Month: September 2013

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My Affair with Wheat & Gluten and How it Ended

Today is my 35th birthday. It’s pretty surreal actually… Getting older and all that jazz. Being a mom to two lovely babies. Being a wife to an incredible husband. Turning 35… Anyway, happy birthday to me! Today also marks another turn in my journey with food.

I gave up gluten when I was in grad school. It was a new concept to me, but as I pursued the nutrition specialty for my degree, I thought, “Maybe there’s something here.” So, I played around with giving it up and I felt better and better as time went on. Gone were the bloating, gas, cramps and unpredictable digestive upsets. Increased energy, clearer skin and regularity arrived in their place. Gluten-free became less of a learning curve and more of a way of life. I learned about gluten-free baking, flours, cookies, packaged products and how to avoid the hidden sources of gluten. I encouraged others to do the same and I have literally worked my practice around the removal of allergens, like gluten.

But I cheated. I hate to use that word, but that’s what it was. I believe in moderation. I believe in obeying cravings. Still, if I’m sensitive to a food and I eat it, I’m cheating. When I was pregnant with my first child, I was just turning the corner from vegan to omnivore and I ate no less than three burgers a week from In-N-Out (aaaah, I miss them!). I didn’t think about the gluten, I just knew I wanted a burger! I was a 90% gluten-free person. I didn’t buy it and I didn’t bring it home, but I would have a bite here and there when I was at restaurants or social events. However, pregnancy seemed to be an especially gluten-filled time.

After the birth of my second child, we discovered that she was allergic to wheat (via a blood test at nine months of age). She had low markers, but considering how little I consumed, we removed it completely from her diet and mine. It wasn’t that hard, considering how familiar I was with a gluten-free lifestyle. Still, I missed it. The occasional hamburger (with bun, from Five Guys… it’s not In-N-Out but it does in a pinch), or naan from an Indian restaurant, or just a good ol’ fashioned piece of real bread made me swoon. I continued to eat gluten-free until my daughter weaned herself at 14 months. Her eczema cleared up quickly and we went about our lives.

When she weaned, I couldn’t wait for a taste. I was so excited. I just had a little here and there and I loved every bite. Then, this summer, I started having reactions. We weren’t sure what they were from but they were serious. They involved rashes, and throat swelling, itching inside and out and extreme lethargy. Benadryl kept me out of the hospital, barely. It also exhausted me for a day or so after using it. Then I discovered HistaEze, which I HIGHLY recommend. It has none of the side effects of Benadryl and all of the necessary ingredients to stop allergies in their tracks (whether seasonal or situational). Still, we needed to know the cause. I started to have increasing anxiety about going places just in case I had another attack. With five attacks in two months, I contacted an allergist and set up an appointment.

My appointment was yesterday. I had a back scratch test done and wheat flared up instantly. By the time the 15-minute wait was over, it was taking over the other tests on my back. As the allergist said, “We found our smoking gun.” Somewhere between pregnancy, nursing, giving up gluten and taking it back, wheat and my body had a horrible disagreement. The Gluten Doctors have a great blog that I read and they also agree cheating is not an option – read more here.

The red “H” up top is the histamine control and the big red dot below is wheat… after one minute.

So, I start the next year of my life armed with two epi-pens and a bunch of paperwork that basically tells me to never eat wheat again. No more splurges. No more tastes. Apparently, exposure can lead to increasingly worse reactions and I’m not up for that. No taste can compare to living a long and healthy life with my family. It’s been a torrid affair and it’s over.

Yes, I know how to live wheat and gluten free. Yes, I can help you learn too. But only time can help me say goodbye. Food is a powerful force in our lives. It’s associated with pleasure and celebration, comfort and joy. It’s okay to mourn. But it’s not okay to deny it or lie to myself about it. Like any bad breakup, it might include some wine, chocolate and a chick flick, but I’ll get through this!

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Holistic Remedies for the Common Cold

It’s so much easier to think and read about cold remedies when you’re not sick. At least it is for me! When I’m sick, I can’t even read, let alone make some fancy concoction. This is the predicament I found myself in last week when my baby girls and myself were laid out flat with really bad colds.

Oh a cold is a cold is a cold and it’s stuffy noses and coughs, right? Well, yes, but sometimes it’s debilitating. The headache, alternating runny and stuffy nose, cough and sore throat really put me down! When it hit me (Day 1), I was kind of in shock and I just sat there, guzzling water and wiping all three of our noses. On Day 2, I was feeling worse and had to be a little more proactive, taking 6,000 IU of vitamin D3 in the morning, 2,000 mg of vitamin C every few hours and 1 Tbsp of liquid silver every four hours. I continued to drink hot lemon water with honey whenever I had the energy to make it. It all seemed to take too much effort. When I woke up still feeling horrible on Day 3, I was desperate enough to raid my arsenal. I continued with vitamin C and silver, while adding garlic tea (see below) and raw chopped garlic to my food. Drinking water, juice and tea all the while, I gradually felt myself improving. By Day 4, I was out of the house, moving around and getting things done. Day 5 found me walking in a 5k with my girlfriends, thankful for my health.

So, what did I learn from this? I need to have my remedies ready to go. I need to be more prepared for the onslaught of exhaustion that might very well prevent me from creating some healing concoctions. I need to ask for help. On Day 3, when I was in tears because I had another 11-hour day ahead of me watching my sick babies and taking care of myself, I asked my husband to chop and peel garlic before he left for work. What a help! It made all the difference, having someone give me access to the things I needed to help myself.

Interested in garlic tea? I learned to make this when I was pregnant and was nervous about what I could and couldn’t take for a cold. It’s very simple. Peel and cut 5-6 cloves of garlic. Pour boiling water over them (preferably in a one-quart mason jar) and cover (I use a pot holder). Let steep for about 30 minutes and drink up. Sometimes I add lemon and honey. Sometimes instead of water I use broth. I also reuse the garlic one or two more times, by refilling the jar with hot water.

I whole-heartedly attribute my quick turn-around to silver and garlic. However, there are some more things I could’ve done and want to be prepared to try in the future. I read this amazing article on Holistic Squid’s blog that gave me some great ideas! You can read the whole article here. I am going to invest in fermented cod liver oil and oil of oregano. I may also get some elderberry syrup. I’m inspired by the posts on Holistic Squid’s website and hope you’ll check them out too!

Just an aside, I can get you any of these supplements as a practitioner who works with Designs for Health. I am very particular about which supplements I recommend because the quality of supplements is not regulated; therefore you don’t always get what you’re paying for. Buying from a company that sells only to practitioners (like Designs for Health) or purchasing supplements and vitamins that are labeled GMP (Good Manufacturing Processes) is your best bet for getting the high quality necessary to make a difference.

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Easy, Roast Chicken

When I met my husband, I was a raw foodist (consuming only raw vegetables, fruits and nuts). I admit a big part of that lifestyle was my need to control my food intake, to control what I consumed by limiting what I allowed myself to eat. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with raw food diets, Paleo, veganism, vegetarianism, or any of the food choices that so many people make. For me, though, it was less about health and more about control.

As I learned to listen to my body and trust my cravings, I started craving eggs. So, being the excited extremist that I am, I went out and got myself some baby chickens. My future-husband was in shock! A few weeks later I craved fish and while I didn’t go buy an aquarium, I did start incorporating it into my eating habits. Slowly but surely, I began eating fish, eggs and eventually beef. Once I got pregnant, I was eating several hamburgers a week! What a change…

Poultry and pork were foods that I didn’t crave or desire for a long time and I still don’t eat pork, but poultry I’ve eased into over the last few years. It was hard at first, after years of being a vegan, to allow myself to touch, cook and eventually eat something that I had kept out of my reach for so long. I can’t say it’s always easy. My body feels better with clean proteins in it, but my mind shudders a little at times.

All this said, I have to find really creative and yummy ways to cook poultry in order for me to enjoy it; roast chicken is one of those ways. I wanted to share this really easy and delicious way that I prepare a chicken. It’s really easy to make and everyone loves it. Once I got past touching a raw, whole chicken, this became one of my favorite meals to prepare for my family! I hope you’ll try it and enjoy it as well.

Final note: We do not consume poultry that contains hormones or antibiotics. We don’t want to feed those to our children and I, personally, cannot stomach the conditions the chickens might be raised in. I recommend local farms, free-range, hormone- and antibiotic-free chicken only. 

Easy, Roast Chicken

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken
2 lemons cut in fourths
2 onions cut into chunks
4-7 potatoes chopped
3 celery stalks chopped
5 carrots chopped
Any other vegetables you have on hand
4 TBSP butter melted
½ cup of wine (I prefer white, but will use whatever)
1-2 cups of water
1 TBSP oregano
1 TBSP parsley
1 TBSP sage
½ TBSP thyme
salt & pepper

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425. Wash the chicken thoroughly and remove the insides. Immediately transfer to a roasting pan with the drumsticks pointing up. (I have a really old pan, so I line it with foil. Hope to remedy that one day.) Squeeze one of the lemon fourths all over the chicken and shove the rest of them inside with half of the onion pieces. Pour the melted butter over the chicken and arrange the other vegetables around the chicken. On this particular day, I had a huge zucchini from the garden and I added that to the array as well. Sprinkle the spices all over the chicken. Pour the wine over the vegetables and then add water to the pan – this will create a wonderful juice to pour over everything when served.

Place in the oven for one hour. At the one hour mark, baste the chicken in the liquid. I use a small ladle to do it because we don’t have a baster, but a baster would probably be easier! I’ve tried using a thermometer but it wasn’t reliable and I can tell you that it is beyond frustrating to serve dinner and find out it’s not cooked all the way! So, what I do, is cut into a breast all the way to the bone, making sure juices run clear and the meat is white. If not, return to the oven for 10-minute increments, checking each time to make sure the meat is cooked all the way through.

When it’s finished, set it aside for at least 10 minutes and cover with foil. Then serve! I love that it’s a one-dish meal and it comes together so quickly. Between the chicken, the potatoes and the vegetables, we don’t need anything else. It makes great leftovers and I often use the carcass to make an incredible chicken broth, but that’s a blog for another time!