Do You Dance?

Recipe: Cabbage Tonic, aka Non-Dairy Innoculant

I’m fond of saying that cooking is a dance. The food and our bodies ask for what they need to delight and be delighted in, to be nourished and nourishing, if we have the sensitivity to pay attention. It takes some experience and willingness to be open. Willingness to feel, sense deeper currents than just the following of a recipe. Willingness to touch the food - smell, hear, taste, see - really experience the substance that supports our bodies.

It takes a willingness to be quiet. Who leads in this dance may not be easy to feel. Our minds are full of the chatter of the stories of our lives. Where we have to go, who we have to see, what we have to do by when - and the ongoing pull and push between food and our bodies may be more subtle than those surface voices.

That dance is a vital one to pay attention to if we want to be healthy. Be connected with our true natures. If we want to be happy.

I’m not necessarily saying this dance will always be about eating what we might think of as perfectly healthy food. There are many influences on this dance, some cultural, some seasonal, some nutritional. Emotional. Our relationship with food is intertwined with our families, health, finances, creativity, communities, and history. It can be how we reward or punish ourselves. How we redeem ourselves.

It can include information we learn from books and health care practitioners, but, just as when we learn the steps to a new dance from an instructor, in the end things flow best when we make the dance our own. When we take what we’ve learned and see how it dances through us, how it finds it’s natural balance with the rest of the complexity that is our personal dance of life.

Our lack of relationship with food reflects on that list as well. If food is taken out of that equation, or if the relationship with food is too far distorted - you can sense the far reaching consequences.

All relationships take some energy and attention. A balance of energy and attention. If they don’t get enough, they will at the least go stagnant, at worst, die. If they get too much, they can be smothering, have a distorted and unbalanced effect.

What does your dance of body and food look like? What does it feel like from the inside? How much attention do you give it? Is there love in that attention? Compassion? Fun? Joy? Substance? Or is there fear? Denial? Tension? Resignation? Even hatred? Or simple unconsciousness? Boredom?

Let what you ‘know’ about health be applied through a lens of sweetness, even if you know you don’t do well with sugar on the physical level. Find safe ways to nourish yourself on ALL levels. Experiment. Be willing to fail.

In other words, be willing to learn. To change. But not because the slave driver in your head is lashing at you with a whip.

Do it because you love yourself.

And if you find you don’t love yourself - well then, that’s where you begin. We always begin where we are. Know that it is possible to love yourself, and to take care of yourself with love.

It’s just a part of the dance you haven’t learned yet. Or have forgotten. No big deal, we can all learn new skills. It starts with the desire.

Do you want to be happy?



Cabbage Tonic, aka Non-Dairy Innoculant
Gluten and dairy-free, salicylate free, candida friendly

Ingredients:

• 1/4 green cabbage, sliced thinly
• 1/2 gallon brine made with Celtic or Himalayan sea salt, or Real Salt

Directions:
Put the cabbage into a half gallon mason jar.

Make your brine. put enough salt in the water to make it too salty to be pleasant, but not so salty that you gag. (Thanks, Alyss!) Pour the brine over the cabbage. Cap tightly and shake well.

Leave on your kitchen counter or in a cupboard for 3 - 7 days, burping daily, until it has become quite active for at least a couple of days, or at least has taken on a sour flavor, not just salty.

Transfer to the refrigerator when it's done. Strain for a refreshing salty tonic, and use a couple of Tbsp when making veggie ferments that do not contain cabbage or cucumbers. You can use it for cabbage ferments, too, but it's not usually necessary. Great replacement for whey in recipes that use that for an innoculant.

Can also be used as an innoculant for nut cheese - which will come in a future recipe.

This post is a part of Real Food Wednesdays.

It's Not Fair!

Recipe: Frozen Coconut Yogurt

Those of us with food sensitivities can sometimes wonder why we got left out of the bounty of life. There are so many delicious dishes we'd love to savor that are traditionally made with ingredients that do harm to our bodies.

What wrong with this picture? Why is this happening? It's just not fair! Everyone else gets to enjoy!

I could tell you how many wonderful things you CAN eat, the amazing fresh vegetables with delicate or hearty earth flavors, the alternatives to dairy or gluten, or (insert your sensitivity). Foods with their own subtleties that it's possible to enjoy.

But that's not really the point, is it? We sometimes just miss those
foods, the very one's we learned to love, and led to us feeling: in pain, tired, foggy, irritated, angry, etc.

Or we're overwhelmed because it's just not easy to keep ourselves supplied with the alternatives, or they don't travel well. It would be so much easier to just make a quick stop at a convenience store when we need a snack... if only they stocked something without - all the stuff we can't eat.

This is one of the reasons it's important to incorporate food and eating into our spiritual practice. Even view it as a spiritual practice. We don't have the luxury of being unconscious about our eating, when eating too far outside our limits makes us sick.

If you're thinking it's not fair, you're right. It's not fair.

But it's what is. And what a spiritual practice can do is help us shift our focus to what's useful and true. Less on what gets us nowhere.

Here are a few statistics from Project-Meditation.org:
• 75% of insomniacs who started a daily meditation program were able to fall asleep within 20 minutes of going to bed.
• Production of the stress hormone Cortisol is greatly decreased, thus making it possible for those people to deal with stress better when it occurs.
• Women with PMS showed symptom improvements after 5 months of steady daily rumination and reflection.
However a spiritual practice might look in your life, whether that might be meditation, prayer, singing, dancing, mindful cooking and eating, or all of the above, it's clear that there are very real health benefits to be had. Think of what a valuable adjunct to good nutrition this is!

We always need to be kind to ourselves, and realize it's hard to have to take such care with our food. We may need to grieve the loss of certain flavors and textures we associate with comfort and happiness. This is part of the process of coming to terms with the reality of our lives. It is not always as we would wish it.

And we need to tap in a bit deeper, to the real love and kind regard we hold ourselves in. It's there. It's the longing for a deeper happiness.

It's easier to find when our health is stabilized. And tapping into it intentionally helps us get our health stabilized, by helping us make clearer decisions. Truly life affirming decisions.

From this place, you may find yourself noticing how incredibly delicious fresh vegetables are, simple soups, herbs, coconut yogurt,... you may find the 'replacement' foods have an identity in their own right on your tongue and in your belly. And they are magical in their utter reality and rightness.

May it be so. And may all beings be well nourished and happy.

Frozen Coconut Yogurt

Ingredients:

• o 14 oz coconut yogurt (1 can of coconut milk made into yogurt)
• o 2 eggs of choice, chicken or duck (optional)
• o 1 _ tsp vanilla, preferably glycerin based, or powdered vanilla
• o 15 drops stevia extract, preferably glycerin or water based
• o Optional add ins: 1 - 2 Tbsp raw cacao powder, a handful or two of berries, a handful of shredded coconut, nuts, or a swirl of nut butter of choice

Directions:
Mix the first four ingredients together in a bowl, and whisk until smooth. If using the cacao powder, mix it in now.

If you have an ice cream maker, follow the manufacturer's instructions.

If using a Champion juicer or food processor, pour the mixture into ice cube trays. You'll probably need two. Freeze well.

Pass through the juicer with the blank plate on it. Mix in any optional add ins. Serve immediately.

Or, mix in a food processor, adding a little more coconut yogurt if needed to get the frozen yogurt smooth. Mix in add ins. This might need to be returned to the freezer for a little while to firm up.

Options:
o Use coconut milk instead of coconut yogurt.
o Make the liquid mixture into a custard before freezing by heating it slowly in a double boiler until thickened.
o Use fresh vanilla bean - split a vanilla bean from end to end and scrape the seeds and pith out of it. Steep it in warm coconut milk or yogurt for a few minutes. Whisk the seeds into the mixture to blend as well as possible.

I usually love the chocolate version of anything, but I have to say the vanilla is outrageously delicious.

Healing as a Journey

The word 'healing' may bring up the idea that there is an end to the journey. It will inevitably end with 'healed'.

This idea may not serve us well. It emphasizes a goal, an end product. If our focus is too much on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, we are likely to miss the sweetness and lessons learned along the path.

This may be hard to read - what is there to value in the journey of illness? It's painful! Isn't it natural to want to get OUT of illness as quickly as possible?

Perhaps - but this way of thinking can lead to treating our bodies like cars - when it's broken, bring it to the mechanic. When it's 'fixed', drive it like you drove it before.

Our bodies are a vehicle through which the world communicates to us. It sends us clear messages. If something we are so intimate with, that is a large part of who we are, is trying to talk to us, isn't it a good idea to listen?

I'm in no way suggesting that you not visit a health care professional if you or your child is ill. What I am suggesting is that you also ask, what is happening here? What is the bigger picture? What is asking for attention?

You can view it as a dream interpretation - what is the symbolism? Is the part of my life that I use this part of my body with out of balance?

I deal with fatigue. I can 'fix' that with caffeine. It often seems like the easiest route, have a cup of tea, or coffee, and there is instant energy! Hallelujah!

Coffee statistics show that among coffee drinkers the average consumption in the United States is 3.1 cups of coffee per day. And over 50% of Americans are coffee drinkers. It seems I am not alone in seeking a quick solution to fatigue.

Years down the line however, it seemed evident that the quick fix was taking it's toll on my body in various ways. Adrenals, thyroid depleted. Hmmm, rethinking caffeine....

On deeper examination I wonder more about how I push to get things done in my life. And I wonder if I didn't push, would I feel the need for caffeine? What if I went to sleep at a reasonable hour regularly? What if I questioned the thought that I have to get things done exactly so, or by a certain time?

And, as we've seen, I am not the only one who has depended on caffeine to get through my days. What does that say about our culture in general? About how we go about our lives?

Before Thomas Edison's invention of the light bulb, people slept an average of 10 hours a night; today Americans get an average 6.9 hours of sleep on weeknights and 7.5 hours per night on weekends (NSF's 2002 Sleep in America poll).

So, this examination of how I approach doing becomes an examination of other forces that come to bear on my life. My expectations. The dominant culture's expectations. It can become much less personal, can give one a larger perspective.

The key here is curiosity. And acceptance.

What if we can't 'fix' the ailment? What then? What if 'healing' were the whole journey? What if the entire culture suffers? Many health challenges are widespread. How far outside the culture can we go without creating another imbalance of the soul?

I'm not suggesting succumbing to defeatism. And healing the culture is one of my passions. But change happens most gracefully when we accept the place where we begin. And, like it or not, we are at the very least affected by our culture, if not a product of it.

Eyes open, let's make changes with full acknowledgement of our place in the world. Our humanness, our fragility, and our strength. We know where the journey ends for us all, but we have no idea where it will lead us on the way. Can we walk that road with curiosity and willingness? The more open we are, the more relaxed. The more relaxed we are, the better we are able to see the path ahead of us. See what messages our discomfort is giving us. And the better able to act on the information we receive.

The Buddha said ‘Within this fathom long body is the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world and the path leading to the cessation of the world.’ He didn’t say ‘only in healthy bodies’ or ‘only in perfect bodies’. He was pointing to waking up here and now, in this body. As it is.

And, for those of us whose bodies are clearly saying NO to dairy....

Nut Milk
Gluten free, dairy free, salicylate free (if using hazelnuts), low carb (if using stevia)

Ingredients:
1 cup nut of choice - I like almond or hazelnut. Cashews make a delicious one, but there’s a lot of buzz about cashews having mold, so know that.
1 tsp salt
2 cups non-chlorinated, non-flouridated water, plus water for soaking
Stevia, or dates, to taste

Directions:
Soak the nuts for 6 - 8 hours in a jar with the salt and enough water to cover. Drain and rinse.

Place the soaked nuts in a blender with the measured water. Blend for at least 2 minutes, longer if you can stand the noise. You want the nuts to be as smooth as possible.

Strain the milk through a nut milk bag, a jelly making bag, or a gold filter. Squeeze or press the pulp to remove as much of the liquid as possible.

Sweeten the milk with a few drops of stevia. Some people throw a couple pitted dates in the blender while it’s whirring to sweeten.

Enjoy!

Note: the nut pulp can be used in baked items, or to make nut cheese. I’ll post that recipe another time.

This post is a part of Real Food Wednesdays with Kelly the Kitchen Kop!

Into the Kitchen!

Recipe: Coconut yogurt

I love to eat out. The idea of being seated at a clean table, having water poured for me, asked what I would like, asked if everything is okay with the meal... it’s the closest I’ll ever be to queendom. (I can dream, can’t I?)

I used to eat out 3 or 4 times a week. I cooked for a living, and the last thing I felt like doing when I got home was to go into the kitchen. I was single, I was carefree, I was homeless by choice for quite a while, no responsibilities except my personal growth and my job. Which, believe me, were as much as I could handle for an embarrassingly long time. I sometimes long for those days. Not very much, anymore.

Times are different now. We have food sensitivities to deal with that make eating out a bit of an ordeal. And we’ve learned what really good, real food tastes and feels like in our bodies.

Not to mention the cost! We won’t go into that. Too depressing.

Okay, we have to go into that. Not just the cost of eating out, but the cost of eating well. You can eat out inexpensively, as we all know, but the cost to our health is exorbitant. Go here

And eating really well when eating out isn’t always easy, when you start to understand what real food is. And isn’t. Good food preparation that really maximizes it’s value to your health has been forgotten for the most part. And when you have eaten well for some time, it becomes evident. I’ll never forget my husband coming home after a lunch date with a colleague and reporting that I’d ‘ruined him for restaurant food. I looked at my plate and it was all DEAD!’ And the call I received the last time he was gone for a week at a retreat center. ‘I miss your bone broth,’ he moaned.

I still love to go out, don’t get me wrong. And I find we do better at ethnic restaurants that serve traditional foods - often easier to avoid wheat and dairy, and they sometimes use traditional cooking methods. Fermented grains. Long cooked broths. Fermented veggies. Even raw meats.

Truly upscale restaurants can work, too - I can’t wait to try one of the few I’ve heard about that specialize in offal! And the escargot buried in butter and duck confit I had at Carafe Bistro... mmmmmm.

But that’s not what I want to write about. Because we can’t eat out like we used to, although I obviously still dream about it.

We also can’t afford to buy good food, REAL food, at the grocery store that much. Especially prepared foods. Pastured ghee for $10 a pint. Live sauerkraut for $7 per 8 ounce jar. We’re talking cabbage and salt, folks. Kim chi - $10 for 8 ounces. Raw nut butters for $15 a pint. Gluten free bread anywhere from $5 - $8 a loaf. And it’s not even that tasty.

I’m on a mission. It’s utterly obnoxious to some, but apparently inspiring to others. Thank God!

It was inspiring to ME after my last class to hear from the participants - Diana had 3 gallons of fermented veggies set on the counter to bubble. Had a chicken in the crock pot for the better part of a day, and froze the stock. (I had some of the Ethiopian chicken she made out of the meat, oh my god, I didn’t have to die to get to heaven right there....) Is now experimenting with adding an ancient wheat grain to her sourdough to see if she can tolerate it after it’s fermented.

After some tinkering Lois made the best textured gluten free bread she says she’s ever had. She wants to tinker with the flavor a bit, but she’s excited and encouraged. Her family is new to gluten free life, and she had thrown her hands up and laughed at her first attempt to make bread - she described it as a ‘dense cracker loaf that must have weighed 10 pounds’!

Allison and her mom Jody passed the sourdough back and forth between their houses to get yeasts from both their homes in their new pet ‘Stinky’.

I hear these stories and I honestly find myself weeping. I was sharing with a group of women last night, who share my passion for nutrition and health, that I find myself breaking down in grief occasionally when I get a positive response from people about my offerings. I have felt like I was CRAZY for years now, being so out of sync in a culture that doesn’t value nourishment to it’s full depth and breadth. Swimming upstream is really hard to do alone.

I’m only one voice. But I’m not alone. I’ve learned from some amazing people online, on lists, on blogs, in books. And to be able to turn around and pass it along is such a gift.

Oh, I forgot my original point - If you make it yourself, you can really save a bundle. Cut out the middle man - fermented veggies are just veggies, salt and time. Sourdough starter is just flour and water... and time. Coconut yogurt is just coconut milk, and starter... and time. Bone broth - bones, water, heat and.... you guessed it.... time.


Coconut Yogurt
Gluten free, dairy free, salicylate free, low carb friendly

The probiotic cultures can be ordered online, just google the names. Personally I did not like the flavor of the yogurt made from the store bought coconut yogurt, but others have found it tasty. What to say.

I recommend the Native Forest brand coconut milk, as it is the only one I know of that has no BPA in the lining of the cans.

Ingredients:
1 can coconut milk of choice - Native Forest brand recommended
yogurt culture of choice - Custom Probiotics, HMF superpowder, or another coconut yogurt with live cultures.

Directions:
Pour a little coconut milk into a pint sized mason jar. Mix in culture of choice - a smidgeon of the Custom Probiotic, a quarter tsp of the HMF powder, or a couple of Tbsp of the commercial coconut yogurt. Add the rest of the coconut milk. Cap tightly. Shake well.

Keep warm in a yogurt warmer, in an oven with the light or pilot on, in a dehydrator set at about 95 - 100 degrees, or wrapped in a warm heating pad. Shake occasionally. Yogurt will be mild after one day, a little more tart after two.

Alternate method - mix in culture of choice as described above and shake well. Leave at room temperature for 4 days, shaking occasionally. This will get VERY thick - too thick for my liking!

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday, by Cheeseslave, and Fight Back Friday by Food Renegade!

A Little Bare Foot

Recipe: Ghee

The New Year. It starts with a bang and rush to DO! Kids are back in school, slower routines are suddenly back in the fast lane, and it’s back to ‘business as usual’.

I’ve had to deal with a sense of urgency to ‘get things rolling’. The pusher in my head has a lot of great ideas about the class I’ll be teaching, the sourdough sticky buns I’ve been wanting to experiment with, the kimchi I need to get fermenting so it’s ready for class in a couple of weekends, the newsletter, the website, the sample coaching sessions I want to set up, the meetings I want to have with colleagues, ... the list is endless. Phone calls, emails, projects.

The really important things in life can get squeezed out in the urgency to produce. To do.

There’s a spiritual teacher I’ve spent time with who works on addressing our culture’s obsession with doing by recommending short moments of meditation practice as often as possible. Short moments. Walking down the hall to the bathroom, check in with your bodily sensations, the feet touching the floor, the feeling of your clothes touching your body. Standing in line at the grocery store. Waiting at a red light. What do you see, hear, smell, taste, touch? What do things really look like, sound like, smell like, taste like, feel like? Let the story in your head fall away, and just be present to the senses.

Time is tight for most of us, so much on our plate to accomplish. I find myself grumpy when my youngest crawls in bed with us in the middle of the night. My sleep is interrupted, he pulls the blankets off me, I got to sleep late anyway, I’ll be tired in the morning, I have a coaching session in the morning and lunch with a colleague I admire, I’ll be tired, I won’t function well, why can’t he sleep in his own bed! And suddenly there's a story I’m living, rife with frustration, judgement, chronic exhaustion, fear of failure, and overwhelm.

And then I stop. Short moments. A little bare foot on my back, warm and soft. Sounds of soft breathing. A train whistle in the distance. Short moments.

I take the moment to, fairly quickly, run through a visualization I used to do regularly sometime back. A Tibetan purification. I’m convinced it kept me free of infection years ago when I was in the hospital with ruptured membranes with my first born. Three weeks free of infection, giving him three weeks more time to bake. 10 weeks premature is a lot more hopeful than 13 weeks. I got tired of keeping it up, though, and when I dropped off on the practice, I developed an infection, and born he was.

Tiredness is a state than can be worked with. It’s a kind of a toxin, often purified by rest and sleep. And short moments of practice are a form of rest.

Feeling that little warm foot on my back and running through the visualization, I soon found I was ready to get up. I was calm and clear headed. Perhaps not totally rested, but certainly feeling ready for my day.

Sometimes I find my thought patterns are like a sumo wrestler trying to pin my life to the ground and MAKE it work the way I think it should. It’s a pattern full of effort and force. And it’s been a thread through many years.

I was musing over that and it’s similarity to how I’ve learned to make sauerkraut. The traditional instructions for sauerkraut call for slicing the cabbage, adding the salt, and then pounding the hell out of it until it gives up it’s water. It’s a lot of hard work.

Then I discovered that if you add the salt and leave it alone for a while, when you come back and toss it gently, there’s a pool of water sitting in the bottom of the bowl. Stuff it into a jar and push down firmly, and the water rises up above the level of the vegetable, just the way it’s supposed to.

Or take ghee. Clarified butter. Like the light of attention in a moment, all we have to do is apply gentle heat, and the butter clarifies of itself. When the popping sounds stop, it’s done. Crystal clear. Yes, you can skim the foam off the top, stir it, hover over it - but it’s not necessary. If you just listen for the sounds to change, and remember when to turn it off, everything is fine. Strain it. Done.

Have a great day. Don’t forget to hug your kids. And your partner. And your dog or cat. We’re herd animals, let your body have the contact. It’s as deeply nourishing as good food.


Ghee
gluten, dairy (for the most part), salicylate free, low carb, grain free

Ghee is often tolerated by those with dairy intolerance. Not all! Please pay attention to symptoms. It’s a fairly high heat fat, and I use it for a lot of my cooking. If made with butter from grassfed cows, it’s a good source of Omega 3 and vitamin K2, and will help with the absorption of vitamins A and D. Kerrygold is a good choice if you don’t have access to local grassfed butter. And Trader Joe’s usually has the best price on Kerrygold.


Ingredients:

1 pound unsalted butter from grassfed cows.


Directions:

Place the butter in a clean, stainless steel pot. Heat gently over a low flame. When the butter is liquified and gets hot you’ll begin to hear the popping sound of the liquid evaporating out of the fat. Stir it occasionally if you like, but it’s not really necessary. Skim the foam off the top if you like, but it’s not really necessary. When you can see through the ghee and the popping sounds quiet down, it’s done. Take it off the heat, cool it for a half an hour or so, and strain it through a metal tea filter or a ‘Gold filter’, the reusable coffee filters that come from Switzerland, and make terrible coffee. I’m so glad I finally found a good use for mine.

Kicking and Screaming

Recipe: Morning Meat Soup

I find it much easier to get to the point of organizing around my children’s health than my own. The responsibility is so clear and direct, the intention and willingness rise of their own accord in mysterious ways. I’m not professing to be a perfect parent by any means, but once something is clear, I make effort in the direction of health, be that physical, mental or emotional.

For myself, the water is not so clear. It takes me a lot more convincing. And once convinced, I find often I either back in, or I actually have to be knocked to my knees to make the change.

I had a holistic health care professional get pretty fiercely in my face at one point and tell me “Type O blood types don’t like to be told what to do!” and I should really make the changes she was recommending.

She was right. I didn’t like being told what to do one little bit. In fact, I resented her attitude for weeks.

I did go off gluten, though. As she and her partner pointed out, I was already cooking that way for the kids, it wasn’t a big stretch to just start doing it for the whole family.

It was a small concession to the list of changes they were recommending I make. Eliminate grains entirely? She suggested I eat soup with meat in it for breakfast! What a crackpot.

Eliminating the gluten was a digestive revelation. Oh, wait, I’d had that before when I’d gone on the elimination diet when my youngest was breastfeeding. I’d quickly decided it was unimportant in the entire scheme of things. Some things. I’m not sure which things right now, but something convinced me it was okay to ignore my symptoms.

I coasted on the gluten free life for a while. I went to India for a two week visit and decided I wouldn’t burden the family I was staying with by telling them I couldn’t eat it. My ankles swelled painfully and didn’t recede until I arrived back in the US.

I got it, this was a serious health issue.

As was the constant fatigue I still experienced. I couldn’t blame it on being an old mom to young kids anymore - I’d stopped breastfeeding and they were mostly sleeping through the nights. Sure, adrenaline could get me through many of the major things I needed to do, but I dragged myself out of bed in the mornings and was grumpy with my kids and husband. A lot. More than I still like to admit to myself. My labido was practically non-existent. I wasn’t really much fun to be around. Especially for myself.

Dr Robbie, as we call him, was our D.O. Bless him, he took up the detective work. Blood panels, questionaires, supplements tried.... Thyroid, DHEA, adrenals - all insufficient. Short term memory and name recall practically non-existent, brain fog, floaters. A controversial Lyme test positive, ....

He wanted to build me up. If we decided to treat the Lyme, he wanted me in the best health possible, my immune system strong, anything out of order addressed. Whatever could not be addressed by the general and specific health improvements he asked me to work on would be how the Lyme was manifesting.

I could go with that. He wasn’t asking me to slam myself with antibiotics for six months to a year, he was asking me to get healthier, build up my immune system. I’d have time to think about whether I even believed in this Lyme thing.

The idea of feeling better was really attractive at that point. I can’t begin to describe how good feeling better was sounding.

Supplements, supplements, more sleep, off coffee and tea (for the fifth or sixth time in my life - when will I get the message?), more supplements, .... I was better, but still tired. Foggy. My kids still finished most of my sentences for me.

Six months into this treatment he asked my how my belly felt. I told him it was always a little tender. He palpated.

Asked me to go on a candida diet.

I was on my knees.

Not satisfied with the standard candida diet he suggested, I did research. If these little yeasties eat carbs, why did the standard diet have rice and other grains in it? Made no sense. If I was going to do something this radical, I was going to do it right, god damn it.

I went on an extremely low carb regimen. No grains. No potatoes. No fruit. No brewed, yeasted or mold foods. No sugars, even natural ones. Not even any starchy veggies, like carrots or beets. One website that seemed pretty on track for candida suggested high doses of coconut oil, garlic, onions, and Pau D’arco tea. I went for it.

I thought my older boy’s diet was restrictive! Sheesh.

And, after about a week of feeling like a truck had run over me (from die off, I was told), and learning that epsom salt baths are a new necessity in my life for detoxing the dying candida, I was suddenly able to get out of bed in the morning without thinking twice. Get through the afternoon steadily and happily. I didn’t have a ton of energy, but it was even and I felt awake.

Being the avid reader that I’ve become around health issues, I started to research low carb living. And the science I’m reading is pointing to grains being unnatural in the human diet. All grains. Period. Even‘properly prepared’, meaning soaked, sprouted or fermented. Humans didn’t evolve eating them. The agricultural revolution only hit 10 or 12 thousand years ago, and I’ve read that it takes anywhere from 40 to 100 thousand years for a real genetic adaptation to occur to a change in the environment, such as a radical change in diet. Grains have allowed us to increase our population, but at a cost.

I highly recommend Nora Gedgaudas’ book ‘Primal Body, Primal Mind’ for a fairly dense, but quite readable explanation of this topic. She’s even got a quirky sense of humor wound through it to keep it interesting for non-geeks. (I’m claiming geekhood here.)

When I’m sure the candida is under control, I may reintroduce some of the brewed foods and fruit, but I can’t say I have any interest in the grains.

I’m still teaching classes that include how to use grains and other carbs. When I disclose that I “don’t eat the stuff, personally”, and explain why, I’m sometimes asked why I don’t cook that way for my family.

It’s a really good question. The first time I was asked, I responded that it was just too far outside the culture to demand. Just going gluten free, and half of us dairy free was pushing that envelope enough, I thought.

The question hovers in my mind. And my response has deepened.

I feel comfortable with the expectation that my children comply with adjustments due to overt food sensitivities or allergies. My eldest was not functioning at school. My youngest had severe gastric reactions. It’s my responsibility to take care of their health to the best of my ability in ways that we can live with.

Abandoning grains and other carbs entirely for a general, somewhat philosophical reason, in my view, requires a choice. And I’m exquisitely aware that if children are controlled too tightly in an area such as this, when they reach a more independent age - may choose to act out with a vengeance.

I couldn’t even force myself to make these changes until I was literally brought to my knees! And I had ample and repeated evidence that my health required it.

A woman I spoke with recently told me a story - her naturopath had encouraged her to remove gluten from her diet. She had for a while, and then gradually began to eat it again. When she went to see her naturopath again, she was asked ‘why?’

She and I looked at each other and laughed. Because it’s really hard! There’s a powerful cultural current that includes gluten as it's entire basis. ‘The Cradle of Civilization’ infers the rise of agriculture, and that’s usually thought of as wheat and rye, grains that were made into breads - the ‘Staff of Life’.

It’s just a lot easier to float downstream.

We’re starting to give my older boy the choice to break his particular regimen occasionally if he’s willing to take responsibility for the outcome. Meaning, if he gets too wild for the rest of the family to handle he either goes outside to run it off, or he goes to his room where he can make faces in the mirror in peace. (Our peace.)

We’re finding he generally makes intelligent choices. Tries small amounts of things. Really checks in with himself to see how much he wants something. Usually forgets about ‘treats’ we have stashed for him from special occasions.

I’ve introduced many general health changes into our home diet, but generally we eat in a fairly recognisable, whole foods form. My husband no longer looks at me suspiciously every time I open a conversation with “you know what I was reading today?” I may still tweak food preparation techniques to enhance digestibility, and I’ll always add new foods out of sheer boredom, but I’ve reached the edge of the fundamental changes I’ll ask my family to make. The rest needs to be by example, and they’ll follow, or not.

And sometimes my youngest will have some of my meat soup. For breakfast.

It’s a spiritual experience, that morning meat soup. Blissful surrender. To my personal reality.


Morning Meat Soup (or afternoon, or evening...)

This is probably one of the simplest and least specific recipes I’ll post. And one of the tastiest!

2 - 3 oz ground or chopped pastured meat of choice - beef, chicken, turkey, lamb, ... fresh or leftovers
1 Tbsp grass fed ghee, butter or coconut oil
1 - 2 cloves minced garlic
handful of chopped organic veggies of choice - greens, broccoli, cauliflower, onion, ...
3 - 4 oz bone broth of choice - preferably matching the type of meat in the soup
a splash more water if needed to bring to soup consistency
Himalayan pink or Celtic sea salt to taste
1 tsp - 3 Tbsp virgin coconut oil depending on your tolerance
1 Tbsp herbed pesto or pinch of other herb or spice mix of choice

Saute the meat in ghee or butter until barely cooked. Add the onion if using and saute a minute more. Add the vegetable, bone broth and dry spices or herbs if using. Bring to a simmer and cover. Cook 2 - 3 minutes.

Add the coconut oil, fresh garlic and pesto, if using, to your eating bowl. Pour the soup in when ready. Add salt to taste, and pepper if you like. Stir and enjoy.


A note about the coconut oil, it’s a powerful anti fungal, antibacterial, antiviral and a few other things I may be forgetting. And if you’re not used to eating it, you need to build up to larger amounts slowly or you’ll feel pretty funky. Start at 1 tsp a day for 5 days, increase by 1 tsp for another five days, and so on. And no, it won’t make you gain weight! I’ve lost 20 pounds eating 6 Tbsp a day for the last 8 months. I'll write another time about the wonders of coconut oil....

If you teach me, I can do anything

Recipe: Black Bean Brownies

The question of ‘is it worth eating’ became more acute when I had children. It soon became clear that feeding them what most other kids were eating wasn’t working. They both spit up all over everything and everyone in geysers, had chronic diarrhea, my oldest couldn’t sit still for more than a minute at a time on a good day, my youngest had intermittent diaper rash that looked like a chemical burn.

Tired of the constant smell of baby vomit, I began to read. Visited holistic health practitioners. Looked everywhere I could think of in search of something to help.

Going on an elimination diet myself to see if I could alleviate my younger son’s reflux and diaper rash in reaction to my milk, I found the answer. Hallelujah! The reflux was caused by anything with flavor. Except salt. He was okay with salt. Otherwise what worked to calm down his belly was chicken, rice, avocado and romaine lettuce. The diaper rash was caused by gluten. That’s wheat, rye, barley, and some oats.

We tried taking gluten out of my older boy’s diet, too, and found his diarrhea cleared up. We were onto something.

The discovery I wasn’t so thrilled about, came when I challenged the elimination diet to see what my youngest reacted to.

I reacted to the dairy and gluten. Immediately.

I decided to ignore it.

As my son grew older and wasn’t depending on my milk for as much of his nourishment, I began to eat more freely.

Especially as it became evident that my oldest was in need of some intervention. I eat when under stress.

He was in kindergarten at our local Waldorf school, and his teacher said she wasn’t sure how he was going to manage first grade. He wasn’t required to sit at a desk in Kindergarten, so the fact that he couldn’t focus for longer than three seconds on a task wasn’t an issue. But first grade would be a different matter.

I did an internet search using his symptoms as the parameters, and got hit after hit on ADHD. I didn’t like it. My husband didn’t believe it. But we couldn’t ignore it.

I read everything I could. My instinct is to avoid drugs whenever possible, and totally value them when they become necessary. And I wasn’t convinced that ADHD automatically equalled ritalin, or whatever other pharmaceutical was being offered kids with this diagnosis. In fact, I wasn’t even planning to tell our doctor if I could avoid it. Besides which, after all the research I was doing it became clear that ‘ADHD’ was just an umbrella diagnosis that was used for so many different issues that people could have - sensory processing issues, lack of vestibular development, sleep apnea, food intolerances... the list went on.

Fish oil, probiotics, magnesium, homeopathics, and avoiding sugar were all pieces of advice that were easily implemented. And didn’t show much results. Some, but not very dramatic.

When I shared that a glass of juice sent him careening out of his dinner seat to do manic gyrations on the living room carpet, someone recommended the Feingold program. The juice contained something called salicylates (isn’t that aspirin?), and artificial additives were likely to be problematic for him as well if he was having trouble with this compound.

I was in despair. Frustrated. Tired. I’d break into tears at the drop of a hat, unrelated to the time of the month. Why couldn’t it be simple?

But, he was my son. I’d nursed him through dire emergencies before, and I could figure this one out, too.

If you teach me, I can do anything.

Within five days of starting the program, which is a strangely restrictive elimination diet avoiding, among other things, artificial additives, peppers, cucumbers, almonds, stone fruit and berries, apples, grapes, and all derivitives of the above, he...

Calmed Down.

We almost didn’t know what to do. We’d gotten so used to this constant chaotic kinetic force in our home, it was a little bewildering at first.

About a week later his teacher said ‘what did you do to this child?’. We’d told her we were changing his diet (again), but even with that information, she couldn’t believe the dramatic results.

It took about a month or more to completely integrate the new regimen into our household. I learned to read the ingredient lists on all foods I bought. I had to shop with the Feingold shopping guide listing researched products, because so many of the offending substances were listed simply as ‘spices’ or ‘flavors’, or were used to treat the packaging and not the food itself, and so were not listed at all. A fifteen minute shopping trip became a 45 minute to one hour ordeal, with a two and six year old in tow. I was staying up until one or two in the morning every night to research. Research. Research.

I was exhausted.

But, as mentioned before, if you teach me, I can do anything. And, cook that I am, I figured out how to make it taste good.

He’s a third grader now, still on the program, and doing extremely well. He still has a ton of energy, but he’s learning how to channel it productively. He’s bright, and very present. A frighteningly talented musician.

And a touch of paprika will still send him bouncing off the first and second walls he meets, and disturb his sleep for two nights.

He’s one of my heroes. His willingness to stick with the program, and learn about himself and how to manage his energy is humbling. I don’t have half the discipline he has in terms of my own eating restrictions (remember the ‘I ignored it’ comment above). I feel sad when I reflect that he has not had the carefree childhood I would have wished for him. I wish more was in my control. I wish I had more patience with his wild edges. But the fact is evident to both of us, we can only do our best. Perfection is a fantasy. And he knows I’m his ally.

And, he thanks me often for making it taste good.

I made these last weekend. I’d been hearing about them for a few months, and finally had to try them.


Black Bean Brownies
gluten, grain, dairy (if you use the coconut oil) and salicylate free. Not low carb.

4 oz unsweetened chocolate, or 1/4 cup raw cacao powder, or 1/3 cup toasted carob powder
1 cup butter (grass fed, if possible) or coconut oil
2 cups black beans, cooked until soft and drained (canned is fine, but sprouted before cooking is the best)
1 cup chopped walnuts, pecans or other nut of choice (I used Brazil nuts)
1 tbsp vanilla
1/2 tsp sea salt
4 eggs
1/2 cup maple syrup or other sweetener of choice

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Grease and line a 11"x18" pan with parchment paper. Or use greased muffin tins.

If using the chocolate, melt with the butter or oil in a double boiler. If using a powder 'chocolate' just melt the oil on the stove.

In food processor, puree the beans, vanilla, chocolate mix or powder, melted butter, salt and maple syrup, scraping down as necessary to make sure it’s all well mashed.

Whip the eggs until creamy.

Mix everything together.

Spread it in the pan or muffin tin (about 1.5 dozen muffins). Cook 30 - 40 minutes until set. Cool, then refrigerate. They will remain pretty soft until chilled.

Tell me if you make them!

My kids said the carob was their favorite, and the raw cacao their least. Tom liked the chocolate the best, and the raw cacao the least. (yes, I made all three)