Controlling Asthma Naturally Update - What Works for Me

When we moved from Oregon to Colorado 2 years ago, one of the first things I noticed was that my asthma started acting up.  Switching to Real Food years ago had gotten it under control for about 3 years without prescription meds, but when we got here, the humidity, pollen, whatever, made it really flare up again.

Especially during the spring and fall, even if I didn't have "classic" allergy symptoms like runny nose or itchy eyes, I would have shortness of breath, wheezing, coughing, and all the old asthma symptoms returned with a vengeance!

So, as I shared 2 years ago, I've been exploring different natural options to control my asthma without prescription medications.  

Here is what works for me:

1. A foundation of healthy fats. 
   
   They keep me full and drastically reduce blood-sugar swings.  By healthy, I mean fats from real foods, like butter, coconut oil, lard, olive oil, fatty fish.  I absolutely avoid ALL cheap, processed oils like canola, soy, vegetable, sunflower, etc.  These oils come from factories, not food!



2. Plenty of (safe) starches and carbs. 
   
   For me, this means potatoes, white rice, sweet potatoes, starchy/carby vegetables, and occasional non-gluten grains.  If I don't eat them, I don't feel full, and I have low energy.  But I make sure I eat them with plenty of fat, or else they do spike my blood sugar.
    
3. Avoiding (most) gluten.
   
   Some people do fine with a little wheat.  I generally don't, and many other asthmatics are in the same boat.  If I eat it, I have asthma symptoms, period.  I still occasionally do, like in social settings where it would be rude or awkward to refuse (after all, it doesn't make me hurt...just wheeze), or on a special occasion, like my kid's birthday cake (give me a break, those bean cakes on Pinterest are NOT good enough to give to guests).  I have noticed that good sourdough white bread bothers me the least of all wheat products, so if we do have wheat, we try to have it in that form.
4. Avoiding pasteurized dairy.  
   
   We still drink raw milk and eat yogurt, cheese, kefir, and sour cream with no problems.  Also, I have no trouble at all with pasteurized heavy whipping cream - I drink it in my tea every morning.  But milk from the store is out, as are ice cream, hot cocoa mixes, etc.  If I do have to eat these things, or just really, really need a little scoop of ice cream to make me feel human, I try to eat it with some raw milk or fermented dairy to help it digest more easily.  For me, this is almost as big a trigger as gluten.
    
5. Plenty of Fat Soluble Vitamins. 
   
   We take Cod Liver Oil somewhat regularly (a molecularly distilled type with synthetic Vitamins A and D added), eat high-vitamin foods like egg yolks, liver and oily fish, and I've started taking a D3 supplement.  I know some experts are against supplementing, but, honestly, I just can't feed my kids sardines at every meal when we go to a play date and they are offered PB&J's.  We already eat weird food, I don't want them to have complexes.  So we supplement a little bit to help cover those dietary gaps that come from being socially graceful.  For me, I've noticed a pretty big improvement in my asthma since adding in the Vitamin D supplement.
    
6. Good Bacteria.  
   
   I try pretty hard to eat something fermented every day, whether that is yogurt or kombucha or homemade fermented veggies or Bubbie's pickles, or whatever.  Also, we spend a TON of time outside playing in the dirt, working in the garden, petting the filthy dog even after he swims in the muddy pond, mucking the chicken coop, and we are NOT fastidious about washing our hands.  My 1-year-old has eaten more dirt than I thought possible this summer.  Permaculture has reminded me (sorry, I had to throw in at least one reference to it), that the microbial health of the soil is what supports the health of plants, and in turn, of bugs and larger animals that eat those plants.  The closer we are to our healthy soil, eating produce from it and exposing ourselves directly to it, I think the healthier we will be.
7. Careful Exercise.
   
   When I was younger and had time to jog, I noticed that regular running helped my asthma stay under control.  Basically, if my cardiovascular health was good, then "normal" life exercise didn't make me breath hard, so didn't bother me.  However, going for an hour run everyday made me tired and really made one of my hips hurt.  So my exercise now consists of working hard around the yard, doing jobs around the house, hefting kids/feed bags/tools around, and doing body-weight exercise like squats, push-ups, core, and yoga poses.  And if I feel like sprinting after my kids, dashing up to the garage to grab a shovel, or flying down a particularly tempting hill, I go for it.  When I listen to my body and run when it feels like running, I get some great sprints in, I have no trouble with my asthma, plus I enjoy every minute!  I feel invigorated and think, "I love sprinting places!" instead of feeling like a dead dog and thinking "Jogging is necessary torture."  Mark Sisson's 5 Essential Movements and Primal Blueprint Fitness E-book gave me a good start, although I take it more easy than he suggests, since I'm still nursing and notice a milk shortage when I overdo it.
    
8. Natural Remedies.
   
   I will preface this by saying, I still use my albuterol (rescue inhaler) occasionally, sometimes in the thick of allergy season when working in the garden or if I have a bad cold.  Also, if I have eaten dairy or wheat, I tend to be wheezy by evening.  Breathing is important, not something to mess around with, and you don't want to end up in the emergency room or morgue, so don't hesitate to take action if you (or your kid!) are about to asphyxiate!  However, when I'm just feeling a little wheezy or tight in my lungs, I often try some natural remedies instead of reaching for the inhaler.  A hot shower with plenty of steam helps relax my lungs.  Also, if I have annoying wheezing and can't sleep, but it's not bad enough to really cause distress, often a cup of hot tea helps ease the wheezing enough for me to drift off.  Along with that, eating cold foods sometimes makes wheezing worse, so I try to avoid that if I'm having a rough time of it.  I have heard everything from garlic to ginger to turmeric to lemon juice can help ease symptoms, but if you are eating tons of trigger foods and filling your body with inflammation-causing crud, a spoonful of turmeric is not an adequate long-term solution!  These remedies work best if you are already doing the hard work of changing your diet and improving your health.

A Little More Background About How I Got Here:

I considered putting myself on the GAPS diet, which is a gut-healing regimen that basically (as I understand it) tries to repair micro-holes in the large intestine by only allowing foods which digest in the small intestine.  This means most starchy foods are eliminated, like grains, uncultured/pasteurized dairy, most beans, all refined sugar.  And probiotics are gradually introduced, so that good bacteria can replace bad bacteria in the gut, further healing any damage.

There are many things I love about the idea of the GAPS diet:

• It is all real food.  Made in your own kitchen.  
• It emphasizes healthy fats (saturated from pastured animals).
• It uses traditional cooking methods, like long simmering of bones to make nutrient-rich broth.
• It eliminates many of the "problem foods" that I had noticed were aggravating to my asthma, like pasteurized milk and wheat.

However, since the GAPS diet has been so widely used in the past few years, I started finding many testimonials from people who had tried it and had issues with it.  According to these people, it really is amazing at doing what it claims - improving those "Leak Gut Syndrome" symptoms.  But it can also lead to fatigue, thyroid issues, and low body temperatures for some people.  In particular, one of my favorite bloggers, Sarah at Nourished and Nurtured, recorded her family's GAPS journey in detail.  She eventually decided that if she could do it over again, she would not have started the GAPS diet with her family, partly because of the problems it caused, and partly because it is just so much work for what it accomplishes.  

So, my next question was, "If not GAPS, then what?"  I gradually stumbled across Matt Stone and Chris Kresser and their "revolutionary" advice to listen to your body, experiment, and see what works for you and what your body is really craving (from more carbs to more sleep to less exercise!).  I also have really enjoyed the Perfect Health Diet, which is kind of a Paleo spin-off (like Chris Kresser) that encourages eating plenty of "safe starches."

So, that's the run-down of what has helped me, every day, to control my asthma naturally, without prescription medicine.  I still keep a rescue inhaler handy, but I have been able to avoid using preventative prescription medicines for 5 years now and counting!

Note: I'm not a doctor or nutritionist or anything licensed.  Please don't interpret my personal experiences to be medical advice, and check with your doctor before discontinuing any medicine, blah blah blah legal jargon.

Do you know anyone who suffers from asthma?  Have they had any luck trying to control it with natural methods?  What has been helpful for them?  Leave a comment and share your experiences and thoughts!

Posted at Small Footprint Friday and Fat Tuesday

Southwest Chicken Salad in Avocado Bowls (Grain-free)

My poor husband hates soup.

So I am trying to make him all kinds of delicious, grain-free (or at least grain-restricted; we still eat rice sometimes) dinners...without breaking the bank.  Let's face it, large chunks of good quality meat cost money.  Soups are fantastic ways to stretch meat into satisfying, cost-effective dinners, without resorting to using grains as cheap fillers.  But soups generally only rate about a 6 on my husband's 1 to 10 scale of dinner deliciousness, and that is when they are accompanied by something light, fluffy, and wheaty.

Enter the meat salad.  It can pass itself off as a large serving of meat, but it has so many vegetables in it that it's much more economical.  Also, the delicious dressing can contain enough fat to make the meal filling and satisfying.  So hungry husband feels like he is getting a ton of hearty meat, and I know that I have stretched that meat within an inch of its life.

An added bonus here: chicken salad is a fantastic use for leftover meat from a whole roast chicken.  Or for less-desirable chicken parts.  In this case, I had a bunch of chicken thighs in the freezer (they are so much cheaper than chicken breasts that I can buy organic for about the same cost as a conventional chicken breast), but the hubster is not a huge fan of thigh meat on the bone, either.  When it's cooked and chunked or shredded, however, it ceases to be chicken thigh and becomes just...chicken.

Southwest Chicken Salad in Avocado Bowls

Ingredients:

Oil for cooking chicken

1/2 to 1 lb chicken, cut into chunks

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp paprika

salt to taste

pepper to taste

1 egg yolk

1/4 c. olive oil (or mayo-making oil of your choice)

1 tsp mustard

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 bell peppers, chopped

1 tomato, chopped

2 large avocados

sour cream (optional)

fresh cilantro (optional)

Instructions:

1. Cook chicken in oil of choice (I used refined coconut) until it is no longer pink.  Add spices (onion powder through paprika), and salt and pepper.  
2. Meanwhile, in medium bowl, whisk egg yolk, mustard, apple cider vinegar very thoroughly.  Then, starting with one drop at a time and gradually adding, whisk in olive oil very thoroughly.  This sauce mixture should become frothy and creamy-looking.  When chicken is done, whisk the oil and spices from the cooking pan into the mixture as well.
3. Stir cooked chicken, bell pepper, and tomato into sauce mixture.  Adjust salt/pepper as necessary.  Perhaps make the chicken salad a bit saltier than you'd usually like, since it will be eaten with unseasoned avocado.
4. Slice avocados in half, remove pits, and spoon chicken salad into them.  (If desired, avocados may be sliced up or removed from their skins before serving.  We enjoyed just heaping the salad on top and eating with a spoon.)
5. Garnish with sour cream and fresh cilantro, if desired.

What are your favorite dollar-stretching meals?  What is your favorite way to save a little money and still eat the way you want to?

Posted at Pennywise Platter, Simple Lives Thursday, Fat Tuesday, WFMW, Fight Back Friday, Food on Fridays and Monday Mania, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, 

Grain-free Beef/Veggie Potpie

I've been working on broadening our grain-free horizons lately by adapting conventional recipes into forms that are a little more suitable for our dietary preferences.  This is the latest - all the comforting, hot deliciousness, with none of the grains.  The crust on top uses a grain-free biscuit dough that I recently discovered -  it's surprisingly light and fluffy!

Ingredients:

Filling:

1 lb ground beef (or meat of your choice - I used ground elk)

3 large carrots, chopped

2 ribs celery, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

3 tomatoes, chopped, or 1 can diced tomatoes

1 Tbsp. butter/oil (I used coconut oil)

Crust (biscuit dough):

1/3 c. coconut flour

4 eggs

1/3 c. butter, melted

1/2 t. salt

1 T garlic powder

1/2 c. shredded cheese (optional)

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 400 F.
2. In large skillet, melt butter/oil.  Cook ground beef with carrots and onion until beef is browned and onions are tender.  Add garlic and tomatoes, then simmer on low heat and stir for about 10 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated.
3. Meanwhile, combine all crust ingredients except shredded cheese.  Stir very, very well until all the coconut flour lumps are incorporated.  You can't over-stir this, since it doesn't have any gluten in it.
4. Carefully transfer meat/veggie mixture to oven-safe casserole dish (or if you cooked it in an oven-safe skillet that has enough room in it for biscuit dough,  you can just use that).
5. Arrange crust dough on top of meat mixture and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until biscuit dough is cooked through and golden brown.  
6. If desired, sprinkle with cheese and brown under broiler for about a minute, until cheese melts.
7. Let cool for 5 minutes, then serve.

This recipe got pretty rave reviews from my family.  I wasn't sure how they would accept the non-grain crust on top, but that was their favorite part!  It really does have a nice, butter taste and fairly fluffy texture (even better topped with cheese).

Posted at Monday Mania, Hearth and Soul, Frugal Days Sustainable Ways, WFMW, and Fat Tuesday

Summery Salmon Salad

Mmm, fresh salmon might be my new favorite thing about living in Oregon (or maybe it's the blackberries...it's a toss-up).  A friend from church was here helping my husband with some work the other day and stopped by to give us a whole salmon he had caught.

After doing a rather shoddy job of filleting the salmon, I was left with a heap of delicious meat clinging to bones and the salmon spine.  According to the lady in the "filleting salmon" YouTube video, this meat is the fattiest and tastiest.  So I gently simmered the bones, let them cool, then carefully picked the meat off them.

I came up with about 2 cups of "extra" salmon meat just begging to be eaten (actually, Einstein was the one doing the begging.  "Mommy, can we please eat some of that fish right now?").  So we had a little salmon salad for lunch.

Thanks to Paula Dean for the inspiration for this recipe.  Paula, I love butter too.  Now please, stop giving butter a bad name and making oodles of money promoting pharmaceuticals.  Thanks.

Anyway...

Summery Salmon Salad

Ingredients:
2 c. cooked salmon
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1 bell pepper, finely chopped
1/4 c. onion, very finely chopped
3-4 Tbsp. mayonnaise
dash lemon juice
salt and pepper

Directions:
Combine ingredients, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper.  Enjoy on rice crackers, or "dip vehicle" of choice.

Miss Euler just ate this with a spoon (the very finely chopped onions help make it more kid-friendly, so they're not getting a big spicy bit unexpectedly).  Einstein ate it with rice crackers, then a few organic tortilla chips.  We were having a picnic out in the yard, and the dog was being very good and keeping his distance.  But when I ran back into the kitchen for 30 seconds, he seized the opportunity, bullied his way onto the picnic blanket, and stole the rest of the Salmon Salad right out of Einstein's hands.  I heard yelling and ran back out to discover a happy dog and a crying, trying-to-be-brave 4-year-old.

"Mommy, I tried to push him away, but he wouldn't stop.  He took my last bite!"

It is that good.


Posted at Fat Tuesday and Hearth and Soul

Homemade Baconnaise

So, we've established that homemade mayonnaise is doable and so worth it, right?

Here's my next step: an extra burst of flavor from our old favorite...oh yes, bacon.

This is apparently a favorite in the Paleo community, so I thought I should probably jump on the bandwagon, for my husband's sake.

It is super easy, with only a few ingredients, and since I save our bacon fat, it was nearly free for us.  If you are a little short on bacon fat, I bet the bacon-y flavor would still shine through if you used, say, half a cup of bacon fat, and half a cup of olive oil.

Homemade Baconnaise

Ingredients:
2 egg yolks*
1 tsp. mustard
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. melted bacon fat (or tallow if you want to make beef-aise, duck fat if you want to make duck-aise)

Instructions:

1. In medium bowl, whisk egg yolks, mustard, and ACV or lemon juice very thoroughly.
2. Very slowly, add melted fat to the egg yolk mixture, whisking quickly the whole time.  I mean super slowly, like start out with just a drop or two at a time. 
3. Watch to make sure the oil is incorporating itself into the mixture, and that it is starting to get thick and creamy.  If it is super-runny, and the oil is just pooling on top, your baconnaise has "split," or failed to emulsify.  You can save it by adding it (again, very slowly) to an additional egg yolk.

Note 1: This is a "sometimes food" in our house, not because of the saturated fat or cholesterol (which we are generally fans of), but because bacon from less-than-ideal sources (even if it's uncured, like mine) is pretty high in omega-6's compared to omega-3's.  Most of us could use more omega-3's in comparison to our omega-6's, so unless we have a really great source of bacon (like pastured/fed fantastic stuff), we probably don't want to be inhaling the stuff every morning.  Also, I've read that pigs are notoriously bad at converting PUFA's (less stable polyunsaturated fatty acids) from their food into saturated fat (the stable kind we like) in their bodies, also making bacon a good choice for, well, sometimes.

*Note 2: These are raw egg yolks.  If you aren't comfortable with that, or you don't know where your eggs came from/don't trust their source, use pasteurized in-shell eggs.  Washing the egg before cracking it is supposed to help prevent contamination from any salmonella on the shell, however, I guess something like 1 in 30,000 eggs may have salmonella inside it.  The chances of the average egg-eater encountering such an egg is one in every 84 years, to put that in perspective.  But do note that all the official food safety people advise against eating raw or undercooked eggs.

Do you have a favorite homemade mayo or sauce recipe?  What are your feeling on eating raw/undercooked eggs?


Posted at Pennywise Platter

Paleo Pancakes, From Einstein's POV

We have a favorite grain-free banana pancake recipe that we've been making for the last year or so.  It is from Kate Tietje's Against the Grain e-book (I loved it so much I am promoting it...)

The recipe makes about enough to feed my 4-year-old, 2-year-old, and myself for lunch.  Today, we made a double batch and shared with my delighted, recently-turned-Paleo husband ("I can have these?!?") and one of our staffers ("Whoa, these are actually pretty good.")

I generally hate grain-free "substitute" foods, since they are generally kind of nasty, sweet enough to make your kids crave more sweets (and it's hard to explain to a 2-year-old that Mommy's coconut flour pancakes are fine, but the white-flour ones at the restaurant are just a "sometimes food"), and too often a replacement for plain, savory, nutritious food.

But these banana pancakes are, so far, one of the best recipes I have found that omits flour and does not become disgusting.  I think it helps that they are cooked on the stove, so you can check and tweak as you cook, instead of popping it in the oven and helplessly praying for good results.

Since bananas are not exactly local (ha!), and we are trying to reduce our dependence on them (the kids have pretty severe emotional attachment to them), we've also adapted this recipe to use sweet potatoes and winter squashes when they are in season.  Yum!

Here's our sweet potato version:

Sweet Potato Paleo Pancakes

Ingredients:
1 sweet potato, cooked and mashed (I love using leftovers from the previous night's dinner!)
3 eggs
1/4 cup coconut flour
1 T honey (optional: just use if you prefer a sweeter pancake)
1 tsp. cinnamon (also optional, but it really makes the sweet potato flavor shine!)
Plenty of coconut oil, butter, ghee, or oil of choice,  for frying

Directions:

1. Mash sweet potato well.
2. Stir together sweet potato and all other ingredients.  Note: you cannot overmix this, since it doesn't contain any wheat/gluten, so mix it really well, until you get all the lumps out!
3. Melt oil or butter in skillet/griddle over medium heat.
4. Spoon pancake batter onto hot skillet, about 2-3 Tbsp. per pancake.  It helps to spread the batter out a little into a pancake shape if it doesn't spread itself out.  When batter around bottom edge of pancake just begins to brown, pancakes are ready to flip.  Experiment with this a little!
5. Continue to cook pancakes, adding more oil to pan as needed.
6. Enjoy with extra butter on top!

Adapted from Kate Tietje's Against the Grain e-book

Today, Einstein, who is now 4, elected to document our cooking session.  I'm sorry if you read the title and hoped the real Einstein had an opinion on my pancakes.  As far as I know, he did not.

I apologize in advance for the gratuitous display of toddler photography.  It's fascinating to see things from his point of view.

Chubby toddler arms prepare to mash bananas

Mashing proceeds

Einstein takes a turn while Miss Euler takes a photo

Sizzling away in coconut oil

Tim the staff member is pleasantly surprised

Posted at Fight Back Friday

Persistence Pays Off - Helping Your Family Eat Well

My husband has gone Paleo... finally.

I spent the majority of the winter experimenting with occasional grain-free cooking, reading Mark's Daily Apple and PHD (and Matt Stone's 180 Degree Health, just for balance, you know), and sneakily suggesting to my husband that white flour and sugar are the devil (he already knew, but has the type of personality that wants to rebel and eat a box of Twinkies for lunch if I bring it up).

Anyway, he decided a few weeks ago that he was just sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.  So he's finally outlawed the grains and sugar (except for Einstein's 4th birthday cake!).  He is still doing cultured dairy, which gives us a little more flexibility.  The first few days, he couldn't stop talking about how good he felt ("I haven't felt like this since college!") and how few naps he felt he needed on the weekends!  He's gradually settled in and gotten used to just feeling good and having extra energy.  His major vice right now is almond butter, which we are going through a lot faster than we used to.   But, phytates aside, that is SO much better than his past indulgences that I really can't complain.

I present my husband to you as an example of will power overcoming healthy-eating obstacles.  In my husband's line of work, part of his salary is getting free meals whenever we have guests.  So, basically, part of our salary is paid in really crappy, industrialized-type food (read: flour, sugar, and soybean oil).  And I can assure you, we serve our guests super SAD crud.  I don't like it, but it is just how things are done in this business.

We are generally pretty bad about compromising during the summer months (when we have daily free meals), and just eating as well as we can with what we are served.  Some meals are very customizable, like hamburgers (just take the bun off), or taco salad (just skip the chips and nasty nacho sauce).  But others are harder to satisfactorily tweak, like spaghetti (um, can I just have tomato sauce over green beans?) or breaded chicken (the breading does NOT scrape off well).

We've been working out some alternative solutions for meal replacements (sometimes he sits with a plain salad while everyone else eats dinner, then comes home ravenous and in need of meat), and compromising a little here and there (yes, we have in fact picked the pasta out of our lasagna... it is a lot of work).

As in so many areas of family life, his decision and commitment are making it SO much easier for me to be dedicated to keeping the junk out of our diets, too.

And I have never been SO excited for summer to be over, so we can get back in the routine of home-cooked meals.

Here are a few of the things I've learned while helping my reluctant husband change his ways:

1. Persistence.  The old adage about offering new food to children up to 10 times before it is accepted applies to significant others, too.   But they are less trusting, so sometimes it helps to prepare it in totally different ways for repeat offerings so there is no "What?  Lentils again?  I hated lentils last time!"  Note: my husband has never said this.  He is fantastic about eating horrible kitchen mistakes and not complaining.  It's just an example.  :)
2. Subtlety.  At least in our house, outright suggestions sometimes meet with increased resistance, while offhand comments can get us thinking in a non-judgmental, non-confrontational way.
3. Support.  For my own eating, I do fine with eating maybe 95% how I should, and indulging the other 5% (Haagen Dazs!).  But my husband is all-or-nothing - if he cheats, he will consider the day wasted and just eat whatever he wants.  Realizing this helps me help him.  I can't just say "Oh, it's ok this once," or he'll fall off the bandwagon.  Supporting his super-enthusiastic approach instead of insisting on him conforming to my ways has been incredibly helpful.
4. Encouragement.  I think you can figure this one out on your own.

Have you ever had resistance from your family when changing eating habits or introducing new foods?  What worked (or didn't work!) for you?

Posted at Simple Lives Thursday, Fight Back Friday, Monday Mania,  Fat Tuesday, and WFMW

GAPs for Asthma?

 Check out my results - What Works for Me! - to see how GAPs has affected my asthma.

You may know, from my way-overenthusiastic Oregon posting, that I am insanely excited about our new home in Oregon.  I love all the trees, the gorgeous green grass, and the awesome growing conditions.

But the one thing I am not loving is the pollen.  I haven't had allergy issues for quite a few years, but I have noticed that my (once dormant) asthma seems to act up more here than in Colorado, especially when I'm out working in the yard.

The past few years of non-dependence on prescription asthma meds has made me feel so free, and now I'm reluctant to start up a prescription regimen again.  So I've been exploring all my nutrition and natural medicine-based options before I investigate the prescription route.

My go-to idea is the GAPs diet.  This diet, developed by Dr. Campbell-McBride, has been successfully used by hundreds of people to heal their damaged intestines and alleviate symptoms ranging from eczema to depression to autism.  Although "GAPs" stands for "Gut and Psychology Syndrome," which reflects the psychological symptoms it can treat, it has also been widely used for digestive problems, auto-immune symptoms, and other non-psychological diseases.

The theory behind the GAPs diet is simple: It heals the large intestine by eliminating all disaccharides (sugars that are more complex than fructose or glucose) from the diet.  If you don't eat any disaccharides, then the harmful bacteria in your large intestine won't have anything to eat, and they will die!  At the same time that you're avoiding disaccharides, you're also consuming lots of bone broth and probiotics, which help to repair any damage to the intestine and begin to populate it with healthy bacteria again.  The result is that the holes in your intestine (also known as leaky gut) begin to heal, so that tiny food particles aren't able to escape through them into your bloodstream (gross, I know).  This heals systemic inflammation and can even, apparently, reverse some kinds of auto-immune disease.

But even though it sounds so simple in theory, the GAPs diet takes a lot of planning and lifestyle change to accomplish.  Disaccharides are any complex sugars, so starches, dairy that contains lactose, and sugar are prohibited.  That means no grains, no legumes (except white beans, for reasons I'm not entirely clear on), no milk or fresh cheese, and no sweeteners except for honey.  It's also very important to consume bone broth at least once a day, because of the way it heals the intestine and soothes inflammation.

So I'm strongly considering GAPs, but I'm wondering if I need such a strict protocol (am I desperate enough to make that many drastic changes or increase the food budget that much?).  In the meantime, since I know pasteurized dairy and improperly prepared grains always create inflammation, and that's not going to do my lungs any favors, we're avoiding them more diligently than before.  It seems to be helping for now.

One awesome factor in this grain-avoidance is that my husband just restarted the P90X home fitness program, which recommends a strict low-carb diet at the beginning to help maximize weight loss.  So I can happily prepare meals for our whole family that do not revolve around grains, and not have to make anything special or separate for any of us.  This really helps all of us to eat what we ought to be eating.  I do miss some of my super-inexpensive grain-based meals (that I know I shouldn't be serving regularly anyway, since the grains aren't always prepared properly), but I think we will adapt and adjust nicely over the next few months.

As we adjust, I'm getting excited about trying out some new recipes that will help me get out of my carb-dependent rut.  I've started browsing through the Against the Grain e-book cookbook by Katie Tietje over at Modern Alternative Mama, and I'll be sharing what I think about it here in a few weeks, once I've had a chance to try out a few recipes!


What is your take on the GAPs diet?  Have you ever heard of it?  Have you heard about anyone using it successfully to help heal asthma?  How hard would it be for you to avoid grains in your everyday cooking and eating? 


Posted at Monday Mania

Gluten-Free Experimenting (Pork & Beans)

This post could have the alternate titles "Why Cooking From Scratch Really Comes In Handy Sometimes" or "Why People Who Blog GAPS Recipes Are Amazing."  And if you're looking for a recipe, and not a huge discourse on the difficulties of eating gluten-free, feel free to scroll to the bottom now.

My family is not gluten-free.  We are pretty lucky and/or blessed to not have any major health issues that require a special diet.  But it's becoming increasingly common, and as a result, I am having my first encounter with careful gluten-free cooking today.  A family at our church is going through a rough spot, and several of us are cooperating to make them dinners a few times a week until they can get back on their feet.  The wife was recently diagnosed with MS, so they're eating gluten-free so as not to exacerbate her symptoms.

This is the part where cooking from scratch comes in handy.  Gluten?  Wheat. Barley.  Rye.  Cross-contamination.  Okay, we can handle this.

Not to write off the gluten-free diet as something that's easy to follow, easy to cook for, or easy to live with, but knowing I can make a from-scratch meal that is similar to everything else I cook for dinner sure makes it easier.  I always get a kick out of the grocery store ads when I notice something like apples or carrots in the "gluten free" section.  Wow...they must have run out of pictures and needed to fill some space.  But those grocery store ad designers know what they're doing: so many Americans are so uneducated about food ingredients and additives that "gluten-free" sounds intimidating, foreign, and nearly impossible.  If your diet is based on frozen pizzas, crackers, and ready-made soups or seasonings, gluten-free may sound like a death-sentence.  It might sound like your best alternative is to switch to the gluten-free substitutes for those foods.

But, as I'm realizing today, if you're already blessed to have the time to make your meals from scratch, gluten-free just means avoiding a few specific grains and cross-contamination.  Most of the dinners I make are meats and veggies anyway, with the occasional addition of pasta (my favorite compromise food), barley (my hubby's new favorite), or some type of bread crumb.  It's (relatively) easy to weed out those offending ingredients to have a dish I can share without worry.

Of course, I may be over-simplifying here.  Wheat, barley, and rye are easy to isolate.  But how about oats, and then the whole world of shared utensils?  I recently attended a seminar addressing gluten-free issues in commercial kitchens, and how to help keep foods from cross-contaminating each other in a busy kitchen.  Among other fascinating tidbits, I learned that metal pots can be a major source of gluten contamination - as the metal heats, it expands and can allow gluten to adhere to it.  Then, when the pan cools, that gluten becomes trapped and sticks around as the pan is washed.  When the pan is reheated (presumably to cook a gluten-free item), all that trapped gluten is released into the food.  Instant cross-contamination.  I also never thought before about glutenous flours floating in the air and settling on food-prep surfaces.  What's a cook to do?

Since I only have to cook the one gluten-free meal, I only have to worry for a little while.  I am so lucky to not have to deal with these head-ache inducing issues on a daily basis.  For one day, it's easy to make sure I'm using utensils that have been through the high-heat wash in the dishwasher (that takes care of the gluten metal-expansion problem), and that my seasonings are not the ready-made type with wheat flour as a thickener.  I am grateful that this from-scratch cooking thing is second nature, and it wouldn't be terribly hard to adjust to a gluten-free lifestyle if we needed to.  But mostly, I am thankful that after tonight, I can relax and put it from my mind.

If you've hung with me all this way, you are truly amazing.  Here is the recipe I used, adapted from one by Grain-Free Foodies.  The original recipe is GAPs-friendly, but I didn't have any GAPS friendly beans on hand, so mine is not quite.


Ingredients:  

 2 T cooking fat (I used rendered bacon fat)
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp salt
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cloves 
1 tsp ginger powder or grated fresh ginger
1 cup tomato sauce or puree
1/4 cup honey
4 cups kidney beans (That's what I had on hand from yesterday's bean cooking-session, but the original calls for GAPs friendly beans.  Also, it only calls for 2 cups, but I was stretching it a little to get two dinners out of one cooking session.)
2 cups cooked pork, shredded or chopped into pieces
1/2- 1 cup broth (I assume, since it's a GAPS recipe, that they want you to use homemade.)

Method:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. 

In a large (really large...mine was overflowing) skillet, melt the cooking fat and add the onions.  Cook for about 5 minutes or until the onions begin to soften.  Then add the garlic and spices and stir.

Add the tomato puree or sauce and the honey.  Stir thoroughly and cook for several minutes.

Add the beans and pork and stir to coat, then add enough broth to reach desired consistency.  Pour the mixture into a greased casserole dish
(I used an oval dish that measured 9" x 13").

Bake for about 30 minutes.


Side Note:  The pictures at Grain-Free Foodies are light years ahead of mine, but they still don't do the food justice...this looks (and is) delicious!  Blogs like this are amazing.  These ladies have families to feed on a restrictive diet, and yet they manage to cook fantabulous delicious meals like this and even remember to take pictures of them before devouring?  Amazing.


Posted at Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist (one of those amazing GAPS bloggers, by the way), and Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop