Suggestions on Crackers, Bread, Cereals, etc.

Suggestions on Crackers, Bread, Cereals, etc.

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Suggestions on Crackers, Bread, Cereals, etc.

BREADS: These days, breads comprise less than 5% of my diet. I sometimes like to make my own gluten free, cultured, quick breads with my grain mill. And, because I can tolerate wheat, if I ever buy bread, I’m sure to get a sprouted grain bread, or a true sourdough. As far as packaged, gluten-free breads, I think Canyon House Bakery does the best job. Udi’s & Rudi’s are good brands too.

CEREALS: As far as cereals, I quit buying packaged cereals years ago, as even the brands at natural food stores are usually ultra processed and pretty high glycemic. The shorter the ingredient list and less grams of sugar per serving, the better. For my morning cereal these days, I like to scoop some of my leftover short grain brown rice or millet or quinoa into a bowl and then add fresh raw nuts and diced seasonal fruit. Warming the grain with a bit of water, butter or coconut oil, ground spices like nutmeg and/or cinnamon, and maybe a bit of maple syrup or stevia with diced fruit and nuts is a whole other level of awesomeness. Here’s a fantastic recipe I call “Apple Pie Rice”.

Apple Pie RiceAPPLE PIE DELIGHT RECIPE

This is a low-glycemic treat – better for you than apple pie, and tastes twice as good! In a small saucepan over low heat add 1/2 cup water and 2 cups  brown rice (or ANY pre-cooked whole grain), 2Tbsp butter or coconut oil, ½tsp whole sea salt, 1tsp pumpkin pie spice and ½ tsp allspice. Simmer & stir for 3 minutes or so, adding more water if it’s too thick for you). Turn off heat & add 12 drops Sweet Leaf brand English Toffee stevia (1 tsp grade B maple syrup or raw honey if not using stevia). Stir until mixed well & add 1 medium diced fresh apple. Enjoy warm, and top individual servings with pecans, walnuts or almonds and possibly….raspberry drizzle! Here’s how to whip it up: in a small bowl mix the juice of 1 ripe lemon (Meyer lemon is best), 8 drops Nu Naturals vanilla stevia & 1 cup mashed raspberries from fresh or frozen. Wow! That tastes like apple pie with a raspberry drizzle!

TORTILLAS: Making handmade corn tortillas is easy with a tortilla press. Using an organic cornmeal that’s as freshly ground as possible is ideal. I’ve found that making tortillas with other types of gluten free grains is totally complicated and not worth the effort. Getting them in packages is affordable and quick. Here’s the brands with no hydrogenated oils or refined salt, etc: I like the Ezekiel multi-grain sprouted tortillas, but they do have sprouted wheat. Sprouted wheat actually doesn’t bother many wheat-sensitive people because it’s sprouted. For totally non-wheat and non-corn tortillas, Rudi’s and Canyon House Bakery brands make great products. My favorite packaged corn tortillas are the Ezekiel organic sprouted corn tortillas. They have very simple ingredients, they hold together well (unlike Beau Natural brand) and they stay soft for a while after heating (they don’t turn into a tough frisby immediately like the rice flour tortillas do).

CRACKERS: There are all kinds of whole food crackers and raw crackers like flax crackers which can be found online and made in a food-dehydrator. They don’t have a classic cracker taste or crunch though. For packaged, gluten-free crackers with decent flavor, texture, and are satisfying, I like Mary’s Gone Crackers. Sunshine Health Foods in Morro Bay has them for under $5.

The 80/20 Principles

The 80/20 Principles

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There are several principals I’ve adopted over the years, from the ancient philosophies of macrobiotics and Ayurveda, which have helped me to maintain a disease-free body with a healthy blood pH, better moods, and great digestion. These principals revolve around the ratio of 80:20. I encourage you to try some of them on for size, and see if you experience any pleasant surprises like your weight normalizing, or chronic symptoms disappearing for good!

The first 80/20 principal is this; if you’re feeling well and healthy and in balance, let 80% of your diet be whole foods, and the other 20% be an emotionally soothing deviation. Food has strong emotional effects, and also serves as a wonderful social bonding medium. In a stressful time, we may need to just go out to eat or have a sweet treat at a party, for the sake of preserving our sanity. When you do deviate from your whole foods diet, see it as an experience that feeds your soul, not as an unhealthy mistake. This is important to remember because the emotions you experience while eating are almost as important as what you’re eating. Just say to yourself, “everything I eat turns to health and beauty”, and if you truly believe it, it’ll be way more likely to be so…I love quantum physics! (more…)

Comfort Food, Human Connection, and Quantum Physics

Comfort Food, Human Connection, and Quantum Physics

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* Do you ever find yourself magnetically drawn to the chocolate section of your natural foods store?

* Do you ever think, “Awe, to hell with my whole food diet today…I need that croissant!”?

Pleasure foods can sometimes give us a very necessary, temporary relief, which can ground us in sense of safety, and help us move on with a stressful day. Sometimes, comfort foods simply help us access feelings of joy and gratitude. Let’s face it. The world is way too fast-paced, hectic, and even frightening. When the pressure builds, letting ourselves enjoy our favorite foods, gives us that short retreat of pleasure that we may need to quiet our negative thoughts, and remember that everything will be okay.

I’ve recently realized that, for many people, eating pleasure foods can be key to cultivating joy in life. For some people, it’s one of the few pleasures they have left. I’ve also seen that eating with others, is many people’s most common venue for sociability. I’ve come to understand this, after 18 years on my path of discovering which foods make me feel best, day to day, situation to situation, emotion to changing emotion.

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My 3 Favorite Breakfasts

My 3 Favorite Breakfasts

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SO MANY PEOPLE ask me what I eat for breakfast! Yes, I too have experienced breakfast as a HUGE key to whether or not I have enough energy throughout the day.

For me, deciding what to eat for breakfast basically breaks down to what kind of foods I feel like eating in the moment, which varies. Having the same thing every day would get old fast, and it wouldn’t serve my body’s need for diversity of nutrients and flavors. Usually, I want a couple of over-easy eggs with some steamed fennel bulb, carrot, and dark leafy greens topped with avocado and drizzled with lemon juice and olive oil. But often, I feel like having a complex carbohydrate-based breakfast on the sweet side…sweet, but still low-glycemic, which is when I choose one of the other two recipes below…Enjoy!

 

EGGS & GREENS 
When I want a protein and greens breakfast, I wash, cut and steam my veggies and greens (recipe below), turn them out onto a plate, drizzle high-quality olive oil and lemon juice, and set them aside. Then, I fry a couple of high-quality eggs over easy in my favorite cast iron pan, in either a teaspoon of butter or ghee. I usually set my eggs right on top of all the luscious veggies & greens & avocado, so that when I break into them with my fork, the rich yolk drips down onto the veggies. YUM! Eggs from pastured chickens are rich in omega 3 fatty acids, which are only bio-available when the yolk is left runny….how ‘bout that! (more…)

I Had No Idea My Adrenals Were Fatigued

I Had No Idea My Adrenals Were Fatigued

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My dear friend Don and I laughed harder than we had in weeks while we were driving together recently. Don was telling me how tired he’s been feeling lately; that when he wakes up in the morning, he feels about 80% as tired as when he laid down to go to sleep! I shook my head. We were stopped at a light behind a heavily bumper stickered car. Don said, “They should make a bumper sticker that says, ‘I wonder if Jesus was this tired too’.” And we laughed, even though we realized something was seriously wrong.

The Symptoms
A few months later, I was on the phone with a girlfriend, and she was telling me about her symptoms of adrenal fatigue. It was a bit scary when I realized that Don had been waking up feeling tired, I’d been getting tired around 1PM and needed either a nap or caffeine or sugar to make it through the rest of the day, and we both had been experiencing pounding hearts when lying down to nap or sleep. The other symptoms of adrenal fatigue are; loss of head hair, feeling rundown or overwhelmed, craving salty and sweet snacks, feeling more awake and energetic after 6PM than you do all day, slow to start in the morning, gastric ulcers, afternoon headaches, feeling full or bloated, blurred vision, unstable behavior, becoming shaky or light-headed if meals are missed or delayed, cannot stay asleep or cannot fall asleep, and dizziness when moving from sitting to standing or lying to standing.

 

What Causes Adrenal Fatigue? (more…)

Saturated Fats, Animal Proteins, and Micro Algae

Saturated Fats, Animal Proteins, and Micro Algae

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Grass Fed Taco TableI’ve had some symptoms of liver congestion recently, so I re-read the liver/gallbladder chapter of my favorite book, Healing With Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford. And, lo and behold, I discovered that I’ve been way too liberal with both red meats and saturated fats, for way too long.

For years now, I’ve been gleefully mounding heaping tablespoons of ghee and virgin coconut oil into my skillet, because I’m now eating a low glycemic, whole food diet. So, my metabolism has switched from burning sugars for energy to burning fats for energy, which is actually the way the human body is designed to run. I’ve been loving the flavors of using these whole, unrefined, saturated fats in my cooking, also because it’s now well known that the trans fats from not only hydrogenated oils, but also from the heating of refined vegetable oils (canola, corn, soybean, “vegetable” oils, etc.), which are used in most processed and restaurant foods, are what clog our arteries, especially in conjunction with too much saturated fat in the diet. You see, healthy indigenous people often eat as much as a 40% fat diet, with plenty of good saturated fats (and tons of vegetables), but they don’t eat cookies, crackers and chips. So, I’ve been likening myself to an indigenous Chumash woman in my diet, but I’ve stopped in my tracks with this fat-fest, after reading that too much saturated fat is really difficult for the liver & kidneys to process. Hmmm… (more…)