Shepherd’s Pie
It took me awhile to come around to the health benefits of the white potato, a true superfood! Our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate a lot of tubers - which are very low toxicity since they grow underground and don’t have to chemically deter animals from eating them as much as other plant parts. They’re also high in protein, vitamins and minerals - and cultures that ate a lot of them enjoyed robust health. Pair with ground beef, any other chopped vegetables of your choice like zucchini, carrots, summer squash, mushrooms, and even a little garlic, onion, and tomato paste if your body tolerates those! Be sure to make extra, even a double batch, as this freezes well and is sure to be a hit!
Ingredients
2 pounds lean ground beef, salted and browned
1 cup bone broth
1 zucchini, chopped
1 summer squash chopped
3 carrots, chopped
10 crimini mushrooms, rinsed and chopped
1 tablespoon potato starch
italian seasoning
sea salt
garlic, fresh or powder
onion, fresh or powder
Optional: 1 tablespoon tomato paste
Optional: 2 tablespoons worchestershire sauce
4 large potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
2 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup milk
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 400°F.
Bring a pot of water to a boil for the potatoes.
Boil potatoes until fork-tender, about 15 minutes.Brown the meat with the onions and garlic if using fresh.
If using powders, add them after browning the meat.Add broth, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce (if using), Italian seasoning, and vegetables.
Cover and let steam for 5–10 minutes, or until carrots are tender.Scoop out ½ cup of the brothy sauce into a bowl.
Whisk in the potato starch to make a slurry (immersion blender works great).
Pour this slurry back into the pan and stir to create a gravy. Add more broth if needed.Strain the boiled potatoes and mash with milk, butter, and salt to taste.
Arrange the meat/vegetable/gravy mixture in the bottom of a baking dish or Dutch oven.
Spread the mashed potatoes on top of the filling.
Sprinkle with parmesan.
Bake uncovered for 20–30 minutes.
Optional: Broil for a few minutes at the end if the parmesan isn’t browned enough.Cool for about 10 minutes before serving.
Healing Metabolism
Why has our metabolism slowed down, and how do we fix it?
Let’s set the record straight: slow metabolism isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something that breaks down—gradually, and often silently—through years of stress, under-eating, overtraining, low-carb diets, and toxic exposures that chip away at your thyroid and your cells' ability to make energy.
The good news? You can repair it. But not through crash diets, fasted cardio, or metabolism supplements from the checkout aisle. True metabolic healing takes strategy, structure, and bioindividual support. It’s not a quick fix—but it’s the only fix that works long-term.
What Happens When Your Metabolism Slows Down?
When your body senses a lack of fuel—especially carbohydrates—it downshifts into survival mode. Your thyroid, which is your metabolic thermostat, responds by decreasing output. And often, so does your liver, gut, ovaries, and even brain.
You might notice cold hands and feet, hair shedding, constipation or slow digestion, and weight gain or a stubborn plateau even in a calorie deficit. You may experience low mood, low energy, or anxiety, along with hormonal symptoms like PMS, painful periods, peri-menopause, or missing cycles. Poor sleep, low libido, and feeling "tired but wired" are common, as are mental health shifts like depression or anxiety. Gut issues often show up due to decreased organ tissue and downregulated digestion. Other symptoms include headaches, insomnia, fatigue, muscle cramping, cravings for sugar and salty snacks, constipation and/or diarrhea, cold intolerance, and flaky, dry skin.
Common Lab Markers in Metabolic Dysfunction
And here’s what we often find on labs (even if you’ve been told they’re “normal”):
Low T3 – the active thyroid hormone that fuels your cells
High TSH – your brain shouting for help
Elevated thyroid antibodies – signaling immune stress or autoimmunity
Elevated cholesterol – from excess fat intake and because low-carb diets suppress T3 which is required to convert cholesterol into hormones
Low vitamin D despite sun exposure – because your body isn’t converting cholesterol properly
Elevated prolactin – often a red flag for thyroid dysfunction or chronic stress
High reverse T3 – from excess inactive thyroid hormone that isn’t being properly converted to active T3
Low basal body temp + low pulse – cells aren't producing enough energy (ATP)
Low ferritin, zinc, selenium, or protein status – needed to make and activate thyroid hormone
Blood sugar instability – often with elevated fasting glucose or insulin, not from overeating but from metabolic downregulation and seed oil toxicity
T3 is the Real Driver of Metabolism
TSH and T4 get all the attention in conventional medicine, but they aren’t the whole picture.
T4 is a prohormone. It has to be converted into T3, which is what actually enters your cells and turns food into energy (ATP). This conversion mostly happens in the liver, intestines, and other organs—and it’s highly dependent on carbohydrates, minerals like selenium and iodine, and overall stress load.
That means your thyroid gland could be making TSH and T4 just fine, and you could still be functionally hypothyroid.
What This Looks Like in Real Life
Clients come to me all the time saying:
“I can't lose weight on 1400 calories.”
“I’m cold and tired all the time, but my doctor says my thyroid labs are fine.”
“If I eat more, I get bloated and gain weight.”
“I don’t even lose weight when I diet anymore.”
“I have high cholesterol, and my doctor wants to put me on a statin.”
Here’s the thing: most of these symptoms are rooted in low cellular energy. Your cells are ATP-deficient. And ATP is made with the help of T3. Without enough of it—or without the ability to use it—you’re essentially running on backup systems like adrenaline and cortisol. You feel wired, anxious, and depleted, and you never actually recover.
What Reverse-Dieting Really Means
The reverse-dieting process is about more than calories. It’s about sending a clear signal to your body that the famine is over and it's safe to thrive again.
In this phase, we:
Increase food strategically (especially carbs)
Focus on pro-metabolic macros to support liver and thyroid function
Encourage muscle building without overstressing the body
Track body temperature, pulse, and symptoms to gauge progress
Prioritize nutrient-dense, digestible food—not just more food
And no—this isn’t just a free-for-all. We’re rebuilding your metabolic infrastructure. That means we look at what your body can handle, not just what it “should” be able to do.
What a Repaired Metabolism Looks Like
When you get this right, your body starts working for you again. Your waking temperatures rise and your pulse steadies. Energy improves, sleep deepens, and mood lifts. Digestion strengthens, bowel movements become regular and effortless, gut infections clear up, and inflammation calms down. Food sensitivities start to fade. Your menstrual cycles smooth out and become more predictable. You build a leaner body composition while eating more food—not less. Lab markers like cholesterol and hormones normalize as your metabolism regains its rhythm.
You go from running on stress to running on energy.
“But I Don’t Want to Gain Weight…”
This is the hardest part for most people—and it’s the one that keeps them stuck.
If you’ve been under-eating or overtraining, your body needs a season of rebuilding. That might mean a few pounds of scale weight—but often, that weight is water, muscle, organ tissue, and glycogen - muscle fuel reserves. Your body is catching up.
Remember, you can’t burn fat from a body that thinks it’s starving. And you can’t make hormones from thin air. Sometimes you need to gain to lose—and to feel human again.
I call it this: Gain 5 pounds to lose 20, and eat more food for the rest of your life.
We may have to gain a few water weight pounds now to retrain your body to handle 50% more food permanently, so you can lose fat later—with a higher metabolic set point and the ability to keep the fat off and eat more food forever.
How Did We Get Here?
Let’s zoom out for a second. Humans evolved over hundreds of thousands of years eating real, whole foods from nature—fruit, honey, roots, tubers, meat, raw dairy. We didn’t track macros, skip breakfast, or swap butter for seed oil. Our ancestors moved their bodies, ate to satiety, rested when needed, and passed on resilient metabolic blueprints from generation to generation.
Even just 70 to 100 years ago, our great-grandparents regularly ate 2500–3000 calories per day for women and 3500–4000 for men—without the modern rates of obesity, insulin resistance, infertility, or fatigue. Meals were hearty: meat, milk, cheese, eggs, potatoes, fresh bread, seasonal fruit. Pie after lunch and pie after dinner! Our grandparents ate three meals a day and never needed to “hack” their metabolism. Their body temperatures ran warmer, their pulse was stronger, and they had the metabolic headroom to handle illness, stress, and create lean muscle without sacrificing function.
Then came the industrial revolution. Seed oils replaced animal fats. Processed food replaced traditional meals. Low-fat and low-calorie propaganda flooded our culture. And in the last 60–70 years, we've unintentionally trained our bodies to expect famine—while flooding our systems with fake food and toxins.
Calorie intake dropped. So did protein, saturated fat, healthy carbs, and nutrient density. Over time, body temperatures began to fall. And that’s no small detail: for every 1°F drop in basal body temperature, we burn roughly 1000 fewer calories per day. That’s how powerful metabolism is. You didn’t lose your “willpower.” Your body just adapted.
Now, most women are eating 1200–1600 calories and gaining weight. Men are averaging 2000-2200. The government tells us “based on a 2000 calorie diet”. That’s not a real thing! We’re tired, constipated, anxious, and inflamed—not because we’re broken, but because we’ve drifted so far from the blueprint we evolved for.
The good news? You can return to that baseline. You can teach your body to feel safe again, rebuild metabolic flexibility, and actually thrive on food. And yes—you can be lean, strong, and high-functioning at 2500-3500 calories a day.
What Happens After Metabolism Repair?
Once your metabolism is functioning well again, you’re no longer stuck in survival mode. That means you can actually enter a short fat loss phase—and stay lean—without crashing your hormones or cutting calories to unsustainable levels.
You become someone who can:
Cut strategically (and briefly) without rebound
Reach and maintain your goal body fat percentage
Keep calories high and energy stable after the cut
Stay lean while eating like a healthy, thriving human being
This isn’t new—it’s how our bodies are meant to work. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors, and even our grandparents just 70 years ago, regularly ate 2500-3500—without obesity, insulin resistance, or chronic fatigue.
Once your metabolic baseline is restored, your body stops fighting you. Instead of resisting fat loss, it participates. It trusts that you’ll feed it again. That’s the goal.
How Do We Know It’s Working?
We track the signs:
Your basal temperature rises toward 97.8–98.6°F
Your pulse steadies around 75–85 bpm
You tolerate carbs again
PMS, bloating, and fatigue begin to fade
Your cravings chill out
Your body feels warmer, stronger, and more stable
These changes often happen before the scale moves. That’s how we know we’re healing—not crashing.
Ready to Get Off the Diet Rollercoaster?
If you’ve been told your thyroid is “normal” but you feel anything but… if you’re eating less and gaining more… if your labs, hormones, and gut are a mess—there’s a reason.
And there’s a strategy.
I don’t share exact macros or calorie plans online because this work is deeply individual. But if you're ready to:
Restore thyroid function
Heal your metabolism at the root
Reclaim your body’s ability to feel warm, energized, and resilient
And finally get results that last—
Then let’s work together.
Ready to Start Your Healing Phase?
If this resonates and you're ready to stop guessing, I’d love to help you reconnect with your metabolic blueprint and build the strong, high-calorie body you were born for.
Click here to schedule your Initial Session with me and let’s map out your custom strategy for sustainable fat loss, thyroid repair, and metabolic resilience.
Spots are limited, and I work closely with each client—so if your body is asking for help, trust it. Let’s rebuild from the root.
Creamy Spaghetti Squash with Chicken and Parmesan
This has quickly become one of my favorite quick weekday lunches. I can prep a couple spaghetti squashes on the weekend, and then have the shredded squash and chicken ready to go, and just assemble the meal in minutes. If it’s for a crowd, I would recommend combining everything in a casserole dish and baking it in the overn, which I do have another recipe for. This is more of a quick meal for one person. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
2 cups cooked spaghetti squash, shredded
3-4 oz cooked chicken breast, chopped up
1/2 Cup Milk of choice, I use skim raw milk separated with this
2 Tablespoons of shredded parmesan
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried italian seasoning or fresh basil
Salt to taste
A little melted butter for pre-baking the spaghetti squash
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 375. Cut the spaghetti squash in half with your biggest sharpest kitchen knife. Be careful. Scoop out the seeds with a spoon, and rub the inside of the squash with a little melted butter. Salt the inside of the squash, and place that side down on a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Bake in the oven for about 45-60 minutes until it softens and the spaghetti squash strands can be scraped out with a fork. This can then be stored in the fridge for a week.
Place 2 Cups of shredded spaghetti squash in a small saucepan, add all other ingredients and bring to a simmer, covered. When hot, serve and enjoy! If you’re using fresh herbs, add them at the end.
High-Protein Orange Julius Smoothie
I love this smoothie! I drink it with my breakfast almost every day—or sometimes for a quick lunch. It’s such a great way to make sure I get my collagen in daily. It’s also a great source of protein and healthy carbs!
If it’s your whole meal, use low-fat or full-fat yogurt to get some fats in. Or go with nonfat yogurt if you’ve got another fat source in your meal (like eggs or buttery sweet potatoes).
You can also switch up the fruit additions—this morning I added half a cup of frozen wild raspberries for extra carbs. I also love this little glass blender I found on Amazon, so I don’t have to pull out and wash my big Vitamix every time: https://amzn.to/40M02kw
Ingredients:
1 cup organic orange juice (I like pulp-free)
1 cup yogurt (I use nonfat or low-fat Greek)
1–2 tablespoons honey or maple syrup
4 tablespoons collagen peptides – I use this one
¼ teaspoon real vanilla extract
Small dash of sea salt
Optional: Add-ins like frozen fruit, mango juice, etc.
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a blender. Blend until smooth, pour into a glass, and enjoy!
Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes are probably my favorite food. I eat them almost daily. With eggs in the morning, in a curry, with chicken or beef for lunch or dinner. I often batch-cook these on the weekend to last me through the week, I can easily reheat them for a quick meal on a busy day. I’ve even taken to simply washing and slicing them with the skins still on, and then easily peeling them off just before eating them, to avoid the dreaded task of peeling them raw. I hope you love them as much as I do!
Ingredietts:
2 pounds of sweet potatoes, any size or color, cut into 1-inch rounds
2 Tablespoons of butter, melted
At least 1 teaspoon of sea salt
Optional: Garlic powder
Instructions:
Heat oven to 450 degrees. Put all ingredients into a large mixing bowl and toss well to coat. Place the sweet potatoes on a large baking sheet in a single layer. Pour any remaining butter mixture from the bowl over the sweet potatoes. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes, and then flip them with tongs. Roast for an additional 20-30 minutes, or until they are golden brown and easily pierced with a fork. Take out and enjoy! Leftovers can be kept in the fridge for up to a week.
Egg Roll in a Bowl
I just found this recipe and love it so much! My whole family loved it and I hope yours does too.
Ingredients:
2 pounds ground beef or seed oil-free ground pork, lightly salted while browning
1 cup shredded carrots
2 cups raw sauerkraut
1 t ginger powder
1 t garlic powder
3 T coconut aminos
2 T fish sauce
Poached eggs, one per person minimum
Small drizzle of sriracha
Instructions:
Brown the meat in a cast iron or stainless steel pan with a little salt. Add the shredded carrot, ginger powder, garlic powder, coconut aminos and fish sauce, and cook until the carrots are slightly softened. Turn off the heat and add the sauerkraut to warm through. Poach the eggs by boiling a saucepan of water and cracking the eggs into the simmering water, letting them cook through for a few minutes until the whites are cooked and the yolks are still runny, scooping them out with a slotted spoon. Serve in bowls with an eggs and a drizzle of sriracha. Enjoy!
Chicken (or Beef) Greek Dinner
This is one of my go-to dinners for the family. It’s super versatile, you can use chicken, lamb, or beef and then add whatever toppings you have on hand, like feta cheese and kalamata olives and chopped cucumbers. The real star here is the tzatziki sauce - which is super easy to make and can easily be made high protein/low fat for weight loss. I hope you love it as much as we do!
Ingredients:
Chicken, -boneless/skinless breast, chopped and seasoned with salt, garlic powder, and oregano
And/or Beef/Lamb - either steak, thin-sliced, or ground beef formed into kafta - long skinny burgers seasoned with salt, garlic powder, and oregano
Cucumbers, julienned or half moons
Kalamata olives
Feta cheese, European origin for animal-based rennet (American rennet is made from mold)
Optional: small amount of peeled, seeded fresh tomato and/or a little chopped red onion, unless you have digestive or autoimmune disease (these are column 3 foods)
Tzatziki sauce:
2 Cups Greek Yogurt (nonfat for protein-sparing, full fat for weight maintenace or gain)
1/3 Cup cucumbers, minced
1 tablespoon each fresh dill and mint
1 t garlic powder
1 tablespoon lemon juice (half of a medium lemon)
sea salt
Instructions:
Grill or sauteed the chicken and/or steak in a cast iron pan after seasoning. If making kafta, combine the ground beef with the seasonings and form into long skinny meatball-shapes, frying in a cast iron pan until cooked on all sides. Arrange all of the ingredients on a large serving dish or place each topping in it’s own bowl so that guests can make their own plates with their desired toppings. Spoon tzatziki sauce on top and enjoy! This dish also goes well with the sauteed zucchini recipe as a side dish.
Sauteed Zucchini
This is a great side dish for your steak or burger. It’s my favorite go-to side. I call zucchini and cucumbers the “freebies” because they are nontoxic nonsweet fruits that have almost no carbs or calories. Although cucumbers are served cold, zucchini can be cooked and flavored for a delicious warm side dish! Yum!
Ingredients:
1 zucchini per person, sliced into half-moons
1 teaspoon grass-fed butter per zucchini
sea salt
Optional: garlic powder, European feta cheese, oregano
Instructions:
Heat a cast iron to medium high. Melt the butter, spreading it around the bottom of the pan. Add the zucchini and cook for a few minutes, stirring often, until they are just cooked through but still firm. Add any optional ingredients and serve warm. Enjoy!
Bananas Awesome
My partner invented this dessert (and gave it this silly name) and it has quickly became our new favorite. It’s crazy how something so easy could be so delicious. Feel free to get creative with the toppings - I could see shredded coconut, berries, or nutmeg being fun additions.
Ingredients:
One banana per bowl, chopped
A pinch of sea salt
A few shakes of Ceylon Cinnamon
A small dollop of homemade whipped cream (1/4 C or less)
Optional: small drizzle (1 teaspoon) of organic salted caramel sauce, I like 365 Whole Foods Brand - found here: https://amzn.to/48xrsfK
Instructions:
Place the chopped banana in the bowl. Lightly salt the banana, add the few shakes of Ceylon Cinnamon, and a small drizzle of caramel sauce, if using (adds 4 grams of carbs from sugar). Prepare the whipped cream in another bowl with an immersion blender, using 2 T of heavy whipping cream for every serving of the dessert (it will double in size when whipped), with 1 teaspoon of honey or 2 drops of Nunaturals liquid vanilla stevia. Add a dollop of whipped cream on top of the banana and shake a little more cinnamon on top for garnish. Enjoy!
Korean Bulgogi (Bibimbap)
This recipe is one of my new favorites and the first night I made it, my partner and I and my 10 year-old son ate almost 4 pounds of meat in one meal! They both said it was the best meal I’ve ever made. So it officially went into the regular dinner rotation at our house and it’s so easy and delicious. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
2 pounds of thin-sliced steak, preferably grass-fed (Costco usually has thin-sliced ribeye or NY strip)
Marinade:
1/4 Cup Raw Honey
1/3 Cup Coconut Aminos
1/2 teaspoon Ginger powder or 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon Garlic powder
2 Tablespoons Rice vinegar
Sides and toppings:
Minced fresh cilantro
Julienned blanched carrots
Julienned cucumber
Poached or soft-boiled eggs
Optional: White rice
Instructions:
Whisk all of the marinade ingredients and pour over the beef, stirring it in. Allow the marinade to sit in the fridge for at least 20 minutes and up to one day, covered. Grill or saute the beef in cast-iron until just cooked through. If using cast-iron, then broil the beef in the oven for 5 minutes to get a little char on the edges. Serve immediately with the sides, including blanched carrots (simmered in water for a few minutes), cucumbers, eggs, cilantro, and optional white rice.
Meditation
All humans can benefit from a meditation practice. Meditation is magical because it assists us in releasing the hold that the mind and emotions have on us. We learn to rest in awareness and to watch the mind’s thoughts and the body’s feelings, becoming the witness, the observer. The highest form of meditation, according to the masters, is to become aware of awareness, conscious of consciousness. When the thoughts arise in the mind, if we identify with them and think that we ARE the thinking mind, we create misery inside. When the feelings arise, and we block them or push them away in order to avoid feeling them, we harden our hearts and create more painful feelings in the long run. Thoughts are not who we are, and feelings are just sensations that want to be experienced, and released.
Meditation is the practice of becoming aware of what is constantly going on inside of us. Meditation gives us a break from being the “thinker” and allows us to be our spirit, the watcher, the observer of the thoughts and emotions. We get to rest back in spirit and feel the awareness within us. This practice allows us to clear away the garbage that is covering up our inate nature, which is joy and peace and love. That is what our spirit is made of, and we can’t experience that unless we uncover it. Children inately know this sense of spirit, they are present in the moment and notice the beauty in the world around them. We can look at the world with the eyes of a child, the beauty of our surrounding, the gratitude we feel when we see the big picture of this amazing planet and our place in it, the joy of being alive, the peace that comes from letting go.
Most of this world we have no control over. I don’t believe that spirituality is the feeling of solid ground, but that spirituality is the feeling of freefalling through space, hurtling down the rapids of life on an inner tube with nothing to hold on to. And rather than feeling fear about this, I believe that knowing how little control I have over life and its events helps me to stay in reality, helps me to let go and have faith and accept things as they truly are. And when I do this, I see a beautiful synchronicity to life and feel protected by life. This world was here for billions of years before me, and will be here long after as well. I am just a human on a speck of dirt flying through space around one of trillions of stars. My problems are not real, they are just thoughts in my mind and emotions in my body. True reality is that I only have a few years here on this amazingly beautiful planet, full of beautiful humans and animals and plants and rocks and mountains and oceans.
Meditation allows me to remember these things, these glimpses of reality. It allows me to quiet the voice in my head by ceasing to identify with it, and resting in the awareness of my spirit, watching this world unfold before me and enjoying the ride. If there are thoughts, I release them and watch them. If there are noises, I detach from them and hold my true center. If there is an ache or pain, I feel the joy deeper inside me and release my judgments of the sensations of the body. If my mind wanders, I guide it back to breath in this moment. We can use mantra - chanting a statement like “breathe in love, breathe out peace” or Om Namaya Shivaya, or anything we want to quiet the mind and give the mind something to focus on. Mainly I just attempt to hold awareness, being aware of being aware like a fun house mirror stretching into infinity. And I rest in spirit, in the present moment, full of love and light and beauty and joy.
Beef Stew with Carrots
This is the perfect fall meal. I have a Halloween bonfire in my front yard every year, and I make a big pot of this stew for my friends and family. There’s nothing quite like a steaming bowl of beef stew with thick gravy and warm carrots on a chilly fall or winter evening. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
2 pounds of bone-in beef roast, chopped into 1 inch cubes
6 cups of chopped carrots
1 T onion powder
1 T garlic powder
3 cups beef broth
sea salt
optional: 1 T tomato paste
optional: 2 T potato starch, in a slurry with 2 T warm water before adding to stew
optional: a couple handfuls of crimini mushrooms (baby portobello), halved or quartered
Instructions:
I like to make this stew in a large dutch oven on the stovetop, but you could easily make it in a slow cooker or an Instapot instead. The reason I use a stovetop is because the stew meat needs to simmer for 3.5 hours and the carrots (and optional mushrooms) only take 20 minutes, so I like to add them at the end. To start, add the beef, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and broth to the dutch oven or large pot on the stove and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 3 hours, until the meat is starting to become tender. Add the chopped carrots and any optional ingredients, and continue to simmer until the carrots are cooked through, about 15 more minutes. Serve hot and enjoy!
Ham & Cheese Frittata
This is such an easy weekend breakfast, and I like to double the recipe because then there are leftovers for the week! Just warm in the microwave or in a covered cast iron pan with a little water and it’s a quick and easy breakfast that is just as delicious the next day. Low- or fat-free ham (without nitrates or other weird ingredients) is a great way to enjoy high-protein pork without the seed oils that are usually present in pork fat.
Ingredients:
1 dozen eggs
1/2 C dairy (preferably raw): milk, yogurt, or sour cream
1 C chopped ham
1/2 C shredded cheese, preferably raw (I like the Emmi gruyere from Costco)
1 T butter
Instructions:
Make sure your 12-inch cast iron pan is well seasoned. If it is not, you can warm it and rub it down with some extra butter before cooking. Preheat the oven to 400. Melt the butter in the pan and warm the ham through on medium heat. Beat the eggs in a bowl with some sea salt and stir in the cheese. Pour the egg mixture on top of the warm ham and turn off the heat under the pan. Put the pan in the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes or until the eggs are just set but not brown on top. Remove from oven just when a knife comes out clean. Invert the pan onto a cutting board so the frittata stops cooking and let it cool a minute before serving.
Ground Beef and Gruyere Zucchini Boats
This is a fun and super easy dinner that my kids love. It’s honestly one of the only ways I can get them to eat zucchini! You could use any cheese, although I’m in love with the Swiss Emmi-brand gruyere from Costco, which is raw and so delicious. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
4 large zucchinis, washed and ends cut off
2 lbs ground beef (lean for protein-sparing, or 80/20 for weight maintenance)
8 oz Gruyere, shredded
2 t dried italian seasoning
1 t onion powder
1 t garlic powder
sea salt
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice the zucchini lengthwise and scoop out the seedy insides with a spoon, leaving a little on the ends so the ground beef mixture doesn’t leak out during cooking. Combine the ground beef in a bowl with all of the other ingredients except the cheese and zucchinis. Place parchment paper on a cookie sheet and place all of the zucchini “boats” on the parchment, filling with the beef mixture, and covering with a layer of gruyere. Place in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until the cheese is brown and the zucchinis can be pierced easily with a fork. Enjoy!
How to Cook the Perfect Steak
Knowing how to cook the perfect steak is imperative to becoming animal-based! I love using cast iron pans for all of my kitchen cooking. Of course, nothing beats a steak on the grill, but if you want to cook your steak inside in cast iron, here is how!
Ingredients:
1 lb of steak for each person (ribeye for weight maintenance OR filet/lean sirloin/tenderloin for a protein-sparing day)
Butter for the pan
Sea salt
Optional: sprig of rosemary or sage
Instructions:
Make sure the steak is fully defrosted. It can be cold from the fridge or first brought to room temperature. Salt liberally with a high quality sea salt like Himalayan or Redmond’s Real salt on both sides. Place the cast iron pan on the burner and turn the heat to HIGH. Let the pan get good and hot for 1 minute, but not smoking. Add a small amount of butter to the pan, to just lightly cover the bottom with melted butter. Place the optional herbs in the butter, if using, and then push them off to the side of the pan. Place the salted steak in the hot pan as soon as the butter is melted but hasn’t yet browned. Turn the heat down to medium-high for a thinner steak (less than an inch), or medium for a thick steak (1.5-2 inches thick). Cook for 3-5 minutes until the bottom is nice and brown and a crust is beginning to form. Flip the steak and continue cooking on the second side and spoon some of the butter and juices from the pan back onto the steak as it cooks. You may need to continue flipping the steak every 3-5 minutes until it is done.
Optional: use a kitchen thermometer to check the internal temperature. I like to pull the steak out of the pan when the temperature is 10 degrees lower than the desired doneness because it will continue to rise about 10 more degrees. Rare is a final temp of 120, medium rare is 130, and medium is about 140. So, for medium rare, I like to cook my steak to about 120 degrees and it will continue to heat to 130 as it rests for 5-10 minutes on the cutting board. Resting also allows the juices to absorb so that they don’t run out when you cut into the steak. If you don’t have a kitchen thermometer, make a small incision in the middle of the steak in the pan to check for your desired doneness.
Honey Lemon Curd
Frankly, I don’t want to live a life without desserts like lemon curd. This is one of the reasons why I follow an “animal-based” way-of-eating, and not strict carnivore (zero-carb). Also, eating a little honey helps with electrolytes, sleep, and muscle cramping. I think our ancestors ate honey and fruit. This recipe is healthy and divine, although it is fairly high-fat and high-carb if you are protein-sparing. But what a great treat for a refeed day!
Ingredients:
2 eggs and 4 egg yolks
1/4 C honey, preferably raw
2 T butter, cut into small pieces
2 t lemon zest, finely grated
1/2 C lemon juice (about 2-3 large lemons)
dash sea salt
Instructions:
Mince the lemon zest with a food processor or a sharp knife. Cream the butter in the food processor, or use a hand mixer or whisk. Add the zest, honey, lemon juice, salt, eggs, and egg yolks. Mix until well combined. Pour the batter into a small saucepan and cook over low heat, whisking constantly until the curd coats the back of a spoon (just before a simmer) or reaches 165 degrees. Remove from the heat, add the butter pieces, and stir another minute. Pour into small custard cups and refrigerate until cool. Enjoy!
Photo by James Trenda on Unsplash
Carnivore Swedish Meatballs
These are delicious, extremely healthy, high-protein, and can be made in 15 minutes. Serve with zucchini noodles stirred into the sauce at the end until they are warm!
Ingredients:
3 pounds lean ground beef
1 t garlic powder
1 t onion powder
3 large zucchinis, spiraled into noodles or thin sliced
1 C milk, half and half, or heavy cream, preferably raw
2 t sea salt, or to taste
1 egg, beaten
2 t Worcestershire sauce, optional
Instructions:
Combine raw beef, egg, and 1 t salt and form into meatballs. Brown these in a dutch oven or large cast iron pan until the outside is cooked (optional to butter the pan). Add dairy, onion powder, garlic powder, and Worcestershire sauce, if using and bring to a simmer. Place a lid on top and let the mixture simmer for 10 minutes until the meatballs are cooked through. I like to stir in the zucchini noodles just until warmed through (don’t overcook or the water will come out and make the sauce too watery). Enjoy!
Spaghetti Squash Beef Casserole
I saw someone post something similar on one of my carnivore groups this week and I immediately thought it was such a good idea! I made it right away and all 3 of my kids ate it up, so I knew it was a success!
Ingredients:
1 medium spaghetti squash
1 T melted butter
Sea salt
2 pounds ground beef
1 t garlic powder
1 t onion powder
1 C cream, preferably raw
1 C parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon lemon zest
1 C shredded cheese, preferably raw (I like Costco’s raw gruyere)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350. Cut the spaghetti squash in half lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds. Rub the melted butter all over the inside and salt liberally. Place inside-down on a cookie sheet and bake for 40 minutes. When they are cool enough, use a fork to scrape out the “spaghetti” from the squash rinds.
In a sauce pan, warm the raw cream to 120 degrees and stir in the parmesan cheese with a little salt and the lemon zest.
Brown the meat with salt, onion powder, and garlic powder.
Stir the spaghetti squash, beef, and alfredo cream sauce together in a large bowl and spread in a glass baking dish. Top with the shredded cheese and place under the oven broiler for a few minutes until the cheese is just melted. Serve and enjoy!
Salmon Poke Bowls
These are super easy, delicious, and versatile. Set out little bowls of all of the ingredients, and let your guests or family build their own! Top with tamari and pickled ginger and enjoy!
Ingredients:
Sushi-grade raw salmon, chopped
Julienned or sliced English cucumbers
Shredded carrots
Sliced avocado
Chopped mango
Chopped pineapple
Shredded nori
Wheat-free tamari sauce
Pickled ginger
White rice, if desired
Seed Oils: The Underlying Cause of Obesity and Disease
Seed oil started out as industrial machinery lubricant, and now the government is telling us it’s the healthiest food for the human body.
There is a hidden ingredient in our food that is causing obesity and common chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Although bacon cheeseburgers, carbohydrates, and sugar have traditionally been blamed for rampant obesity and metabolic disease, they are not actually to blame. The hidden ingredient in our food (especially almost all restaurant food and processed food) causing this damage to the human body is vegetable oil – or as nutrition scientists more commonly refer to it: “seed oils”.
Seed oils are known scientifically under many names: linoleic acid, omega-6 fatty acids, and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). Dr. Cate Shanahan, long-time nutritionist for the LA Lakers and author of Deep Nutrition, calls these oils the “Hateful Eight” – including soybean, corn, canola (rapeseed), safflower, sunflower, cottonseed, grape seed, and rice bran oil*.
None of these seed oil fats were historically part of the human diet, as our ancestors did not press the oil out of soybeans or corn in the wild, and in fact humans did not eat beans and grains at all until quite recently. Historically, our ancestors were hunter-gatherers who ate mostly meat and fruit – they mostly hunted large game (ruminant animals) and gathered eggs and ripe fruit. The fat sources in the traditional human diet included lots of fat from animals as well as from fruits that contain fat like olives, avocados, and coconuts.
There are 3 basic types of fat: saturated fat, monounsaturated fat, and polyunsaturated fats. Saturated fat largely comes from animal fats and coconut oil, monounsaturated fats come from fatty fruits like avocado, and polyunsaturated fats are found in seeds. Saturated fat is solid at room temperature (think beef tallow and butter) due to being completely “saturated” with hydrogen. This causes saturated fat to avoid bonding with oxygen, since it does not have any double bonds that can attach to oxygen molecules. This also allows saturated fat molecules to stack together, which is what makes it solid at room temperature. When mono- and polyunsaturated fats have an area that lacks a bond with hydrogen, the fat molecules can bend here, and no longer are able to stack neatly together like they do with saturated fat. Because of these bends in the fat chains, mono and poly fats are liquid at room temperature.
The 3 main kinds of dietary fat.
If a fat is not “saturated” with hydrogen bonds, oxygen atoms can attach to the long fat chains – mono (which means “one”) fats have one oxygen-attracting bend, and poly (which means “many”) fats have multiple bends. When oxygen attaches to these bends, the fat becomes oxidized, which means that the fats are going rancid and causing inflammation and disease in the human body * .
The fats we eat get incorporated into the body’s tissues, and all cells in the body have a phospholipid membrane – meaning that the outside wall of each of our cells is made of various kinds of fat. When the cell membrane is composed of the weaker, more liquid mono- (MUFAs) and poly- fats (PUFAs), the cells become weak and damaged which can lead to metabolic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, stroke, and cancer.
graph from optimisingnutrition.com
Starting about a century ago, large amounts of polyunsaturated fats were introduced into the human diet. It started with Crisco, a company that began to chemically process cottonseed oil to make it available for popular consumption. Whereas prior to WWI, cottonseed oil had been used to lubricate machinery, after the war ended this fat was advertised to Americans as a “heart healthy” alternative to the tallow, lard, and butter that had been common in those days.
Not only were seed oils introduced as food for humans, but they were also introduced as food for livestock. Animals like chickens and pigs are monogastric, meaning that they have one stomach - and all monogastric animals store the seed oils they eat without converting them into another kind of fat, like healthy saturated fat. If monogastric animals are fed seed oils, they store the seed oils, and then when we eat the bacon or chicken skin, we are eating the stored seed oils in their fat.
Cows are the best fat source because they are polygastric (they have four stomachs) and ample beneficial bacteria in their stomachs to help convert the fats they eat – even when the cows are fed corn and corn oil – into healthy saturated fat. So even corn-fed beef still makes healthy saturated-fat rich butter and tallow, and this means that the fat from ruminant animals (bison, goat, elk, lambs, and sheep, as well as cows) is always going to be the safest and healthiest fat for the human body. In the carnivore community, we say “cows are king”.
Despite this, even grass-fed cows have a little bit of polyunsaturated fat in their bodies that we consume when we eat red meat and dairy. The ideal amount of PUFA to consume is less than 10 grams a day. Although eggs have a smaller percentage of PUFA than chicken fat and chicken skin, we get some seed oils from eggs as well (about 0.5 grams per egg, unless your eggs are corn-free AND soy-free). Red meat has about 3% PUFA in grass-fed meat and 6% in corn-fed meat, which is about 3 grams in a pound of 70% lean corn-fed beef *,*. Since red meat and eggs are some of the best foods for the human body, we will already be getting a small amount of PUFA in our diet even if we are avoiding seed oils and eating as healthy as possible.
There is rampant misinformation in the US regarding seed oils, and many in the medical community advise that people consume large amounts of seed oils. This misinformation stems from the idea that consuming PUFA reduces cholesterol, and that high levels of LDL cholesterol is linked to heart disease. This “research” largely benefits the agriculture industry and the medical establishment. It has been proven wrong by a number of studies showing that not only does lowering LDL cholesterol (and cholesterol numbers in general) not protect against heart disease, it actually RAISES the risk *,*.
Likewise, some nutrition researchers have reported that PUFAs just need to be in a specific ratio with omega-3 fats, but this is not true*. Although omega-3 fats (like fish oil) are also technically polyunsaturated fats with similar multiple bends, they are not as harmful as the omega-6 poly fats from seed oils and may have some benefit in the human body. But, the ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 (another name for seed oil-derived PUFA) is not important. What is important is keeping the total amount of seed oils in your diet down as far as you can, as they are poisonous, get stored in our bodies, and take a very long time to detoxify.
In fact, researchers have found that the half-life of seed oils in the human body is 680 days – meaning it takes 2 years to clear out HALF of the seed oils that we have stored in our bodies from eating an average Western diet. The total amount of time it takes to remove all stored seed oils from the body is 4-7 years. Since research is also showing that seed oils are likely the main cause of not only obesity, but also all the other metabolic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, it’s clear that we need to get our seed oil consumption down as low as possible, as fast as possible, and AVOID SEED OILS LIKE THE PLAGUE!!
How do we do this? It’s not as challenging at home, as we can just swap out any “vegetable” oils that we have (which are all seed oils) for healthy beef tallow, butter, and high-quality olive oil, and coconut oil, in addition to avoiding the fat from chicken and pork – while still enjoying the protein from these animals like boneless skinless chicken breasts, fat free ham, and lean pork loin (which are easy to buy at any grocery store). We also need to avoid eating all beans, nuts, and seeds, as their main source of fat is from seed oils.
The real problem is eating at restaurants. Studies have found that up to 40% of the calories in a typical restaurant meal are from seed oils, as they are very cheap and help keep costs down*. Basically, most restaurant food is completely saturated in seed oils. All fried food, sauteed food, salad dressings, and sauces derive their calories from seed oils. French fries. Ranch dressing. Asian stir-fry. Sauteed onions. Chicken fingers. Chicken wings. All seed oil. BUT, the good news is that there are a couple of restaurants that have beef tallow in their fryer – (one popular restaurant with a 100% beef tallow fryer is Buffalo Wild Wings - carnivore French fries!) and some authentic French restaurants. The two things that you can always order in a restaurant and be fairly confident that they are free of seed oils are beef burgers (no bun or mayo) and steak. Since beef has a good amount of fat in it, cooks and chefs don’t usually add any oil to the pan or griddle when cooking burgers and steaks. If you want to order a salad on the side, ask for oil and vinegar and dress it yourself. If you want to order a baked potato, ask the server to check that they have 100% butter or have them bring you the butter packets so you can read the ingredients. Even some popular chain steakhouses serve “butter” that is a 50% seed oil blend. You can even order beef patties from most “fast-food” restaurants - they are almost always 100% beef with no fillers or seed oils, and just add pickles, tomato, onions and mustard if you want!
Many French restaurants in the US use canola oil in their fryers, although traditionally French food (and Italian food too) abhors seed oils and only uses animal fats. This is the reason for the so-called “French paradox” - the observation that despite eating lots of carbs and high-fat food, French people do not historically get fat or have many of the Western diseases like diabetes and heart disease. If you go to France or Italy, you can be certain the vast majority of your food will be cooked with healthy animal fats. But in America, you will have to ask them to check the box that their fryer oil came in to see if it really is 100% tallow, or if it is instead a blend that includes a substantial amount of seed oils. I like to call the restaurant in the afternoon when they are slow, and politely explain that I don’t eat seed oils and ask kindly if they can check the ingredients on their butter, salad dressing, and/or fryer oil.
There are a number of beneficial healing effects in the body from removing seed oils from your diet and making sure that you don’t get more than 10 grams per day from all sources, including beef and eggs. Within 3 months of making this change in my own diet, I could eat moderate amounts of carbohydrates again without gaining weight. Before this, if I even ate a tiny bit of carbohydrates I put on weight! I also found that the intense cravings that I would get from having a serving of carbohydrates was gone. I felt normal again, like when I was a kid and could eat carbohydrates and not immediately have intense cravings and end up overeating.
Another major benefit was the fact that many people who stop consuming seed oils also stop burning in the sun*! This has been well documented with my clients and others in the carnivore community. The reason that we get such high levels of sunburn and skin cancer is likely because the high level of seed oils in our diet is weakening our skin cells and causing our skin to become damaged from sunlight*. Of course our ancestors got a lot of sun - for hundreds of thousands of years humans were hunter-gatherers living near the equator. Why would we suddenly be experiencing so much sunburn and skin cancer? It’s not the sun, it’s the oils (as well as the toxic sunscreens) damaging our skin!
So what should we eat? The most important change we can make is to remove seeds and seed oils from our diet. Unfortunately, if you go out to eat regularly this can be the most difficult change to make. But it is worth it. Our ancestors ate mostly animal foods and fruit. Fruits are defined as “the fleshy and sometimes sweet part of the plant that contains seeds and can be eaten”, which includes all sweet fruits, as well as zucchini and other squashes, cucumber, avocado, olives, and coconut. Many carnivore or animal-based people also do well with root vegetables like carrots and sweet potato - although cooking them first removes some or most of the oxalate toxins. Fruit is the only part of the plant designed for consumption, as most fruit seeds pass through animal’s digestive systems and are planted in the waste. We know that pre-industrial humans were hunter-gatherers - they hunted large game and they gathered fruit. They did not eat seeds, as most are unpalatable, inaccessible, or indigestible in their raw state.
All foods derived from seeds are damaging to the human body - including nuts, grains and beans. Even the seeds in fruit and berries can sometimes aggravate those with a more damaged gut lining. Not only do seeds like grains, beans, and nuts contain seed oils, but they also have many other plant toxins in them to deter animals from eating them. Plants can’t run away like animals, so plants put defense chemicals in the parts of the plant that they don’t want you to eat - mostly the seeds, stems, and leaves.
When humans grind the seeds into flour or chew them, we are releasing these toxic plant chemicals into our bodies and damaging our intestinal lining and all of our cells. A common seed defense chemical is gluten, which is the protein found in the bran (outer) part of the seed of wheat plants and wreaks havoc on the gut and digestive system of humans. Grains were only added to the human diet in the last couple of thousand years with the advent of agriculture. There are hundreds of other harmful plant chemicals, like lectins, oxalates, phytates, phytoestrogens, phenols, saponins, and tannins, to name a few. Meat and fruit do not have any of these toxins and are the preferred foods for the human body, as they were the foods of our ancestors for hundreds of thousands of years.
Although olive oil and avocado oil are monounsaturated fats and don’t contain PUFA, there are a couple of concerns with consuming these forms of fat. They do still have one bend, so they are able to oxidize a little bit, and need to be cold pressed (so-called “extra virgin”), and stored in dark containers. As they are liquid at room temperature, they are not as healthy for the body’s cells as saturated fats which have no bends and cannot oxidize at all. Saturated fats are firmer fats that are stronger for our cell linings. The second problem with olive oil and avocado oil is the fact that many American companies have recently been caught lying on the label and adulterating these fats with seed oils. One recent study found that over 80% of avocado oils and olives oils have been cut with seed oils*. Luckily, studies have found that Costco’s Kirkland Brand is 100% pure olive oil *! Also the Chosen Foods brand of avocado oil at Costco is 100% pure as well. The only other brand that the study found that contained 100% avocado oil was Marianne’s, which is sold at Costco and Whole Foods *,*.
There is rampant fraud in the food industry in the US. Not only are companies adulterating oils, but the food industry and the US government are allowing misinformation to negatively affect the health of Americans, switching out our fryer oils from healthy tallow and coconut oil to extremely unhealthy seed oils in the 1980s, and driving up levels of obesity and disease in the decades since. It is up to us to change our diets and heal our bodies. The good news is that it’s possible, many of us have already done it, and you can do it too. Throw out your seed oils, stop eating chicken and pork fat, refuse to eat foods at restaurants that contain seed oils, call your local restaurants and grocers and request healthier fats, and bring your own olive oil and butter with you when you go out to eat or go to a friend’s house for dinner.
The benefits from switching to a diet of primarily meat, eggs, dairy, and fruit include losing weight, eating healthy carbohydrates without gaining weight, tanning in the sun without sunburn, aging more gracefully, and avoiding disease. We will have a new and improved relationship with food as our bodies heal and we become more intuitive about our eating and nutrition needs. Take charge of your body and watch your body heal. Watch excess weight fall off, long-standing health problems resolve, your ability to tan in the sun return as well as significantly lower rates of sunburn and skin cancer, to once again be able to eat carbohydrates without excessive weight gain as well as an increase in intuitive eating and a lack of food cravings.
Even if you cheat and eat junk food, DO NOT EAT SEED OILS. Just remind yourself, 680 days to clear out half of them! Within 3 months of lowering my PUFA consumption to 10 grams/day or less, I saw changes happen in my body and I started healing and losing weight. You can do it too!
Additional references:
https://drcate.com/pufa-project/
https://drcate.com/category/food/seed-oils/
https://www.zeroacre.com/blog/linoleic-acid-facts
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3195369/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27071971/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5492028/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24853887/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2373379/
https://www.worldatlarge.news/function-health/linoleic-acid-as-driver-of-heart-chronic-disease