of them are… shall we say lazy? And then there are others that are just plain detrimental; they cause a lot of harm.

But we need them all, including the bad ones. The immune system is constantly gathering data from whatever bad guys (AKA pathogens) are hanging out in the body at any given time. This data is what tells the immune system how to kick off the defenses when the body is under attack. Without detrimental micro-organisms in the body, our immune system wouldn’t know what to do.

In a healthy body, the good guys keep the lazy and the bad ones under control, but in an unhealthy body, the bad ones have the power.

The good guys thrive on healthy food that they transform into nutrients for us. In doing so, they make us healthier as they grow in strength and numbers.

The bad guys on the other hand, prefer the unhealthy foods that they transform into all sorts of toxic stuff. Many of these toxins are addictive to us — this is one definite reason why we crave foods we *intellectually* know don’t do us good. In this way, slowly but surely, the bad guys reproduce, conquer the good guys over and damage the body they inhabit.

There’s another piece to this puzzle. As we said earlier, layers of bacteria protect the organs and tissues, and filter nutrients. Well, this is a critical function at the point were food actually becomes nutrients and is absorbed into the blood stream, which is in the small intestine.

But if the layer of healthy bacteria is debilitated then it works like eroded soil. Food matter doesn’t get broken down as it should and it passes through the digestive wall into the blood stream *undigested* and adding toxicity to the body. Did you ever heard the term Leaky Gut? Well, this is it.

It’s a total vicious cycle: the more pathogens, the more toxicity, the more addiction, the more we feed the pathogens and the stronger they get, the weaker the good bacteria, the weaker the intestinal wall, the more pathogens, etc.

When the maid can’t clean up!

We are design to cope with a certain level of toxicity in the body. This is actually the most important role of the liver — to help transform toxins into stuff that can be eliminated out the body through the bowels, the bladder or the skin. But as the good micro-organisms lose battles against the bad ones, the level of toxicity increases. Add the full-on chemical and environmental toxins that enter the body non-stop, everyday to the mix and the result is a clogged elimination system.

Now you got toxins in the blood stream, traveling freely all over the body. The immune system is trying to do its job, but there are so many different pathogens and toxins all over the place that it gets confused and overwhelmed; it becomes overreactive and starts fighting everything back, including the body’s own cells, tissues and organs. This is what’s known as Autoimmunity.

What Dr. Campbell-Mc Bride brilliantly came to understand is that, in her son’s case, the toxic and pathogenic buildup had gotten concentrated in the brain, but the same principle applies to any illness. The place in the body and the form this buildup takes depends on many factors, including the health history, genetic makeup, diet, lifestyle, age, and emotional health of the person. It could be the lungs, the skin or the brain. It could be arthritis, diabetes or depression. Doesn’t matter. They all began in the gut.

She called this GAPS, which stands for Gut and Psychology Syndrome — if the issue manifests predominantly in the brain, or Gut and Physiology Syndrome — if the issue manifests predominantly somewhere else in the body. I say predominantly, because it’s never just one OR the other, you know? Usually there is a puzzling mixture of symptoms, sprinkled all through the body with a few — or a lot of — mental symptoms added to mix.

GAPS is a condition that establishes a connection between the functions of the digestive system and the rest of the body, including the brain.

How does this affect YOU?

If I’ve done a good job explaining this so far, then you already know. However, let me be more specific:

ANY kind of chronic digestive malfunction, is a GAPS condition.

ANY kind of autoimmune issue, is a GAPS condition.

Chronic infections of ANY kind are GAPS conditions.

Allergies of any kind are GAPS conditions.

Skin conditions including acne, eczema, rosacea, psoriasis and more, are GAPS conditions.

Hormonal conditions, including chronic fatigue, PMS, hypothyroidism and more are GAPS conditions.

Issues of the circulatory system including atherosclerosis, heart disease, high and low blood pressure, are GAPS conditions.

Mental conditions including autism, ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, OCD, eating disorders and more, are actually GAPS conditions.

And if you are one of those people who is not healthy, in spite of the fact that no doctor can ever give you a conclusive diagnosis, who has forever suffered from apparently unrelated, random, puzzling symptoms, then I can almost bet that what you have is GAPS.

So what now?

Understand that if you have GAPS, that is not going anywhere. Unless you address the root of the issue and heal your gut, you will always struggle with your health. You might have suffered from the same set of problems for many, many years and are on medication for life. Or you might have had different issues at different times in your life, but you know you aren’t healthy. Either way, the problem is the same.

And so is the solution: you need to heal your gut.

I’m not going to lie to you. The GAPS healing protocol requires a level of commitment that usually only those who are desperate are motivated enough to bring forth.

Healing the gut takes time and attention, but it’s no doubt the best thing you will ever do for your and your family’s health. This stuff is profound!

It’s not like Dr. Natasha is a crazy loner making stuff up out of thin air, you know? She’s had a clinic since 1998 and has treated thousands of patients. And there are many other doctors and even more alternative practitioners who are using the protocol, or a modified version of it, with great results. Not isolated great results, but systematic great results.

The principles of GAPS are sound and stand on the shoulders of good science. But what I love most is the simplicity of the theory. Once you understand GAPS in the context of your own health, things just make sense. I’ve had a few clients get really emotional and cry when I explain this to them. After years and years of never-ending doctor visits, tests, meds and treatments, they finally get it. What an awakening!

What I think you should do…

You might still be confused, but if these 2000 words have resonated with you in the slightest, I encourage you to get Dr. Natasha’s book. She’s a way better teacher than I am.

Continue your search! Don’t settle for mediocre health. The body has an immense capacity to heal. Commit to getting healthy and the right resources will appear in your life.

And if you already know that this is a path you want to walk, or if you want to understand GAPS in the context of your own health, like… now, then contact me! I am honored to be one of only very few certified GAPS practitioners and I might be able to help you.

I feel very blessed to have come across these teachings in this lifetime. I am grateful to Dr. Natasha and all of the doctors and healers whose insight of human health and of nature has helped shape these principles. I am committed to deepening and spreading this knowledge. This is my mission.

(For you P. I love you.)

If you enjoyed this post, you should subscribe to the list. You'll get 20 healing, easy & yummy recipes and 2 awesome mini-programs now, and weekly goodness in your mailbox :-).

{ 29 comments }

Chicken and (Faux) Rice Soup

by Andrea on September 1, 2011

in Recipes

I love pretty much any version of chicken soup and that includes chicken and rice soup. But since rice is a grain and I try to follow my own advice and limit my consumption of grains, I had this idea to use cauliflower instead of rice. The result? It totally works! Shredded cauliflower has a very similar consistency (and dare I say, flavor?) to rice. However it lacks the starch, which means the soup won’t be as thick. You could use kuzu, agar-agar, or an egg to thicken it, if that’s an important factor for you.

This recipe keeps as much as the chicken fat as possible because that’s what we’re looking for when we’re rebuilding the digestive system and even though I don’t recommend it, you could defat the chicken stock or the soup, after it’s done.

Chicken and (Faux) Rice Soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cooking time: 60 min (mostly unattended)
Servings: 4 to 6

Ingredients:
* Breast and back of one (hopefully pastured) medium-size chicken
* Filtered water — about 10 cups
* Several sprigs of fresh thyme. Oregano works too.
* 2 or 3 ribs celery — you can use the leaves too, chopped
* 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
* 1 white onion, minced
* 1/2 red pepper, minced
* 1/2 green pepper, minced
* 1/2 cauliflower head, grated
* Butter, lard or other healthful fat to saute
* Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
I started this soup by making a quick chicken stock, but of course, you can start with homemade chicken stock and add cooked chicken meat towards the end. From a whole chicken, save the legs, tights and wings for another use and leave the back and breast to make the quick stock.

1.  Put the chicken back and breast pieces with salt and enough fresh, filtered water to cover them in a stock pot. Bring to a rolling boil. Lower the temperature and add the thyme. Let simmer gently for about 45 minutes.

2. Take out the chicken pieces and let them cool until you can handle them.

3. In a separate skillet, saute the vegetables — except the cauliflower — with generous fat until the onion becomes translucent. You could skip this step and add them directly to the broth, but this way they develop more flavor.

4. Separate the chicken meat from the bones and chop into bite-size pieces. I like to keep the skin with the meat, but I understand if that’s not appealing to you. Again, for the purpose of digestive healing, we want to keep as much chicken fat in the soup as possible.

* Save the bones! These still have some nutrients you could render out in a long-cooking chicken stock.

5. Add the sauteed vegetables and the chicken meat to the simmering broth. Let cook until all the vegetables have soften up completely, about 10 more minutes.

6. Stir in the shredded cauliflower and season with sufficient salt, pepper and a couple more thyme sprigs. Let simmer for another 5 minutes and serve pipping hot.

* Are you completely exhausted after you eat a meal?
* Do you suffer from chronic constipation, IBS, heartburn, colitis, diverticulitis, and/or uncomfortable (and embarrassing!) gas?
* Are you a victim of food intolerances or allergies — dairy, gluten, soy, peanuts, seafood, etc?
Then you can't miss the Healing Digestion teleseminar!
Follow these 5 steps and your digestion will improve tenfold in the next 30 days.
Click here to learn more...

{ 3 comments }

What are nutrient dense foods (and why should you care)?

by Andrea on August 31, 2011

in Events,Healing,Nutrition

Nutrient density is a concept you’d be really smart to get familiar with. When you understand food from the nutrient density point of view, calorie content becomes completely irrelevant. Imagine that!

First, I need you to think about something for a minute. What are you looking for when you eat? The first thing that comes to mind for most people is energy. The second is comfort. Curiously enough, thinking of food as source of nutrients is not at the top of the list, is it?

Nutrients have become something we expect to find in vitamins, supplements, and protein shakes. But not in food, food.

Energy and nutrients are not the same thing, though. Neither are being full and being satisfied. You can get lots of energy in the form of carbohydrates — in fact the simpler these are, the faster they become glucose (energy!) and enter the blood stream — and your body can be starving for nutrients. And as long as your body is starving for nutrients you will not be satisfied. No matter how full you are, you will continue to reach for food.

The nutrient density of a food is independent of its caloric content.

Let’s say you have four foods: butter, kale, Iceberg lettuce and potato chips. Can you guess which one of these has the most nutrients per gram?

Most people guess kale. And yes, kale does have lots of nutrients, but it’s not the most nutrient dense of that bunch. Second guess usually is potato chips, but whereas they do have lots of calories — from carbohydrates and low-quality vegetable oils — potato chips offer little nutrients.

We all know that Iceberg lettuce doesn’t have a lot going on. Neither nutrients, nor calories.

Of these four, the most nutrient dense food is butter. Far more if it comes from grass-fed cows as opposed to conventional, grain-fed ones.

You might be thinking I must be wrong, since butter is “too” high in saturated fat and cholesterol, but what if you knew those are actually desirable nutrients? I must write other blog posts explaining, but right now suffice to say that plenty of evidence proves that is the case.

A little nutrition history…

Dr. Weston Price — a dentist who studied the diet of healthy populations around the world in the early 1900’s, before they had access to industrialized foods — found that the foods these different groups of people prized as the most nutrient dense were sort of different depending on what they had access to, but they were not that different, really.

Things like fish and shellfish, liver and other animal organs, eggs, and butter from various animals were the most important foods, and it wasn’t rare that one or more of these were considered sacred. He also observed that many times people would travel long distances and undergo great discomfort to obtain one of these special foods.

What do all these foods have in common?

First, and to Dr. Price’s dismay who had been partial to vegetarianism, all of them were of animal origin.

Second, Dr. Price found repetitively, a richness of the same set of nutrients: fat soluble vitamins — A, D, E and K — and a few, specific minerals — calcium, phosphorus, iron, magnesium, copper and iodine.

Then, what do all these nutrients have in common?

They all act as “catalyzers” of the rest of nutrients we need, and are specially efficient at doing so, when they are eaten together. In other words, you can be eating foods that contain other nutrients, but if you are not eating one of these nutrient dense foods as well, it is very likely that your body won’t be able to assimilate those other nutrients as well as it should because it’s missing these nutrient “translators”.

Now, just to be clear, I’m not saying these are the ONLY nutrient dense foods there are. Remember I mentioned kale has lots of nutrients too, but in order to count a food as nutrient dense FOR YOU, you need to actually assimilate the nutrients. This is the missing link with supplements and ever with superfoods like chlorella or goji berries. The intention can be right, but the implementation is generally poor.

So what about the caloric content?

Let’s continue to use butter as our example. Butter has a lot of calories because it has a lot of fat, and fat has more than double the calories than carbohydrates or proteins per gram.

But how much butter could you honestly eat in one sitting before you started to feel sick? This is the part where the density — mass over volume — is important.

One tablespoon, or two, tops? Most people couldn’t even do a whole tablespoon. Well, I can. But it requires practice ;-).

Butter is not only nutrient dense, but it is just plain dense. Just a little bit of it will satisfy you. And this is the case with most nutrient dense foods. You don’t need a whole lot because they are dense.But you need them on a regular basis so your body is always armed with those key nutrients that help assimilate the rest of nutrients.

When you focus on eating nutrient dense foods, you can trust that your body will know when you had enough. They are rich and satisfying, so you don’t need to worry about portion control. They are also highly digestible and your body usually assimilates them quickly and efficiently. This means that nutrient dense foods don’t cause weight gain, and in fact they can be great weight loss foods.

Isn’t that liberating?

8 Steps to add more nutrient density to your diet:

  1. Use unrefined salt instead of refined iodized salt.
  2. Eat organic produce instead of conventional.
  3. Eat raw dairy products instead of conventional, processed dairy products.
  4. Eat grass-fed beef and buffalo instead of grain-fed.
  5. Eat pasture-raised chicken and eggs instead of feedlot raised.
  6. Eat wild fish instead of farm raised.
  7. Use unrefined oils, lard, tallow and butter instead of refined oils and margarine.
  8. Minimize your consumption of grains and eat only properly prepared whole grains.

And if you live in New York City or close enough, come to the Nutrient Dense Foods seminar I’m giving at the Park Slope Food coop on Saturday, September 10th at 3pm. It’s free! The details are here.

{ 1 comment }

Curry Turkey Salad

by Andrea on August 3, 2011

in Recipes

This was the dish I made for the Healing Digestion Workshop a few weeks ago. Super easy to make, everyone loved it. A perfect summer salad!

Curry Turkey Salad
Prep time: 15 min
Cooking time: 15 min (for the turkey meat)
Servings: 4 to 6

Ingredients:
* 1 lb turkey meat — you could use deli turkey breast, but fresh is better-tasting and also nitrate-free.
* Coconut oil or lard for cooking
* 2 or 3 ribs celery — you can use the leaves too, chopped
* 2 scallions or 1/2 red onion, minced
* 1 large green apple
* Juice of 1/2 lemon
* 1/2 cup pecans
* 1/2 cup red grapes, cut in half (optional)
* Fresh cilantro, minced
* Arugula or mesclun greens to serve

For the dressing:
* 1/2 cup homemade dill mayo
* 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
* Honey to taste
* Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Season the turkey breast meat with salt and pepper and cook with coconut oil or lard over medium heat for about 15 minutes, or until cooked through. Let cool slightly and chop.

2. Toast the pecans in a toaster oven or dry skillet. Or better yet, use soaked and dehydrated pecans. Break into small pieces.

3. Peel and core apple. Cut into bite-size chucks and rub with lemon juice immediately to prevent them from discoloring.

4. In a salad bowl mix turkey meat, celery, onions, apples, grapes, pecans and cilantro.

5. Mix mayo, curry powder and honey in a different bowl.

6. Pour dressing over salad right before serving and mix well. Correct the seasoning with salt and pepper and serve over fresh arugula leaves (my favorite) or mesclun greens.

* Are you tired… like ALL the time?
* In spite of that, are you unable to fall asleep when you go to bed?
* Are you gaining weight without apparent reason? OR are you forever trying to lose the same stubborn 10 to 20 pounds?
* Is your sex drive nowhere to be found? * Do you have low thyroid function that doesn’t improve even when taking medication?
* Have your efforts to get pregnant been unsuccessful?
Then you can't miss the Healing Adrenal Exhaustion teleseminar!
Integrate only 2 of these critical strategies and you’ll completely transform your level of energy in less than 60 days…
Click here to learn more.

{ 0 comments }

Coconut Butter Cookies

by Andrea on August 3, 2011

in Recipes

I made these cookies for the Healing Digestion Workshop a few weeks ago. They were an instant hit. They are incredibly easy to make and GAPS legal: grain-free and sweetened with honey.

Coconut Butter Cookies
(Adapted from Cooking with Coconut Flour by Bruce Fife)

Prep time: 15 min
Baking time: 20 min
Makes about 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients:
* 1/2 cup ghee or butter, at room temperature
* 3 oz (6 tablespoons) honey
* 4 eggs
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
* Pinch of salt
* 1/2 cup Coconut Flour
* 2 cups unsweetened coconut flakes

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven at 350 degrees F.
2. Butter cookie sheet.
3. Mix butter, honey, eggs, salt and vanilla together.
4. Stir in coconut flour and flakes.
5. Drop spoon-size mounds 1-inch apart on cookie sheet and bake for 15 to 20 min. Careful! They can burn quickly because of the addition of honey.
6. Remove from cookie sheet and let cool completely on wire rack. They will keep in a cookie jar for several days.

* Are you tired… like ALL the time?
* In spite of that, are you unable to fall asleep when you go to bed?
* Are you gaining weight without apparent reason? OR are you forever trying to lose the same stubborn 10 to 20 pounds?
* Is your sex drive nowhere to be found? * Do you have low thyroid function that doesn’t improve even when taking medication?
* Have your efforts to get pregnant been unsuccessful?
Then you can't miss the Healing Adrenal Exhaustion teleseminar!
Integrate only 2 of these critical strategies and you’ll completely transform your level of energy in less than 60 days…
Click here to learn more.

{ 0 comments }

5 Very Easy Salad Dressings

by Andrea on June 30, 2011

in Recipes

Everyone — even those who love to cook, like me — dreads cooking in the summer. And with good reason! No need to raise the temperature even more. One way to work around this is by making salads and I believe the dressing is what makes the salad.

It is very important that you make all your dressings at home because all commercial dressings are made with very cheap oils and most of them contain high fructose corn syrup. Most homemade dressings have a fridge life of at least a week, so always keep clean jar glasses in your pantry to store your leftover dressings away. Always make your dressings with some kind of fat in them. Not only will your salad be more satisfying, but also more nutritious as many of the nutrients in vegetables are assimilated only in the presence of fat.

Here there are 5 very easy salad dressings. Enjoy!

Basic Vinaigrette

Prep time: 5 min
Servings: About ¾ cup

Ingredients:
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
3 Tbs or more good wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
1 large shallot, finely minced (optional)

Directions:
1. In a blender or a jar with a lid, combine all ingredients minus the shallot until incorporated.
2. Add the shallot and adjust seasoning to taste.

* You can add almost anything to a basic vinaigrette: fresh herbs, dried herbs, little veggie chunks, yogurt, soy sauce, mustard, bacon, any kind of minced onion or garlic… The possibilities are endless!

Balsamic Vinaigrette

Prep time: 5 min
Servings: About ¾ cup

Ingredients:
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
1 Tbs mustard
1 Tbs maple syrup
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. In a blender or a jar with a lid combine all ingredients. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Simple Yogurt Sauce

Prep time: 5 min
Servings: About 1 cup

Ingredients:
1 cup high quality full-fat yogurt. Preferably raw, but pasteurized will do. Avoid ultra-pasteurized.
1 tsp minced garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Freshly squeezed lemon juice (optional)

Directions:
1. In a blender, food processor or a jar with a lid, combine all ingredients. Adjust seasoning to taste.

* You can add any fresh herb to this dressing: shallot, parsley, dill, cilantro, mint, etc. Keeps refrigerated for a week at least.

Avocado Vinaigrette

Prep time: 5 min
Servings: About 1/2 cup

Ingredients:
½ avocado (this is a great use for one that’s less than perfect)
1 tsp minced garlic
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice 
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. In a blender, food processor or a jar with a lid, combine all ingredients. Adjust seasoning to taste.

* This vinaigrette starts to discolor after an hour or so.

Easy Blue Cheese Dressing

Prep time: 5 min
Servings: About 1 1/2 cups

Ingredients:
1 cup Greek full-fat yogurt or sour cream. 
½ cup crumbled blue cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Dash freshly squeezed lemon juice (optional)
Extra virgin olive oil

Directions:
1. In a food processor combine yogurt or sour cream, lemon juice, salt and pepper and pulse.
2. Gradually, add olive oil until you get the consistency you like and stir crumbled cheese in.

* Keeps refrigerated for a week at least.

 

{ 0 comments }

Fat Trivia: 10 Fun Facts

by Andrea on May 17, 2011

in Just for fun,Nutrition

Enjoy talking about food? Here are some “fat” conversation starters…

  1. Traditional farmers know that their pigs won’t get fat on whole milk but they’ll quickly gain weight when fed the leftover skim milk and whey from making cream, butter and cheese.

  2. LDL and HDL are NOT kinds of cholesterol, but lipoproteins — protein molecules to which cholesterol attaches so it can travel in the blood stream. They are both necessary.

  3. Butter has been considered a sacred food in many traditional cultures. People intuitively knew of its life-giving properties.

  4. Dietary cholesterol — the one in food — adds to only a tiny percentage of the total amount we need for proper functioning. The rest is produced in the body. So much for worrying about your cholesterol intake…

  5. Lard — the rendered fat from pork — is NOT a saturated fat. It is actually about 50% monounsaturated and 40% saturated.

  6. Likewise, chicken fat is about 42% monounsaturated and 21% polyunsaturated, leaving the saturated portion to about 37%.

  7. Cholesterol is NOT even a fat, but a special kind of alcohol.

  8. Ghee — clarified butter — is used in Ayurvedic medicine as a powerful liver detoxifier.

  9. About 50% of patients on cholesterol lowering medications get heart disease.

  10. The brain and nervous system are made mostly of saturated fat and cholesterol.
Even if you think you are NOT scared of fat, you know what? You still are! It’s not easy to eat enough of the fats your body needs and right now you are filling that void with carbohydrates. You need to heal your fat phobia! Click here to learn how.

{ 2 comments }

Eating Animals and the “Common Sense” Principle

by Andrea on May 12, 2011

in Nutrition

When it comes to eating animal foods, there’s a big caveat that I call the “common sense” principle. It has two parts:

Part 1:
Whatever animal foods you eat — meat, fish or chicken, eggs or dairy — can only be as healthy as the animal it comes from was (is) during its life.

Most people don’t think about the life an animal lived when they go to the store to get chicken, eggs or milk, but it makes total sense that the energy of the animal will be part of that food, for better or worse.

I know well that high-quality protein — grass fed meat, pastured eggs, organic dairy — is more expensive and many times more difficult to find than the regular stuff, but if you are on a food budget, favor the highest quality animal foods over the vegetable ones because you get more nutrient density out of these foods (i.e. gram per gram there are more nutrients in say, butter than in an apple).

Eating high-quality animal foods is important for your body, for the animals and for the planet. It just makes sense!

Part 2:
If you observe than in nature you will not find isolated protein, then it just makes sense that protein can be assimilated in your body in proportion to the fat you consume. In other words, there is a good reason why there’s a yolk in the egg or muscular fat surrounding a piece of meat. Protein should always be consumed with fat.

When we eat too little fat, we tend to overeat protein that then builds up and causes inflammation in the body. Protein and fat work in the body as a team: there are nutrients in the fat that help assimilate the protein properly and vice versa.

It’s easy to understand the “common sense” principle when studying the diets of cultures before the Industrial Revolution and the massive introduction of grain and sugar into the food system.

Whatever animal products people ate were always of high-quality — animals were wild or raised in more natural ways, and people always ate their protein with fat. In fact they went great lengths to do so by preserving the meat and rendering the fat so they could eat them together.

You know, it’s not that hard to do for us: a generous pat of butter on a piece of meat, skin of the chicken with the meat, whole eggs, whole milk, etc.

By the way, the cuts of meat that you’ll find in North America are very different from the ones that you find in other parts of the world. In Europe, Asia and South America it’s easy to find cuts of meat with generous layers of fat left in them, and organ meats, which are high in fat and extremely nutrient-dense.

In North America we have forgotten how to cook and eat wholesome animal foods and unfortunately, this is a trend that spreads quickly due to the overabundance of factory farmed animal products.

I recommend you choose whole dairy and high-quality meats with some fat on them, and try to eat smaller but more wholesome, nutrient-dense portions that contain both protein and fat.

What do you think?

Even if you think you are NOT scared of fat, you know what? You still are! It’s not easy to eat enough of the fats your body needs and right now you are filling that void with carbohydrates. You need to heal your fat phobia! Click here to learn how.

{ 0 comments }

How to Prep 4 Days Worth of Ready-in-15-Minutes Meals

by Andrea on April 21, 2011

in Food,Healing

A few weeks ago, I posted this update in the True Nourishment Facebook page:

“Today’s food prep: roasted potatoes, blanched broccoli, sauteed peppers, onion, zucchini and mushrooms, chicken ready to roast, made burgers ready to grill, made cauliflower soup, baked coconut bread. Add some salad greens, raw veggies and avocado & we should not have to worry about what’s for lunch/dinner until Saturday. 2 hours of prep work (including cleanup) = 4 days of ready in 15 min meals. That’s how I roll ;-).”

This posting generated lots of comments and questions that basically boil down to “How the heck do you do that?”

I’ve been thinking about it. Apparently the meal-planning skill comes very naturally to me… whereas teaching it, doesn’t.

I actually have talked about this before and I even created a 3-part video series where I laid down the basics of how I manage my kitchen. If you want to learn how to make the most out of your cooking time, please go back here and watch the videos.

And I have some other thoughts…

1. About the Mindset.
About 3 years ago, my client — we’ll call her Beverly — came to me with a fairly advanced case of rheumatoid arthritis, which is an autoimmune disease.

I told her what she needed to do. I gave her the materials and the support. She followed some of my instructions and started to recover, but she wasn’t 100% with me and eventually hit a plateau.

A few months ago, Beverly called me again. She wanted to pick up where we had left off. Because I know she can heal herself by following a specific protocol, I told her this time I’d be much more strict. She said she was ready.

This autoimmune disease protocol is not easy to adopt. You simply must make cooking a priority and that means you need to plan your meals and cook in advance. However, she got prepared for the changes and got her family on board in a very short period of time.

Same person. Same issue. Very similar instructions both times. What was different?

Her mindset. This time, she was ready to believe she can take control of her health — without reservations. She decided she’s going to be pain-free for good. And she’s doing what it takes.

It’s all about the mindset, baby.

2. You have to burn your rice.
Patricia, an ambitious and successful young professional, had suffered from anxiety and panic attacks all through college and, after mysteriously fainting once, she was getting desperate. She had grown up so far away from the kitchen that the very idea of touching raw chicken made her gag — no, she wasn’t a vegetarian.

But we know healing starts in the kitchen, right? From the get go I told her she’d had to get in there. Actually, I sent her a skillet when we started to work together — turned out to be the first one she owned — to make my point clear.

And she did it. It was painfully frustrating at the beginning. Her mind would easily come up with all the reasons why this learning-to-cook plan was all wrong.

She burned her rice. I told her that’d happen several times more and that’s indeed what happened. But she stuck with the plan and, at some point, she discovered that cooking could be enjoyable. And she experienced the benefits: her anxiety practically disappeared.

Cooking, like any other skill you’d want to develop, requires practice. Now, if you do cook already and you want to use food to help you heal then chances are, you need to modify your systems in the kitchen to a degree and cook in a more functional way so you always have the foods you need to heal within reach. My point is, either way, you need to burn your rice.

Oh, it’s been about 3 years since Patricia was my client. Since then she’s become, I’d say, a hard-core foodie ;-).

3. Cooking, simplified
I enjoy cooking very much and I can happily stay in the kitchen just wiping stuff away while listening to podcasts — if I have the time, which many times is not the case.

However, because I am committed to feeling my best and I know that’s most likely to happen when I eat food I’ve made myself, sometimes I compromise the fun of trying new foods and recipes and just stick to the basics.

We have gotten spoiled by having a huge variety of foods prepared in an infinite number of ways available to us, but we certainly don’t need all this variety to have thriving health. In fact, the opposite is true: a simplified diet which is rich in nutrients rather than in different foods is best for most people.

When you start cooking for healing, it is very likely you will be eating very similarly for days in a row — unless you have time to cook from scratch everyday. In this new situation, cooking becomes more functional and practical — and some of you will think it is not as enjoyable.

This is where personal choice enters the picture and I think this is why I have so much trouble coming up with a universal “system” that you can just plug away to solve your cooking hassles. I don’t know how realistic it can be, because each one of you has different dietary needs and more importantly, each one of you feels differently about cooking.

I haven’t given up though. I continue to think about that 1, 2 and 3 system that will solve it for you. Describing the exact process I use to prep a specific set of meals — like the one on my Facebook update — is probably the place to start and I will do that in a future post. I just thought I should tell you about the caveats first.

Now, what are your tricks and shortcuts in the kitchen? How do you make your healthy cooking happen? Help me build this cooking for healing “system”!!

If you enjoyed this post, you should subscribe to the list. You'll get 20 healing, easy & yummy recipes and 2 awesome mini-programs now, and weekly goodness in your mailbox :-).

{ 3 comments }

Coconut Flour Bread

by Andrea on March 30, 2011

in Recipes

What do you do when you love baked goods and you go not only gluten-free but grain-free too? Well, you can either put up with the deprivation until you re-educate yourself and you crave no more bread, cookies and cake, or you can start baking your own goods using coconut and/or almond flour.

I haven’t baked with almond flour much, but I find coconut flour to be extremely easy to work with. However, it doesn’t behave like grain flours AT ALL, so don’t try to use it to replace some other flour in a recipe. The results will be catastrophic. The key thing to understand is that here, you’re using a little flour to hold a large amounts of eggs together (you’ll see what I mean).

I don’t think baked goods should be daily staples in anyone’s diet, but an occasional treat is welcomed. I will discuss more the pros and cons of using almond and/or coconut flour and will probably post more recipes, but for now, I want to share with you the basic recipe for coconut flour bread.

Coconut Flour Bread
(Adapted from Cooking with Coconut Flour by Bruce Fife)

Prep time: 15 min
Baking time: 30-40 min
Servings: 1 loaf

Ingredients:
* 6 high-quality eggs
* 1/2 cups ghee or butter, melted
* 1 to 2 tablespoon honey, depending on taste
* 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
* 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon vinegar (any other than white distilled vinegar will do)
* 3/4 cup Coconut Flour

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven at 350 degrees F.
2. Butter a small bread baking pan.
3. Mix eggs, honey, salt and vinegar and, incorporate the butter slowly to avoid cooking the eggs.
4. Combine coconut flour and baking soda and whisk into the liquid ingredients until there are no lumps. Careful not to overmix. Coconut flour tends to lose air easily.
5. Pour into greased pan and bake for 40 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
6. Take out of the pan and let cool before cutting.

Note: Coconut flour baked goods have, in general, a shorter shelf life than grain flour baked goods. Keep refrigerated or consume within 3 days.

* Are you tired… like ALL the time?
* In spite of that, are you unable to fall asleep when you go to bed?
* Are you gaining weight without apparent reason? OR are you forever trying to lose the same stubborn 10 to 20 pounds?
* Is your sex drive nowhere to be found? * Do you have low thyroid function that doesn’t improve even when taking medication?
* Have your efforts to get pregnant been unsuccessful?
Then you can't miss the Healing Adrenal Exhaustion teleseminar!
Integrate only 2 of these critical strategies and you’ll completely transform your level of energy in less than 60 days…
Click here to learn more.

{ 1 comment }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →