As I listened to several speakers at the Menopause Summit a few weeks ago, the idea that certain foods cause inflammation kept coming up again and again. These were medical doctors who moved to functional practices to widen the options for meeting the needs of their patients. Instead of a pill for every ill, they discovered that many imbalances can be addressed by removing certain foods from the diet.
They called these high intolerance foods: gluten, corn, soy, eggs, dairy, peanuts and artificial sweeteners - all the ones I had to remove from our family meals years ago for healing from autoimmune and leaky gut.
It can be so difficult to learn to cook a whole new way. Here are some substitutions we find work well to keep the flavours we love with a new set of ingredients!
Here's what I often use instead:
Gluten - can cause chronic inflammation that leads to symptoms like stubborn weight gain, bloating,
joint pain, and headaches.
Substitutes: millet flour, almond meal, coconut flour, arrowroot starch, gluten-free oats - millet flour is great for thickening and almond meal is a favourite base for baked goods like muffins and cookies. For noodles we like quinoa pasta for its texture and nourishment. We love these crackers: Simple Mills Almond Flour Crackers, 482 g | Costco (costcobusinesscentre.ca)
Corn - the highest GMO product that elevates blood sugars and causes inflammation.
Substitutes: Grain Free Tortilla Chips for nacho chips, Rice Wraps, Green Superfood Wraps, spiced almonds for snacks, protein bites
Soy - can mimic estrogens and cause hormone imbalance.
Substitutes: Almond Milk, Oat Milk, Milkadamia, Hemp Milk or Coconut Milk instead of Soy Milk. Try to find a version without food gums since their inclusion can create digestive problems. Chocolate without soy lecithin - Made Good Chocolate Chips, Cocoa Camino Chocolate is ethically sourced and fair trade. Mint chocolate lovers might join me in loving this one!
Eggs - can be an awesome source of quick, easy protein, but for many of us with chronic illness, they can be a source of abdominal cramping, fatigue, headaches and uncomfortable bloating.
In Baking, substitute: Flax Egg - 1 tbsp Flax Meal in 3 tbsp Water for baking recipes.
Dairy - If you have any of these symptoms: skin breakouts, sinus congestion, headaches, and gut issues - take a break from dairy for a few months to let it out of your system to see how you feel.
Substitutes: For Cheesy sauces try Coconut cream with pureed cashews in water. Sprinkle Yeast Extract like Parmesan on Spaghetti. Daiya has improved its flavour for a grated cheese option. The kinds of milk listed above work well on cereal as a milk substitute.
Peanuts - as a legume, they can often impact people with candida imbalance and create inflammation.
Substitute with other nuts and seeds. Costco has a great nut and seed blend that we love for flavour and better pricing. It works well to replace peanut butter in recipes. If nuts are an issue, look for a seed butter you can tolerate.
Artificial Sweeteners - sucralose or aspartame for sugar, you might be surprised to hear that they are linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other serious diseases. I also have to be careful with sugars or grains that convert to sugar due to the candida connection to chronic fatigue syndrome and Fibromyalgia.
Substitutes: Raw honey, Pure Maple Syrup, Stevia, Krisda Monk Fruit Natural Sweetener and Coconut Sugar.
Nightshades: - Eggplant, Tomato, Potato, Peppers are high in lectins and many people with autoimmune do best by limiting or eliminating them. A Comprehensive List of Nightshade Vegetables - Gundry MD
Cheers to eating to heal!
Here are some family favourite recipes that avoid these sensitivities:
For more on this topic, this is an excellent article: Top 10 Most Inflammatory Foods to Avoid - DrJockers.com
After visiting a friend who lives everyday from her hospital bed at home, I can't get our conversation out of my head. Everyday is a fight to stay alive for her. She has a timer that goes off to remind her to inject the medications that keep her stable into her IV tube. She is so knowledgeable - and has to be - since she is the only person we are aware of that lives with two extremely life threatening disorders. She compares her fight to the podcasts she loves from a Navy Seal recounting life and death struggles.
But it is not watching how proficient she is at caring for her complex needs that stands out, but her resilient spirit! And how she and her husband have created a home with huge picture windows so she can look out over the farm from her bed. They also designed the doorways wide enough to wheel her bed into the main floor rooms.
We were talking about purpose. She was having a low day as she contemplated her contribution to the world. She had so many dreams of ways to give and serve - and so many beautiful gifts to offer. Yet, her days have shrunk to survival.
As I listened, I so resonated with all she was saying. When I first got so sick with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I remember asking God if I was still part of the Body of Christ if I was a non functioning part. I remember the picture I got of how the body adapts to compensate for limits in any member. How my value didn't rest in my productivity. It was a relearning - 'to be' instead of just 'to do'.
I saw myself as a little girl striving to please her Father. I would run from the room to grab the drawing I made to show Him, or show off my latest ability: "Watch this!" Running - always running!
But Chronic Fatigue was my stop sign as I learned to realize that God was not less pleased with my stillness. That just being present with God and listening and learning was a vital life giving space.
My friend and I reminded each other of the short span of our life compared with eternity. That becoming who we are meant to be and learning to love the One who formed us is a great purpose.
In fact it lines up strongly with the greatest commandments that Jesus taught about: Love God. Love Others as Yourself. To grow more loving - to be in tune with God's creative plans and pray alongside them and watch them unfold - to be the best we can even in the midst of deep pain and suffering... to not lose sight of who we are even in our diminished state. To live in such a way that our life here is just an extension of "God's will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." To delight in goodness, beauty, purity, passion, creativity, reconciliation, justice and peace... This is purpose enough for all of us, I think.
My friend is a vibrant spirit big enough to fill a stadium... but confined to a tiny frail frame that disappoints and constrains her. One day we will shuffle off this mortal coil, and she will love the 'glorified body' she gets to trade for this temporary tent. Her spirit will be so unrestrained and free to express the expanse that is her.
Until then, each day here is a chance to keep that spirit alive - pliant, loving, and aligned with God's best in the gift of each day - even when we have to fight through pain and suffering - and hold one another up - to see it.
It can be tricky to navigate baking for our family. We have to avoid gluten, corn, soy, eggs, peanuts, dairy, and nightshades as we minimize sugars and grains. We lean heavily on coconut, nuts, meat and veggies in our meals - so our recipes aren't for those with nut allergies or vegetarians though we borrow our dairy substitutes from Vegan recipes.
But I am always experimenting with substitutions that can let us enjoy some of our favourite snacks, desserts and comfort foods while respecting our body's signals and work to heal from leaky gut (intestinal dysbiosis) that is often part of autoimmune disorders.
We cooked up our Halloween pumpkin and put most of it in the freezer - but I left 1 1/3 cups out to enjoy a double batch of pumpkin muffins!
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
GF, DF, Egg Free, Paleo
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 cups Almond Flour
- 1/4 cup Arrowroot Flour or Millet Flour
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1 tbsp Cinnamon
- 1 tsp Cloves
- 1 tsp Nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp Sea Salt
- 3 Flax Eggs (3 tbsp Ground Flax Seeds in 9 tbsp Water - let it sit to soak in the liquids)
- 1/4 cup smooth nut and seed butter - we use a great blend of Cashew, Almond, Chia Seeds, Sunflower Seeds, Pumpkin Seeds, and Hazelnut - by Nuts for Nature
- 2/3 cup Coconut Sugar or Sucanat or Monk Fruit Extract
- 1/4 cup Dairy Free Milk -Almond or Coconut Milk (use 1 tbsp of canned milk and top up with water)
- 2/3 cup Pumpkin Puree
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 cup Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips (or Dark Chocolate without soy lecithin)
HERE ARE THE HOW-TOs:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- For best results, line the muffin tray with paper liners. These are so moist, that the liner helps them remove easily from the tin.
- In a large bowl, whisk together Almond Flour, Arrowroot Flour, Baking Soda, Sea Salt, Cinnamon, Cloves, and Nutmeg until well blended.
- In a medium bowl, cream together Flax Eggs, Nut & Seed Butter, Coconut Sugar, Coconut/ Almond Milk, Pumpkin and Vanilla Extract. I used to tell my boys to "mix until it looks like one thing - you can't see any of the individual ingredients anymore."
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and blend until just combined.
- Add in the chocolate chips and mix throughout the batter.
- Spoon into the muffin tin evenly.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 22 minutes until risen, set in the center and an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
- Let cool before removing from muffin tins.
Wright boys love this version!
Breathe deeply and know that you are nourishing your body without spiking blood sugars and creating inflammation. I usually keep mine in the fridge because they are so moist.
Enjoy!
Here are some family favourite recipes that you might enjoy:
My goals with food are to increase our vegetable intake, incorporate a variety of nutrients by including lots of colourful veggies, to balance our blood sugars by replacing grains with vegetables, eliminating food sensitivities and inflammatory foods, and to include healthy fats and organic proteins as much as possible.
- 2 tbsp Organic Virgin Coconut Oil
½ Medium Onion, chopped
4-5 Chicken Breasts or 7 Thighs cut into 1” Cubes (Free Range /Organic if possible)
2 ½ tsp Mild Curry Powder
1 ½ tsp Sea Salt or Herbamere
¼- ½ tsp Black Pepper
½ tbsp pureed Ginger
1 tbsp Minced Garlic
½ Can Full Fat Coconut Milk
3-4 cups of Fresh Raw Baby Spinach or Baby Kale
1 bag frozen Cauli-Rice
Spaghetti Squash - pre cooked
Optional: ¼ cup chopped cashews and cilantro leaves to garnish
Tonight’s dinner is a quick throw together of ingredients I had left over from other meals or bought pre-chopped, frozen or minced in a jar to make it a quick meal.
I started with an epicurious recipe for coconut curry spicing and inspiration.
Saute chopped onion in coconut oil until translucent.
Add cubed chicken, curry, sea salt and pepper and stir well to coat as chicken is cooking (Tonight I bought pre-cooked chicken breasts to save time).
Add ginger, garlic, frozen cauli-rice and cook until cauliflower pieces are tender and cooked.
Add Spinach or Kale and saute until wilted and no longer crunchy.
Add cooked spaghetti squash and coconut milk and stir well to mix
If desired, plate with garnish on top or put toppings on table to add as desired.
Last night we had Spaghetti Squash, Steak with Fried Onions and Salad. So the leftover Spaghetti Squash and onions became a natural noodle type addition to today's meal.
Feel free to try other spiralized veggies - like zucchini, beet, carrot, sweet potato - or use the Kale Salad pre-made mix in your saute. My kale from my garden is still holding on in this Fall weather, so I wanted to use it up this week before winter sets in.
I’d love to hear how you experimented with this meal!
Pass along your ideas and feedback at: pegthrive@gmail.com or ask for an invite to my Facebook group: “Thrive With Essential Oils” to comment on this post there and enjoy our wellness community.
Want more input? Go to https://getoiling.com/PeggyWright/landing/best-self to grab a copy of 4 Steps to Your Best Self.
You might also enjoy:
July 30, 2017
Last week I had a moving-quickly-in-a-distracted-haze kind of moment. I was washing dishes with quick efficiency, determined to re-find my countertop. I turned to see what was left to be washed and grabbed the cookie sheet that was behind me on the stovetop - with both hands. It was hot. Fresh from the oven in fact. My son had just lifted his lunch off the baking sheet onto a plate behind me. The pan clattered to the floor in my haste to stop the burning feeling in my fingers.... I quickly put both hands under cold water and filled the sink so I could immerse them while I thought about my next move.
I remembered reading from my Essential Oils pocket reference that a French scientist discovered "lavender's ability to promote tissue regeneration and speed wound healing when he severely burned his arm in a laboratory explosion." I decided to put a drop of lavender and a drop of frankincense (another oil noted for its skin support properties) in some calendula lotion and slather it on the hot spots on my fingers. I pictured many days of inconvenience as I tried to cook, clean, type, drive, and live with two burnt index fingers and several other fingertips. I covered the worst areas with a bandage and went lightly on hand use that day.
Within an hour, the heat had gone out of my hands. By evening I removed the bandages and was stunned to see that my hands were a normal healthy pink with only some white spots that would have been blisters. The skin hadn't blistered and was no longer sore. My hands have been ready for action all week with no ill effects from my hasty blunder. They have a slight dullness in sensation at the worst spots but are healing remarkably fast.
Thanks Young Living!
