Skinned Knees from Falling Off the Wagon

Do you know what tastes good?

Hot dogs.

If you have a barbeque, what do you need to prepare?

Hot dogs.

If you have family in town on a loverly Sunday what do you have?

A barbeque with hot dogs.

What is not allowed on the GAPS Diet?

Um. Hot dogs. 'Cause they have sugar and other starches in them.

So this weekend was full of half-way fails of the diet. I had (many) hot dogs and a few new potatoes from our garden and way more GAPS legal macaroons than I needed. However, I did not eat any buns or mayonnaise with soy oil or the muffins I made Sunday for my church class. I did eat some of my homemade sauerkraut which hopefully helped.

I certainly felt nasty after the day of gluttony. My belly hurt a lot. So, lesson learned!

I have decided to not hold myself so strictly to the GAPS Intro at this time and start easing into the Full GAPS Diet. There are way more options for food and that makes feeding BuggaBoo easier.

In other news I think I may be sensitive to coconut. I recently went all out and made coconut butter, bought five gallons of coconut oil, and acquired coconut flour for baking. I also made the aforementioned macaroons using dried unsweetened coconut. Coconut oil doesn't seem to cause me any troubles. But any other type of coconut seem to make my throat itch and hurt like I have a cold. I also have difficulty swallowing. I'm really upset by that because coconut is so delicious! I think I'll try some more experiments before I call it quits.

On a happier note I've been able to sneak some meat to BuggaBoo. Having been raised vegan his whole life until very recently BuggaBoo is understandably reluctant to eat meat. He likes bacon and ham and fried chicken skin. Oh, and pork rinds, because I persuaded him to try them on the premise that, "They taste like chicken skin!" He really loves pork rinds. I do too. Oh, and I totally want to try a variation of this recipe for pork rind pancakes. Pork. Rinds.

Right, where was I? Sneaking meat? Okay, I made chicken and pork pancakes. Because BuggaBoo will nearly nearly anything in pancake form. So I combined this recipe for coconut flour pancakes and this recipe for savory chicken pancakes to create a sweet-ish breakfast pancake that just happens to be made mostly of meat. Here's the kinda recipe:

Meh, 1/4-1/3 cup chicken
3-ish eggs
3 Tbsp fat (coconut oil, butter, something solid)
1 1/2" x 1 1/2" section of zucchini, or maybe more. Whatever.
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp honey
coconut flour to thicken

Throw everything in the blender, whiz until smooth. If it's pancake batter consistency then cook it up. If it's not then add the coconut flour a tablespoon at a time until it's thick enough. The coconut flour will make things thick in a hurry so don't add too much.

I fry these up in a cast iron skillet using tallow that I've saved from making bone broth. Tallow rocks for pancakes, I never have them stick. Trust me, the pancakes won't taste funny. And sometimes when I want to I'll put a whole bunch of tallow in the pan and make myself some fritters a la country fair. That's some good stuff.

That's it. I think they would be good with some seasonings like cinnamon or cardamom or cloves. Or all of those. Yum. Also, doing this in a blender beats the eggs enough that it eliminates the need for any baking powder, since baking powder is not GAPS legal. You may notice the lack of milk or other liquid. The zucchini makes up for that nicely since it liquifies in the blender.

Sarting the GAPS Diet--In Which I Still Try to Fix Everything With Food

Scatter-brained post ahead!

Ever heard of GAPS? The acronym stands for Gut and Psychology Syndrome. Basically it's the understanding that gut health can affect the rest of your body, including stuff that's "just in your head." ADD? Probably gut related. Autism? Probably gut related. Depression? Gut.

The GAPS Diet is a program you can follow to heal your gut, thereby healing food sensitivities, allergies, mental, and behavioral problems. Many things can damage your digestive tract. The most common are antibiotics, hormonal birth control, chlorinated water, artificial flavors and colors, preservatives, lack of probiotic foods, not being breastfed, and eating improperly prepared foods that contain phytic acid and other anti-nutrients. Whew!

How does this apply to our family? I can't speak for The Hubby because I'm not him and therefore I don't want to air everything of his on the internet, but he's had several courses of antibiotics as a child, ate tons of processed foods and artificial sweeteners, and is diabetic. He's also working nights, which takes such a huge toll on his body and health.

For myself I've also have taken many courses of antibiotics. Looking at the list above I've done everything on it except two things: I was breastfed for a year and I've never taken The Pill.

My kidlets have had it better. They're still both breastfed, BuggaBoo had only one dose of antibiotics in his life (his fever broke right after the dose so we knew it wasn't due to the antibiotics and stopped administering them), they're not vaccinated (thereby decreasing the toxic load on their bodies) and we eat some probiotic containing foods. But I haven't been sprouting and soaking my grains, they eat too much sugar and such, and they are both exhibiting symptoms of food sensitivities.

What are our symptoms? Read on, they're in handy list form!

BuggaBoo's Symptoms

-Major reflux as a baby, will still sometimes spit up food or breast milk at 3.5 years old

All this in 5 minutes, plus more

-Ongoing cradle cap
-Lives for sugars, which negatively impact his behavior and cause extreme mood swings
-Has started to hit himself on the head when frustrated (not sure if this is normal toddler behavior or what)
-"Allergy shiners", dark or red circles around the eyes
-Starting to show sensitivity to noise
-Ongoing vomiting issues with no concrete reason (He started throwing up again Sunday morning, while nursing all over me. Delightful.)
-Often complains of "feeling sick" (our code for nauseous)
-Suspected thrush, but no classical symptoms
-Rotting teeth and malformed jaw


Doozer's Symptoms

-Until recently she wheezed
-Eczema behind and in her ears
-Suspected thrush, but, once again, no classical symptoms
-Yeast diaper rashes when younger

My Symptoms

-Ongoing yeast issues, including skin rashes, slow-to-heal lip splits (taking about 6 weeks), coated tongue, and, erm, the usual for the last 4+ years.
-Depression
-Intense cravings for sugar and other refined carbohydrates
-Bloating and stomach pain
-Incomplete bowel movements
-Acid reflux
-Extreme fatigue
-99.9999% sure I have hypothyroidism
-Weak teeth despite fluoride treatments
-Anxiety
-Sinus issues for, oh, I dunno, since I was about 12. So 15 years. Going dairy free didn't help.
-Brain fog. It cleared up for a bit after I first added fish back into our diet, but now it's back.
-Cradle cap, for as long as I can remember. I've even tried medicated shampoos. Nada.

Due to all of this I decided to try the GAPS Diet. On the 16th of this month I started Phase 1 of the Introduction Diet. It is extremely restrictive. At this stage I am eating:

-Meat and bone broths
-Boiled meat
-The "ooky" stuff left over from making broth, like marrow, chicken skins, cartilage, connective tissue, etc. Eating this stuff is a very important part of the diet.
-Well boiled onions, leeks, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.
-Winter and summer squash
-Garlic
-Ginger, chamomile, or mint tea with a small amount of honey
-Sea salt
-Sauerkraut juice (to repopulate my intestinal flora)

The children are eating a less restrictive diet because, well, they're a bit picky. In addition to what they'll eat from the above they're also having:

-Eggs, mostly just the raw yolks
-"Ice cream" from frozen bananas, raw egg yolks, and a bit of honey. Sometimes I add frozen cherries or blackberries.
-Whole milk plain yogurt
-Coconut flour pancakes

The first few days were no fun. I think BuggaBoo was vomiting from a die-off reaction. He also took two long naps on Sunday and was very irritable. I was not a happy camper and felt exhausted. I also had pretty bad headaches, lots of sweating, back and face acne, and a nasty mouth. Doozer was sleepy and cranky. On day three we all seemed to be doing a lot better and I had more energy. Today, Day 5, I'm sleepy again and feel the starts of another headache. My face and back are still breaking out badly.

But I see progress. And that's encouraging. I'm excited to see where this goes and such. I have found for me to feel satisfied on this food I have to eat a lot of fat. My most favorite thing to eat is the "ooky" stuff, but I've been that way since I was a kid. And since all my meat is grassfed the fat tastes so good. Yum! The meat itself is not settling too well for me, but that's okay. I'm perfectly happy to drink broth, snack on veggies, and chow down on "ooky" stuff all day long.

And I've noticed I don't have too many cravings for breads and sweets unless I"m looking at them. This does mean that I have to lay off looking at food blogs (boo!), and it's hard because my dear friend just dropped off some sourdough bread for my family (double boo!). And the kiddos don't quite understand why we're not eating that stuff.

Okay, that about does it for today. Hopefully I'll be a bit more coherent about this later. For now please read these thoughtful posts by Cara at Home, Health, and Happiness, and Jenny at The Nourishing Kitchen. These wonderful ladies wrote about GAPS much better than I did. May I blame it on the detoxing?

Succeeding with Traditional Foods...One Menu at a Time

Edited: I've added this to Simple Lives Thursday, so here's a lovely banner to look at. Also, check out GNOWFGLINS, they're pretty amazing over there.

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As previously stated we're slowly transitioning to a Traditional Foods Diet. Yes, it's capitalized. All diets are in caps nowadays, doncha know. But eating in a traditional way can be very time consuming. It is slow food at its most lethargic. All grains must be soaked, sprouted, or soured before use. All beans must be soaked or sprouted. Dairy should ideally be fermented. Many vegetables should be fermented. Bone broths should be cooked for 48-72 hours.

Who has time for all this? Having been born as a Sidetrack Home Executive I just don't have the memory for anything. As the saying goes, if it weren't screwed on I would lose my head. I forget things nearly instantaneously. So how am I supposed to keep track of everything I need to do to feed my family this way?

Yesterday I sat down and wrote out a two week (plus two days to finish this week) menu. I am not a menu lady. I've always just created dishes from what's in my fridge. The hardest part for me was trying to think of what to eat. So taking a hint from the book "Simplicity Parenting" I assigned each day what would best be described as a theme. My themes were ingredients used. Some people use cuisine as their themes. So here's my week:

Sunday: Typical Sunday meal (meat, potatoes, vegetables, maybe dessert)
Monday: Pasta
Tuesday: Bread/Potatoes
Wednesday: Beans
Thursday: Rice
Friday: Soup
Saturday: Casserole

This made thinking of meals much easier for me. I can look at my theme and think of a recipe that fits that day. It also welcomes a lot of crossover. For example, we love dahl in our home. Dahl could work for my rice day or my bean day. Chicken noodle soup could be soup or pasta. Also, since we still love our vegetarian food these themes can easily accommodate both styles of eating.

I then broke down the recipe and noted what needed to be prepped ahead of time. Working with my dahl recipe I would prefer to soak my rice and sprout my lentils. If I wanted to make flat bread from scratch I would need to plan to use sprouted flour, soak my flour, or use a sourdough starter. If I wanted to use stock to cook my lentils I need to be sure to have that on hand.

I wrote out my menu on a calendar. Okay, it wasn't an actual calendar, it was just a sheet of paper split into thirds and then eighths. I wrote each meal into the appropriate day. Then I figured out what needed advanced prepping and how far in advance to start it. I noted on the correct day when to start preparations. The theory is before I go to bed I can quickly look at my plan and take care of those things that need some TLC.

This also helps with shopping. I'm able to look to my freezer, pantry, and garden and see what I have on hand. Since I'm only doing two weeks at a time I can generally predict what my garden will have ready for me. Also, I relegate a lot of our produce to side dishes, so in case things ripen sooner or later I can just move those around.

So here's my menu. Sorry for the horrible format, if I knew how to put a table in here I would.

Sunday: sliced beef tongue, mashed turnips and potatoes
Prep work: Save half the tongue for later in the week, freeze tongue simmering stock, soak black beans, soak cashews

Monday: mac 'n' cheeze with nutritional yeast/cashew cheeze sauce, steamed broccoli
Prep work: double the sauce, save half, thaw pumpkin, sprout previously soaked black beans, soak lentils

Tuesday: baked potatoes with all the fixin's, including the leftover cheeze sauce
Prep Work: sprout lentils and black beans, soak cornbread batter

Wednesday: black bean chili with roasted poblano peppers, cornbread
Prep Work: soak black beans, sprout lentils, prepare lacto-fermented salsa, soak rice

Thursday: pumpkin dahl served over rice, cumin carrots
Prep Work: sprout black beans, make sourdough bread if feeling ambitious

Friday: tongue stew using leftover stock, bread
Prep Work: continue salsa, thaw beef heart, soak rice, sprout black beans

Saturday: black bean and rice enchiladas served with LF salsa, salad
Prep Work: none!

Sunday: half a heart, stuffed, served with gravy, roasted root veggies
Prep Work: soak pinto beans, soak mung beans, save rest of heart for later

Monday: goulash made with TVP*, corn
Prep Work: sprout pinto and mung beans, soak or sour pizza dough

Tuesday: pizza, Greek-style green beans
Prep Work: sprout mung and pinto beans, soak cornbread batter, start a crock pot of bone stock

Wednesday: baked pinto beans, cornbread
Prep Work: sprout mung beans, soak rice, continue stock, thaw some liver

Thursday: heart stir fry over liver rice, miso soup with nori
Prep Work: stock, soak or sour bread if ambitious

Friday: Split pea soup with bacon, bread
Prep Work: soak rice, make yogurt

Saturday: chicken poppy seed casserole modified to keep yogurt alive, served over rice with salad or another green
Prep Work: None, haven't planned that far in advance yet.

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A few more loose ends and then I'll post this mammoth. I usually don't do side dishes, I am the queen of one-pot meals. I'm trying to rectify this, so if the menu seems skimpy to you, sorry. Also, I'm not planning for lunches or breakfasts. Breakfast is easy, lunch can be leftovers or sandwiches.

I want to incorporate a baking day into all of this so that I'm not attempting to make all my bread right before the meal. I also want to start making my own Traditional Foods approved pasta, this recipe for sourdough noodles should do the trick nicely. Since I love to hoard my eggs for breakfast or smoothies I'll probably use flax meal for my eggs as outlined in this recipe.

Feel free to steal my menu, I hope it helps you out. And if my family is wondering how I'm going to modify The Chicken Poppy Seed Casserole, well, this is what I had in mind. I was thinking of poaching the chicken to keep it moist, then warming the sauce separately, using yogurt instead of sour cream. Combine the sauce with the chicken. Then I was going to add the buttery cracker/poppy seed combo sprinkled on top.

Okay! Time to put this behemoth to rest. Goodnight, Buffalo Gals.

*Disclaimer: I've noticed a lot of new traffic to this post. Welcome! I wanted to explain the presence of TVP on my menu. I know that TVP is basically a frankenfood, but I have quite a bit left over from my vegan days and I hate to waste food. Also, The Hubby rather likes it, so I feel eating it once or twice a month is perfectly fine for our family.

Big Changes Part II...Finally!

Part I can be found here.

So I have come to the conclusion that I can drastically improve BuggaBoo's tooth and jaw health through diet, and hopefully head off any problems in Doozer. Also I hope to be able to finally cure the weak spots in my teeth that have plagued me since before my marriage. I have tried fluoride and it does not work for me.

So we've started introducing animal foods back into our diet. Last summer we started with eggs, and a few weeks ago we added more variety, starting with fish. Now we eat some beef and we had a bit of pork at Easter and there was this one time I had some fried chicken. We are trying very hard to be conscientious about our choices. We eat sustainable fish such as sardines and pollock. We buy our beef from local pastured steers.

We have decided to make an emphasis on eating the whole animal, especially the parts that other people don't want to. My freezer is full of bones, livers, tongues, and hearts. We feel that it is more respectful to the animal to use all of it; that if it is going to give its life for our benefit we better be sure to make the best use of its body. The positive to eating the parts no one else wants is we get the most nutritionally dense foods available, so we don't need to eat as much.

Are we perfect? No, not by a long shot. But we try. Eating out is the hardest, because most restaurants don't use humanely raised meats. But I wish they did. Heck, I really need to do my part and only buy at the places that meet my standards, but my budget would basically permit Chipotle and they already make a super killer vegetarian burrito.

Right. So, the benefits of this? Well, let me tell you. For months, months, I have been having problems with brain fog, lack of energy and motivation, major problems with speaking and typing, and just all around feeling like my whole life was an out-of-body experience. Seriously, it was so hard for me to speak sometimes; my tongue felt so huge in my mouth it was impossible to form words. Simple, easy words. My fingers didn't want to obey my befuddled brain signals. I made a lot of typing mistakes. And I just felt listless, needing 12+ hours to feel normal, but never getting that with little children in the house.

After starting to eat fish again that all cleared up. It felt wonderful to be able to think, to be quick again. And I do not think it was only the magical omega fatty acids. I was taking an algae based DHA supplement and eating lots of ground flax and I didn't see any improvement.

May I say that I feel that is a major downfall of being veg*n? The whole movement tends to break food down into their nutrients. Are you craving beef? Then it must be the iron or protein or fat or something. It can't be the beef. It can't be something we haven't discovered yet, or heck, even be a synergistic reaction between everything in the beef. To satisfy the criteria of veg*nism all foods must be their components and nothing else.

So, we eat animals. And we feel okay about that. Okay, we adults feel okay about that, BuggaBoo is still having a rough time with it. I don't blame the kid, his whole life we've told him it's sad to eat animals. Then, BAM! It's all okay to eat them. Poor confused child. We're treating him very gently, giving him lots of time.

We're still trying to get into our groove. I have been feeling heavy after meals recently; I'm taking that as a sign to lighten up. The first few weeks I couldn't get enough eggs, meat, fish, or bone broth. Now I'm feeling fuller, which is reassuring to me. I feel I am working to fill my deficiencies, and that just feels right.

There is so much more I want to implement in our new diet besides animals foods. That's just part of it. More fresh and raw veggies would be amazing. I'm learning how to soak and sprout my grains to reduce phytic acid and increase nutrient absorption. I'm experimenting with fermented foods, which taste amazing and help bring my internal flora and fauna into balance. I'm learning more about healthy fats and why animal fat isn't such a scary thing after all, and how vegetable oils can be downright terrifying.

But! All of this is just skimming the surface. And I have done a lot of reading and researching to get here. Too much to go over at 11:00pm. So let me wrap up by saying I'm happy where we are in our life, and I'm excited to see where we go from here. As always, comments are encouraged, opposite viewpoints are respected, but let's be civil.