Tag: gluten free

Healthy Living, Low Carb, Paleo, Primal, Real Food, Whole 30

When a Whole 30 Isn’t Enough

Starting your journey to health with a Whole 30  is a brilliant idea. The information and community support is tremendous. You will feel better and understand the power of eating REAL food. What I’ve learned though is sometimes it isn’t enough. What? Giving up all the food that makes you joyful isn’t enough? That’s crazy talk! Well, it is my truth. Would I go back to eating processed food and too much sugar? No way.

My “only” lingering health issue after several years of real food eating is migraines. I have abnormal ones. They come on first with a visual aura and last 2-4 hours. Occasionally I will go months without one. Sometimes I get a couple a month. If I had to guess, I’d say they have something to do with my hormones as I’ve addressed diet & lifestyle. However I haven’t had to take antibiotics for five years and I cannot remember the last time I was really sick. Oh wait I do remember; it was when the hospital made me get a flu shot before I could see my new granddaughter four years ago. I felt crappy for a few days, but was not bed ridden.

My point of writing this is to say even though your health might not be perfect after you clean up your diet, it will be improved in noticeable ways. The bottom line is you can’t take a pill or supplement and keep making poor food choices if you want to improve your health, lose weight or feel better long term. For improvement in your health to need to heal your gut. And for healing to occur in your gut, you have to eat real food, have good sleep and stress relief hygiene (yoga, meditation), and move. Walk outdoors and lift heavy things and surround yourself with good people. You have to do this for a long time before you “cheat.” Maybe a year, maybe two, maybe three. I was forty when I found out I was gluten and dairy intolerant and had what I now know was the beginnings of autoimmune issues. Real food, real activity, real sleep is a lifestyle, not a diet. You are kidding yourself if you think one Whole 30 is going to fix you forever. It is a stepping stone to get you on track for having a better quality of life. You have damaged your gut over a lot of years and you need to honor yourself enough to give it time to heal. Use the wealth of free information on sites like www.Robbwolf.com , www.thepaleomom.com, www.marksdailyapple.com, www.everydaypaleo.com, and www.radicatamedicine.com to get started. Check out the books links in my resource section for help too. You don’t have to pay for meal plans or shopping lists, because people who live this way (like me) want to help you. Recruit family and friends to do it with you and have planning dates and batch cooking parties. It is work, but it is beyond worth it. If you put in the work, down the road you can have some of the celebratory treats on special occasions, but you might not want them.

Low Carb, Main Dish, Seafood

Paleo Crab Cakes With Garlic Aioli

Seafood is something that I’ve been trying to incorporate into our diet on a more regular basis. It’s a great source of protein, omega 3’s and a variety of minerals. However my disgust of shrimp, prawns and most fish make it a bit of a challenge. Two of my favorites are crab and salmon and I always try to eat wild caught. Fortunately the price of crab has been almost affordable and is my go to lazy meal choice. I had a package in the freezer and decided to try my hand at crab cakes. I looked through a few recipes, made adjustments and cooked up the following. It was very tasty.

Crab Cakes with Garlic Aioli

Crab Cakes

1 lb crab meat

3 green onions chopped

1/3 cup chopped onion

2 tsp prepared mustard

2 tsp garlic granules

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 cup almond meal

1 large egg

1/3 cup homemade mayo (see previous post on my blog)

  1. Whisk the egg in a bowl and add all the ingredients except crab and almond meal. Mix until blended and then blend in crab and almond meal. You can add more or less almond meal so you have crab patties that will hold their shape when you fry them up.
  2. Form 6-8 patties and fry them in bacon, ghee or your fat of choice for 5 minutes on each side.

Garlic Aioli

½ cup homemade mayo (see previous post on my blog)

1 tsp garlic granules

1-2 tsp minced garlic

1-2 tsp garlic juice

2 TBLS lemon juice

Salt and Pepper to taste

I like to buy the organic, chopped garlic in a jar and drain the juice out of that.

Feel free to adjust the amount of garlic to your own preference. I like garlic.

  1. Mix the above ingredients until well mixed.

After frying the crab cakes and plating them, put 1 to 2 TBLS of the garlic aioli on top. Enjoy! 🙂

Dessert, Side Dish

Plantain Pancakes

ppan

Sarah Ballantyne, PhD,thepaleomom.com, saved our holiday breakfasts with her Perfect Paleo Pancake recipe. Seems silly, but when our family transitioned to paleo (real food) we were stymied on what to do for special occasion breakfasts.  I thought I’d never use my pancake grill again.  They cook like, look like and almost feel like gluten bomb pancakes. We like a berry compote over sunflower seed butter as a topping. I use a little honey or real maple syrup in the berries to sweeten them, but you can leave that out if you are cutting out sugar.

http://www.thepaleomom.com/2012/09/perfect-paleo-pancakes.html

I followed the recipe the first few times, but now I just toss the ingredients into the food processor and eyeball all the measurements and they turn out great. I’ve also used squash & bananas instead of plantains, but they need a little nut butter or sunflower seed butter to hold them together and they don’t cook as easily.

They can be stored in the fridge and reheated as well if you are looking to maximize the resistant starch available in green plantains.

Give them a try!