Chocolate cheesecake - Yeast free, sugar free, lactose free

This is my new favorite recipe and snack! The best part is that it takes under 10 minutes to whip up. I was inspired by a blog post about the things GAPS dieters do wrong. What did I do wrong? Well I don't drink enough broth or eat enough gelatin. So I went searching for ways to include gelatin in my meals and snacks. Then I found this recipe for a crust-less, no bake cheesecake. Here's my sugar free, chocolate it up version:

 Ingredients:

1 Cup Boiling Water

2 Tablespoons Gelatin (get the good stuff, it's worth it)

16 Drops of Stevia

2 Cups SCD Yogurt

1 Paleo Cacoa Bar

Directions: Stir the Gelatin teaspoons into the cup of boiling water, making sure it's fully dissolved and add your stevia.

 I like this kind of gelatin, it's the real deal, grass-fed beef gelatin. Ellie agrees ;)

Dissolved Gelatin

Allow the gelatin-water-stevia mixture to sit for three minutes.

In the meantime, melt that chocolate. I have worked and worked to figure out how to make chocolate or even carob powder make a descent homemade chocolate with stevia. I failed so many time that I've given up. Recently I found this chocolate bar, which is AWESOME!!! Just a warning it takes several weeks to receive your order and their customer service is lacking, but whatever, if you're patient you get the goods.

Now it's time to add the yogurt. I use my homemade SCD yogurt because of it's lack of lactose. If you aren't into this practice already and store bought stuff doesn't put you in bed, you can strain yogurt from the store or buy cream cheese.

This is the consistency of my yogurt.

Use a hand-blender to slowly blend the yogurt into the liquid.  I blend for about five minutes to make it super creamy. Deep bowls are best for this job!





























Now add your melted chocolate into the batter. I then add chopped walnuts to the mix.

I put mine in one cup pyrex bowls and top them with a few more chopped walnuts. Put them in the fridge and within a few hours, voila dessert!!

Coconut-Flax Muffins/Bread: Yeast-free, lactose free, sugar free, gluten free, starch free

This is another one of those recipes that I've worked on for many months to perfect so that it fits my dietary needs. It's always a great roller coaster to ride to do this, but the outcome is always worth the times you looked at your creation and dumped it in the trash. First let me give credit to my inspiration for this recipe. It's a good recipe on its own if you can eat all the ingredients.

The difficulty came when I needed to cut out the egg whites with the yeast free diet. Here's the egg substitution list that helped me conjure my perfect bread.

Bread/Muffin Ingredient List:

Dry Ingredients:

1 Cup Coconut Flour

1 Cup Ground Flax Seeds

2 Teaspoons Baking Soda

1 Pinch of Salt

Seasonings of Choice**

Wet Ingredients:

1/2 cup melted ghee

1/4 cup filtered water

4 Egg YOLKS Only

2 Teaspoons of Apple Cider Vinegar

2 Teaspoons of Vanilla Extract

Not Wet, but not Dry Ingredient:

1.5 cups Homemade Strained Yogurt

Optional: Walnut pieces

1. Start melting the the butter
2. Add all of the dry ingredients to a food processor or your equivalent and mix it up!
3. Add your seasonings
1. G's Option #1 Sweet: Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Allspice, Cloves
2. G's Option #2 Savory: Parsley, Oregano, Garlic Powder
3.  Turn your oven on to 350 degree
4. In a separate bowl mix together:
1. Water, Egg Yolks, Water, ACV, Vanilla Extract
1. If you are going for sweet 6-16 drops of Stevia Extract (365 Whole Foods Brand)
2. REMEMBER: If your butter is TOO hot it can cook the eggs!
   
   
5. In the dry food processor, add the yogurt and blend.
1. My yogurt is homemade and I strain it for several days with a cheescloth so it has a cream cheese texture. It may affect your recipe if you use a thin, watery yogurt. So either make your own SCD yogurt and strain for a couple of days, or buy yogurt from the grocery store and strain it through a cheescloth until you get the appropriate form of the yogurt. 

   

   Homemade Yogurt Texture

6. Turn on the food processor and slowly add wet ingredients
   

   

   Mixed Ingredients

7. Blend until smooth texture is acquired
8. Optionally add your nuts in and pulse!
9. Here's where you can decide between muffins and bread!

For muffins:
-  I use paper cups because I don't like to hassle with trying to pop a muffin out of a place its securely fastened to and make a mess and a sad looking muffin.
- I can usually do this directly after blending, but when my yogurt has been more watery I wait a little bit for the butter to harden a bit, this makes them easier to mold into balls.
- Mold the dough into ball and put them in the cups, then flatten the top out with your hand.
This is important for a gluten free/starch free muffin, because otherwise it looks unattractive on the top of the muffin, as well as unevenly cooked
- Cook for 20 minutes on 350 degrees

For Bread:
- I use parchment paper, because, again I dislike failure in the baking department.
- I use a 9 x 13 glass pyrex container.
- Bake for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. 

Almond-Coconut Butter Fudge (Diary Free, GF, Yeast free, Sugar Free!)

So don't hate me, but I flew by the seat of my pants again and didn't measure this experimental- I must-have-chocolate-now-or-someone's-going-down-recipe. I'll guess-ti-mate and hopefully repeat in the future for more exactness.

Chocolate may have to be kicked out soon, but since I don't know and it hasn't caused me any negative symptoms for the last six months, I went for it in my moment of weakness.

INGREDIENTS:
4-5 generous scoops of Coconut Butter (guesstimate)
1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder (I like Ghirardelli)
Stevia to taste (maybe 10 drops for me)
Almond Butter (I buy Artsana) (I'm going to say I used 1/4 cup)
(without the almond butter it was sweeter, so maybe you want to stop before adding the almond butter, or maybe not. We still don't know what's responsible for the hardening)

-Heat the cocoa and the coconut butter in a pan while stirring until the coconut butter melts and mixes with the chocolate
-Add stevia drops to taste
-Add the almond butter and stir

I put it over my SCD/GAPS lactose free yogurt. It made a hardened shell that made me reminisce about that chocolate I used to pour on ice cream that would make that crispy shell:) Well I can do it without sugar, boo-yah!

I'm pretty sure if put in an greased glass jar and put in the fridge this would make a rockin' fudge, but I was WAY to impatient for that.

Enjoy!
G

UPDATE: this did not make me feel good, I think coconut butter for me is like a pure jump into sugar land. Now I'm making fudge/chocolate with carob powder, ghee, coconut oil, stevia, walnuts, and vanilla extract. I'll post that recipe soon.

How to Make Homemade Almond Milk

Oh Almond Milk! It's so so good. But recently I've learned to make it so much better.  No worries, I'm on a blogging roll, so I'll share ;)

First take your almonds (I just use a bag of blanched almonds, but I'm sure it doesn't matter that much)

1) Soak those puppies:

What to add to the mixture:
a) Almonds (1.3 cups-- in the package I use)
b) Filtered water 'till container is full
c) Grapeseed Extract (I use 10 drops) this reduces the chance for the almonds to grow mold
d) Salt (inhibits bacterial growth)

2) I use my Food Saver and seal the jar and put it in the fridge overnight or 24 hours preferably.

3) When ready to use: Wash the Almonds with new water.

4) Put those almonds in your blender.

5) Add 4 cups of filtered water and a splash of vanilla extract.

6) Blend, blend, blend, blend, blend, blend, blend 'till your ears can't take the blender no more. About 10 minutes or so for perfection.

7) Strain with a cheescloth or nut milk bag (I prefer the latter!); squeeze extra milk out.

You can dehydrate or put the almond bulk in the oven to dry it for use in baked goods. Another option is to keep it in its wet state and use it to thicken gravies. Note that if you are using it for gravies, you need to get on that project, it quickly goes bad.

Simple Green Soup

 I've been GAPS and SCD for years, and I still loathe figuring out how to incorporate broth into my food. This is technically not the Candida diet, because of the red meat (buffalo) and broth is not required on this diet, but it's very soothing to ones stomach.

 I already had this buffalo meat ready to go. I've decided that I'm going to stroll towards this new diet. Stress is my middle name, so in my attempts to become a Type B personality, I shall take my time and do it right. 

My husband buys grass fed beef shanks (cheapest) from Whole Foods every week and makes his dish with it. Well while I was lamenting about my lame ass attempts to incorporate broth into my diet and instead let it rot in the fridge, he offered to not only give me his broth this week but make some onion soup with it.

He made the broth with the shanks in the pressure cooker, then threw onions in and cooked those down. I am using the onion soup as my base. Since I'm to work more and more RAW foods into my diet, my idea is to heat the broth up, just so that it mixes, let it cool to room temp, and then throw in the veggies. I think it worked quite well! Just pretend this is turkey or some other white meat and everybody will be happy :)

Also, I find soups the only tolerable way to eat raw garlic. I use my handy dandy garlic press and it's much more tolerable than popping a raw piece of garlic in your mouth.

Ingredients:
Broth (from your bone and meat of choice)
1 White Onions

Add whatever!
Here's what I added:

Ground Buffalo
Red Bell Peppers
Power greens cut with my herb scissors
Cilantro
Parsley
Garlic
Broccoli ( I actually put this in right away because it was frozen and helped cool down the broth)

Sometimes I add a raw egg yolk to my soups, because it makes them uber delicious, but this was already so delicious I thought I would do without.

The Best Greens!

So I just want to thank my friend Cat for introducing me to Baby Kale. Who knew that you could buy kale that was smaller, less of a hassle to fit in the fridge, and that was triple washed already! Yep, I'm a lazy food nerd, but look what I found, extra time! A triple threat really: Baby Kale, Chard, and Spinach. I just wanted others to know that this exists, if you too loathe soaking Kale in Apple Cider Vinegar and then drying it, and then storing it, and before you can start to cook with it. With a pair of herb scissors, this baby can change your world.

Healthy Sugar-free, Fruit-free Popsicles

Sometimes, the Internet fails you. Could I find one recipe for popsicles that did not contain a fruit or sugar of some sort? NO. So I just made up my own. This is a work in progress, but I'm pretty pleased with my first round. When you bite in at first, you're like, what the hell is this? Then after the third bite, you're feeling pretty proud of yourself for being a sneaky health food genius.

In a blender:
2 Cups Homemade Almond Milk (I'll post my recipe for this later)
Many handfuls of Spinach (sorry I just don't measure things)
A little splash of vanilla extract
Six drops of Stevia (whole foods 365 brand) (I don't like it too Stevia'd, you may prefer more)

BLEND FOREVER, Drive EVERYONE MAD with your blending. No I'm just kidding, but my husband did ask when I would be finishing up with the blender. Probably blended for 10 minutes, but that's because my blender is no Vitamix. Someday Vitamix, you will be mine.

I then strained my concoction because I'm somewhat of a texture freak.

Pour in your designated popsicle holder, I like the stainless steel ones I got from amazon, the only store I seem to frequent these days.

Freeze 'em, eat 'em.

Candida, Parasites, and More Changes

"Don't Look Back"

Inspirational Picture by Mary Engelbreit

Yep, I'm going at it again. Something has to work, right! I must say frustration is high as I look into another diet with different restrictions and get sick trying some of the ingredients.  I haven't gotten to fully participate in anyone's birthday or good time out in so many years and I'm really ready for that to change.

But I have a post-card on my refrigerator that keeps it in perspective. It has a fork in the road. One side says "Your Life", the other says "No Longer an Option". I can't whine or say poor me, I'm a 31 year old woman that has been sick for twelve years and be irritated by the continual vitality of others that make poor lifestyle choices. I have to deal this package of cards and be grateful for the experience, despite my tendency towards bitterness.

So I haven't blogged much, but I'm working on a graduate degree, so my time is limited. I do have a desire to give back to those seeking information as I have gotten so much information from others that took the time to blog it. As well, I selfishly want a database of all my recipes and ideas, so I'm trying to make that happen.

I've been on the SCD/GAPs diet since October 2011, so almost 2 full years now. I'm still stuck in some of the beginning stages and enough is enough already. While it remedies my symptoms, it's not healing the problem. So I looked further.

I started with a parasite cleanse. I have done this for a full month now. I saw many a worm of different shape and color come out of me, and am very glad I did it. In the meantime, I had cranberries and pineapples, both which are supposed to help get rid of parasites. I'm sure they do.

However, when I started spiraling into depression on my third week and feeling like an irritated monster, I then asked the question I do each time this happens. Where's the sugar? Oh yea, that pineapple and cranberry daily juice. That did it. Open mouth, stick out tongue, yep, there's the oral thrush, brilliant!

So now I've decided to do an elimination of candida while still staying true to a lot of the SCD/GAPS principles. I guess the lesson being, just because you're attacking one species of pathogen, does not mean others aren't lurking in their wake, ready to copulate and take over.

I bought an E-book, Yeast No More. The adverstising is a little much. I  wanted to poke both of my eyes out, it was so much infomercial, so little information. Also, if you try and look for someone who says something bad about it, not to be found. I was suspicious. But at the end of the day, I thought, whatever, if it's a 40 dollar mistake, so be it. Well, I don't think it was. I haven't started the protocol yet. I have just tried to piece it together and try some different food combos. There's a lot of information, so it takes a good amount of time with a notebook jotting notes and putting things together to understand the order of everything. I also received an email from Linda Allen, asking if I had any questions. If you know me, you know I always have a question ;) She wrote me back within 24 hours. I am impressed. I've been really alone during my journey of figuring things out. Of course, there is my husband, and my physician, but when it's come to making decisions and food choices, I've had to research and experiment alone. So the recipes I blog from this point until I say differently (please no!) are going to be YEAST FREE recipes. Because I not only follow copyright law, but ethically feel it's the right thing to do, I will not be giving away the books instructions. So if it interests you, take a chance on a $40 mistake or just enjoy the recipes I come up with.  I just wanted to give a little intro into why many titles will now say YEAST FREE and what this new path is for me.

Wish me luck!
G

LINKS SCD/GAPS/Candidia Diet/ETC

Instead of filling my side bar with these I thought a nice post that I update from time to time would make it so I can keep track of my own recipes better and still keep these treasures. Enjoy!

LINKS:

Informational Videos	Dr. Rawlins Lecture on MTHFR mutation
	Dr. Seneff's Interview about Sulfur Deficiency
Candida Diet:	Dosing with S. Boulardii
SCD Links Info:	Breaking the Viscious Cycle Yahoo Group
	Enhanced SCD through Weston Price
	Pecan Bread (lots of info, including stages)
	Stages of SCD
SCD Blogs/Recipes:	Heal Balance Live
	Hold the Bread, Please
	Honey Pie... SCD style
	Intestinal Health through Diet
	Kat's Food Blog
	Mrs Ed's Research and Recipes
	SCD and me
	SCD Girl
	SCD Recipes
	SCD Recipes
	Z's Cup of Tea
GAPS Links Info:	The GAPS diet
GAPS Blogs/Recipes:	30 Days on GAPS Intro Handbook
	Cheese Slave
	Dr. NCM's GAP page
	GAPS Diet Journey
	Grain Free Goodies
	Loving Our Guts
	Taste is Trump
	The Liberated Kitchen
Buying SCD/GAP Food Links:	Azure Organic Bulk Foods
	Coconut Cream Concentrate
	Comfy Tummy
	Legal Coconut Wraps
	SCD Bakery
	Wise Choice Market
Paleo:	30 Paleo Crockpot Recipes
	The Food Lovers Kitchen
Books:	5 Spices, 50 Dishes
	Breaking the Vicious Cycle (SCD)
	GAPS diet book
	Nourishing Traditions (Weston A. Price)
Further Information Links:	Autism Resource of Yuma (Info)
	Happy Tummy (articles)
Supplement Resources:	Dr. Ron's Ultra-Pure additive free company
	Bulk Salts
	Detox Baths
	Radiant Life
Blogs that do SCD/Paleo/GAPS/ Weston A. Price Combos	Real Food Forager
	Comfy Belly
	Intentionally Domestic
	Healthy Home Economist
	Dom's Kefir FAQs
Healthy but generally need substitutions:	Chocolate-Covered Katie
Fermented Foods:	Cultured Food for Life
	Heal Thyself Groups
Other:	Stool Analysis
	Our Yogurt Maker

Coconut Flour- Almond Butter Muffins

Makes 9 Muffins:

1/2 stick Melted Butter
6 Eggs
6 Drops Liquid Stevia (365 Whole Foods Brand)
1/2 cup Coconut Flour
1/2 cup Almond Butter (I use Artsana)
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1-2 Tablespoons Shredded Coconut 
A little cinnamon, allspice, clove, nutmeg to taste

Blend: I do the eggs, butter, and stevia first and then add the rest into a food processor.

Add topping if you like:

Optional Topping:
1 TBSP Shredded coconut
1 TBSP Ground Flax
1 TBSP Cinnamon

Bake: 400 degrees for 15 minutes
Yum!

Perfected Cashew Butter Muffins

 What is perfection? Well I'm not really sure, but in this muffin story it means fluffy, fabulous tasting muffins to take with you for snacks or to gobble one up in the morning on your way out the door. They even freeze well! Of course any story of perfection comes with lessons that were learned along the way. Trials, tribulations, pangs of angst. Of course, I've also found a lazy way to make them, because it's me here. So you can pick your method to mmmmmmmmmmmm......

Lessons:
1) Nuts are hard to digest in general. The traditional method of preparing nuts is to soak them in water and salt for a period of hours (depending on the type of nut). Then if one is fortunate to have a dehydrator then you dehydrate your soaked nuts for about 24 hours on a low setting. (or in the oven as low as it will go). I have been drawn to the cashew nut ever since I started the GAPS diet. My body just likes this nut. Well in other versions of this recipe I would try to use almonds, walnuts, pecans. On the pecanbread site for Specific Carbohydrate Diet, they say that pecans and almonds are the easiest to digest. Well I found it rather odd, that any nut with the exception of the cashew nut just gave my stomach hell. Lucky for me I looked up the cashew to see why this might be. Why, you ask? Why it's not a nut at all, it's a seed. Check out all about cashews here on WIKIPEDIA. So for those of you that can't do nuts yet, try the fabulous world of seeds: pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and cashews!

2) Eating a lot of nuts or in this case seeds can be quite constipating. So in working with these muffins, I tried to reduce the amount of cashew butter I used to include a veggie, I came up with butternut squash. Also, sometimes I'm over the whole plain cashew butter muffin. So what do I do? I peel and sautee granny smith apples with butter and cinnamon and pop those into my ready to go batter and voila!

3) Butter and baking soda. The timing of your ingredients is super important in baking. I was late for something (generally everything) and I asked my husband if he could pour the batter into the cups and bake them for me. Well when I returned from said function, he hadn't gotten to that yet. So the batter/butter had hardened up and when I baked them they turned out as unappreciative, dense muffins that were full of psychological bitterness for being abandoned mid-creation.

Baking soda will make or break your muffins. Forget this important ingredient and you can just forget about the fluff.

Okay now onto that recipe of mmmmmmm....
CASHEW (Seed) BUTTER MUFFINS:

Ingredients:
2 Cups of Cashew Butter (you can get the cashew and soak/dehydrate/grind with olive oil or you can purchase from this company: Artisana)
1 Cup of mashed butternut squash (you can buy, cook, and mash or you can purchase from this company: Farmer's Market ) (some of their products have sugar, so still read that label)
3 Eggs
1/2 cup of honey 
1/2 stick of melted butter
1 teaspoon of baking soda
(any additional nut, fruit, vegetable you want to chuck in there)


Directions:

I use a food processor, but use what you can:
1) Start that butter melting (no microwaves!!)
2) Mix eggs, cashew butter, honey, and butternut squash
3) Pour in the melted butter and blend again
4) Put in the baking soda and blend again
5) Optional, add something you want in your muffins!
6) Pour in muffin cups (I use the ones from whole foods that are recycled)
7) Put in oven which should be heated a little below 350 (for my oven)
8) take anywhere from between 15-20 minutes.

VOILA, HAPPINESS!

This recipe is based off the general bread recipe given in "Breaking the Vicious Cycle"

Happy lunch! Stir fry with a side of cashew bread toast

Onion soup

Sometimes a dish works out at the last moment just as you feel like
you're going to have to suck it up and eat it. For instance, I thought
it was a great idea to have onion soup. I was too lazy to cut the
onion very much, so it ended up being this ugly soup with big chunks
of onion and squash. Well, my friend the blender rescued my dish and
won my heart, because now the soup I couldn't eat two hours ago...
gourmet!!
Ingredients:
Chicken stock/broth
Chicken, chicken livers and hearts
Acorn squash
A BIG white onion
Garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Cooking route: crockpot

Yeah my raw milk kefir worked!!!

Quick Update

Just a quick update, I will be more active on here once I recover.

So the bad symptoms got me to the place where I said, GAPS here I come. I started on the intro on Saturday. There are some awesome places to get food here in Tulsa. If I wanted I could just buy fish stock from Bodeans Seafood Market for super cheap.  I was feeling pretty good and then I was insanely emotional, crying over everything. "Die-off" is certainly a new sensation that I'd prefer to be without. Sunday morning, I was fine, but I looked at my tongue in the morning and had a raging cause of Oral Thrush, aka Candida Albicans. So I went to the store to get probiotics, because I don't yet have the BioKult, the recommended probiotic for GAPS (they are coming through amazon). Once taking many of those I felt better....until there was night time. UPDATE 6/13: Biokult has hidden sugars if you are sensitive. For me it was a no go.  Right before bed I started feeling nauseated, my abdomen was gurgling, and I straight up had a fever. This morning the bathroom and I had a reunion of which details should not be discussed openly, and I again felt feverish. Today has not been the best in my record of "fabulous vitality days", but it has shown me how much I really needed to do this.

The GAPS diet is all about killing the bad guys, but also really emphasizes restoring the good guys through broths and fermented foods. I've made my first beet kvass, which is rather tasty for something that contains beets, garlic, and whey protein.

All in all, I'm feeling good about going down this road, despite its difficulty. I know now that it is very true that it must get worse before it gets better. I'm grateful for all the information on the interweb where people have discussed their "die-off" symptoms so I know that this is normal.


What I have learned to do to fight the yeast is:
Probiotics
Hold yogurt in my mouth for a minute (it's crazy, it sticks to the yeast- it was like Braveheart in my mouth!)
Oil of Oregano
Olive Leaf Extract
S. Boulardii (another type of yeast that fights the might C.A.)

I've been updating my links as I do research so that there is more linkage goodness in one place. I found two places to get supplements. I'm very intrigued with Dr. Ron's supplements that are additive free. I was concerned about their multi-vitamin because it contained Boron (Aspartate) which is the same thing as Aspartame. They called me back within 2 hours and explained that it was a very low dosage and was put in the multi to prevent osteoporosis. They also told me that it was from a natural source that doesn't cause the problems that the synthesized molecules do. Quality company. I'm definitely buying my Fermented Cod Liver Oil from them (also recommended supplement for GAPS diet to heal the GI lining). I'll post if the Multi is legal. I've written them an email requesting the information if it is or not.

Tasty Way of Taking Oils

One of the important things I learned this week was that we must take supplements during the time that we are on this diet to properly heal the gut. In the GAPS diet, one of these supplements is Cod Liver Oil, because of it is plentiful in Vitamin A (it is also very high in Vitamin D). The first time I took it, which was straight from the spoon, was a slightly icky moment.

When I was speaking with the woman with 140 different food allergies, I mentioned that perhaps one of the reasons things weren't getting better for her (along with the fact that she was not on the correct diet) was that she wasn't supplementing with gut healing remedies. When I brought up Cod Liver Oil, her eyes got quite wide and she said, "Oh yes, I just can't take that, it's really gross."

Well if you know me, you know I'm generally a no excuses type girl. Where there's a will there's a way; Fight fire with fire, and etc. So I masterminded a remedy for the faint of palate.

I thought first, perhaps I could mix it with something delicious or just have a strong chaser. But then, I went back in the noggin' where the chemistry info is stored and picked out this simple and yet effective truth: Oil will float on water.

So I took out my handy dandy shot glass, my freshly squeezed OJ, and my rather untasty supplements. I also take Vitamin E by way of Sunflower Oil, so I put a dose of that in as well.

First pour a bit of OJ, then follow it by the doses of oils. Swig it back and it naturally has just the taste of orange juice (or whatever juice you choose). So simple!

 

  Update: Since I have been on the GAPS diet, I am unable to drink orange juice (at the present time). Any one on the intro will not be able to drink any type of fruit juice or vegetable juice. Using water as a base works just as well with oil supplements like cod liver oil. The only time you have to have some type of chaser is when what you're slinging back is water soluble (like grapeseed extract)/ JUST DO IT! motto is all I can help with there. Also, I have found fermented cod liver oil from Dr. RON's that helps take out the sting. My favorite is the Arctic Mint. Be careful, not all the flavors are legal!

Update: subtlety and there is a reason for everything

Subtlety seems to be a repeating lesson for me, but always a good lesson to remember. I had been having the return of many symptoms: fatigue, moodiness, and constipation from eating the illegal beet chips.I didn't realize it was affecting me. So many on the server have these tremendous reactions to the wrong food, but I either have a GI issue or it's lost in the details. It's partially why I'm grateful that I was introduced to the diet, because before, I didn't have gross reactions to sugar or potatoes, but now I'm able to see their true effect on my system. I'm also really grateful to have this blog and to have people that read it. Without that text message, letting me know I'd made a mistake, I would have trudged through a few more weeks not understanding the return of my symptoms.

I let my guard down on making sure to check the ingredients. Mainly because my husband thought of the beet chips that we had eaten previously to the diet and thought it would be a good snack for me. He asked the whole foods lady and she had told him that it was just beets and salt. So when he told me that, I just believed without asking if he had looked at the label. All good lessons, all very good.

Lastly, I'm quite grateful for this incident because it made me look a little more into things and I think I will be better off for the knowledge I gained from it.

I was at a party this Saturday night and met a woman who was allergic to 140 foods and still feeling really bad. When I told her about this diet she was very happy. When I relayed that I wished more medical practitioners knew about it, she said that she was happier to know it the way she was learning about it. She said that things happen for a reason and before she wouldn't have been ready to hear it.

This lesson will also end with me finding a dehydrator. Because I can no longer live without beet chips!!!! If you know of a good brand, please let me know.

As my momma says, "In every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better."

BEET CHIPS are NOT LEGAL

So I just found out that the beet chips at whole foods are not legal at all. They contain Dextrin. My sincere apologies.

Update, GAPS, etc.

So this might have been coming all along, but I'm glad that it came now when I was more prepared for it. Wow, I realize that might sound like dark foreshadowing, but honestly this is a happy post. I've been feeling a lot better these days with my only remaining symptoms being a foggy brain, occasionally fatigued (but not at all the fatigue I used to have), and maybe a smidgeon of moodiness. I'm on stage 2ish on the diet. I found that several things I had been eating that are legal are off the list for me for a little while: broccoli, green beans, speghetti squash, and artichokes.

I inquired on the server if anyone recognized a pattern to these foods, as I have learned that many foods have different proteins that give people troubles. I will quickly mention the glorious pieces of information came back to me through being a part of the server. One lady, told me to really experiment with brands/types of the food that I'm having trouble with, up to the time of day, etc. She gave me great hope that most legal foods could be incorporated later and encouraged me to systematically identify when the food is okay versus not. Another suggested I may have trouble with fructans (not the same as fructose apparently) which I will have to look up. The last advice I was given is that every three months or so you get a flare, I think because of die off. In this time things that were fine may not be okay for awhile, etc. So this experience is very dynamic and to be aware of that part. It goes along perfectly with one of the hardest Buddhist tenets for me, the tenet of non-permanence. However, since there seemed to be no true answer to my question, I decided to expand my horizons and look further into things.

Another event was the book Nourishing Traditions that a friend let me borrow. It's like crack to me. I love reading it and finding out even more about the nutrition of foods and particulars about types of fats, carbs, and vitamin and minerals. The food sensitivities section is especially interesting. In this section, the author talks about different types of sensitivities outside of just gluten and diary, but those with adrenal issues, thyroid issues, trouble with nightshade plants, so on and so forth. It only is about two paragraphs in length, just a huge tease, but it inspired me to want even more information. I want to understand why the legal foods I'm eating are giving me problems outside of the fact that the diet must be "personalized".

Lastly,  I spoke with my father who is an M.D. about one of my clients that started on this diet. I was trying to figure out why she was having some issues at the beginning of the diet. What he did offer was that yogurt may not be enough probiotics when in this situation.

So I looked on the Weston A. Price Foundation site and found a large article on food sensitivities. It went into the GAPS diet. It looks like it incorporates just a bit more into SCD. I think it's time for something a bit more. More cultured and fermented foods, more specific supplements for my condition, and more scientific knowledge at my finger tips.

Let's face it, a scientific mind needs to understand the science behind things and figure out patterns that arise. But most importantly this scientific mind needs to claim victory over this self-experimentation through intelligent choices. Follow me, if you dare ;)

GAPS diet book

My first lactose free cheese cake (with meringue crust) BTVC pg128

So I'm unsure of how "healthy" this is for you, but it sure was delicious!

I used the recipe from the book Breaking the Viscious Cycle on pg 128.

I also used the meringue crust recipe from SCD Recipes Blog. Next time I plan to double the crust. I used a 9 inch square pan.

I'm thinking I might try to make the cream cheese in the book from my yogurt next time and use that instead of the Farmers Dry Curd Cheese. The Curd is just hard to come by and is undependable. But honestly, I don't feel that this recipe is necessary for this diet; it just allows a really nice treat. 

Next time I make this cheese cake I plan to incorporate my Cashew Caramel Recipe into the cheesecake to really reduce any notion that is healthy and simply for me to "treat" myself.