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!!!