Chaffles!

These are amazing! Waffles made with cheese and eggs. That’s it. So easy and delicious. You can use egg whites and low-fat cheese for a protein-sparing day. These can be topped with butter and a little honey or maple syrup for a treat, or use 2 as bread for a carnivore sandwich with deli meat and a bit of cheese or avocado! Yum!

Ingredients:

2 eggs *OR* 4 egg whites

1 Cup shredded cheese: mild cheddar, parmesan, or low-fat mozzerella

Directions:

Blend the eggs or egg whites with an immersion blender or fork and then stir in the shredded cheese. Preheat your mini waffle maker until it is hot, and then add a couple tablespoons of the batter and cook for 6 MINUTES (3 times longer than a regular waffle). Enjoy!

Coconut Thai Curry Chicken

This high-protein meal is perfect for a chilly fall day. It can be modified to be protein-sparing by using light coconut milk. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized chunks

1 T coconut oil or butter

1 can organic coconut milk with no gums - I like Native Forest

1 C bone broth

2 C chopped carrots

1 t fish sauce

1 T wheat-free tamari or Braggs coconut aminos

1 t garlic powder

1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced, or 1 t ground ginger

1 t onion powder

1 t ceylon cinnamon

1/2 t turmeric powder (optional)

1 T dried cilantro leaves (not coriander seed)

1 t fish sauce (gluten free)

1 T dried Thai basil

Directions:

Heat a large cast iron pan on medium-high. Add the coconut oil or butter, chicken breast chunks, tamari or aminos, and ginger. Stir-fry until chicken is cooked through and onion is soft. Add all other ingredients and stir well. Simmer until the carrots are soft, about 20-25 minutes and serve.

Moroccan Orange Cake

I found this recipe online and altered it to make it gluten-free and low-carb and honestly its one of my favorite desserts I’ve ever made. I made 3 of these cakes in 3 days! This recipe is so healthy it can be a fun breakfast, or serve it at the end of a dinner party with whipped cream and chocolate shavings for something more decadent. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

12 eggs (yes, one dozen)

1 cup coconut flour

1 cup greek yogurt (nonfat if you are protein-sparing)

1 stick (half cup) butter, softened (reduce to 1/4 C for protein-sparing)

zest and juice of two large oranges

1 t vanilla

1/2 t sea salt

1 t baking soda

1 cup raw honey + 1 t vanilla OR 100 drops Nunaturals liquid vanilla stevia

High-quality, organic extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Mix all ingredients in a stand mixer or with an immersion blender or hand mixer. Grease a pan with olive oil and cut a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of the pan. Pour the batter in the pan, smooth the top, and drizzle high-quality olive oil on top of the batter. Cook in the oven for about 40 minutes, until the top is fully browned and a knife comes out clean. Yum!

Photo by Dana Nestorova on Unsplash

Coconut Curry Shrimp

This is a fun and quick weeknight dinner, super flavorful and colorful. You can use full-fat coconut milk if you’re at your goal weight, or light coconut milk on a weight-loss protein-sparing day. Other kinds of seafood can be substituted for the shrimp, like fish, scallops, clams, or calamari. Enjoy! Serves 2.

Ingredients:

Shrimp:

2 pounds of medium shrimp

1 T coconut oil

dash sea salt

Sauce:

1 can coconut milk, no gums - I like Native Forest

1 T fish sauce

1 T tamari sauce

1 t garlic powder

dash onion powder

2 t minced fresh ginger or 1/2 t ginger powder

1/2 t ceylon cinnamon

1/2 t turmeric, optional

3 T chopped Thai basil, optional

lime slices for serving

Instructions:

Whisk all the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside. Heat up the coconut oil a large cast-iron/stainless steel/copper pan on high until hot. Add the shrimp and the dash of sea salt, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the shrimp are pink and cooked through, a couple minutes. Pour in the sauce. Stir until hot and well combined, and remove from heat. Add more fish sauce and/or tamari to taste, for saltiness. Sprinkle herbs on top. Serve immediately with limes on the side.

Perfect Boiled Eggs

I’ve recently fallen in love with boiled eggs. They are perfect for protein-sparing days because they don’t need to be cooked with butter or other fat in the pan like with omelets, scrambed eggs, and fried eggs. All you get is the super-healthy fat in the yolk, which is 4.5 grams/egg. And with 6 grams of super high-quality protein each, they are super filling, delicious, and done in minutes! This recipe is choose-your-own-adventure, depending on whether you prefer your yolks runny, medium, or hard! Enjoy!

Ingredients:

Fresh eggs, soy- and corn-free (how many depends on the size of your pan: not more than will fit in one layer in the bottom of your pan, with some space around them)

Instructions:

1. Boil 3 inches of water in a medium sauce pan, being sure it’s not more than half full so there is room for your eggs after the water boils.

2. Lower fresh cold eggs into the rolling boiling water with a large spoon so they don’t crack on the bottom of the pan. Work quickly so that they don’t start cooking much before you get the timer set. Keep heat on high.

3. Set the timer immediately. Runny yolks = 7 minutes. Medium yolks (my fave) = 8 minutes. Hard yolks = 10 minutes.

4. When the water comes back to a roiling boil, lower the heat to medium, making sure that there are still simmer-bubbles in the water.

5. When the timer goes off, immediately pour out most of the hot water and add cold tap water to fill the sauce pan. Dump that water and fill it again with cold tap water to stop the cooking.

6. Peel, season with sea salt and pepper, and eat warm! Leftovers can be stored in the shell in the fridge for up to one week and eaten cold.

image: Photo by Anton Nazaretian on Unsplash

Protein-Sparing Modified Fasting

THIS ARTICLE NO LONGER ACCURATELY REPRESENTS MY BELIEFS. ALTHOUGH WE NEED TO KEEP PROTEIN ADEQUATE AND FAT LOW, I NOW BELIEVE A HEALED BODY NEEDS APPROPRIATE AMOUNTS OF HEALTHY CARBOHYDRATES AND ADEQUATE CALORIES. PLEASE REACH OUT TO FIND OUT MORE!

For many of us with weight to lose, intermittant fasting and ketogenic diets aren’t enough to get to our goal weight. I struggled for years to lose weight, especially the last 10-20 pounds that just wouldn’t budge. Then I discovered protein-sparing modified fasting (PSMF) and the last pieces of the weight-loss puzzle fell into place.

PSMF has been around for decades, but like most nutrition science it fell to the wayside when the fat- and meat-phobia of the 80’s began. Basically, PSMF is when one fasts most fat and carbohydrates but maintains a healthy amount of protein in the diet. It had magical results in my body and in many of my clients’ bodies, helping us lose the last bit of weight and keep it off. PSMF is still considered a high-fat diet, but the body is burning it’s own fat stores, rather than burning dietary fat.

More recently, Maria Emmerich of Maria Mind Body Health has been promoting PSMF, and she has an excellent calculator on her website for determining how much protein, fat, carbs, and calories to consume on “normal days” and “PSMF days”. https://mariamindbodyhealth.com/calculator/ I found this to be helpful, but slightly complicated. Also, Maria is extreme with it and i don’t agree with her super low numbers. If the calculator doesn’t work for you or you don’t/can’t measure your body fat, a simple method is to keep carbs super low (around 50 grams/day total carbs - not net carbs), keep fat as close to 50 grams/day as possible (with an option for weekly higher calorie refeed meals), and eat as much protein as you need for satiation. I found at first that my body wanted a lot of protein, and I was still losing weight. Maria even says in the small print that consuming extra protein is fine. Some days I ate as much as 150-200 grams of protein and still lost weight. The minimum amount of protein required during PSMF is one gram per pound of lean body mass (basically your goal weight, or what your weight would likely be right now if you had the same amount of muscle but very low body fat).

Easy ways to increase protein while still fat-fasting:

-Whole eggs everyday, adding whites if you’d like. Even though the yolks have 4.5 grams of fat each, your body needs at least 50 grams/fat each day and egg yolks are an excellent source. Some days I eat 6 eggs, and my favorite is soft-boiled.

-Fat-free lunch meat. Even organic lean pork and chicken are fine, because there is no unhealthy PUFA fats when there is no fat. It’s just protein. Be sure to check the labels and find organic lunch meat that is 0-1 gram of carbs and 0 grams of fat. Pure protein. Roll it up with pickle slices and mustard for an awesome lunch.

-90/10 or 95/5 Ground beef, super lean steak without much marbling, and beef liver. You can cook it in a dry cast iron pan with lots of sea salt and it is delicious. Maybe a bit of butter or ghee but count your fat grams.

-Nonfat greek yogurt with Nunatural Liquid Vanilla Stevia. I love the thickness and creaminess of greek yogurt. Be sure to watch for any additional ingredients besides milk and probiotics, especially “nonfat milk powder” which is pure lactose/milk sugar. You can divide the carbs listed on the label in half, because they are required by law to report the carbs in the milk, but the bacteria digests at least half of it. Or make your own yogurt and let it ferment longer and it’s basically carb-free. I like to add a few raspberries or blueberries on top, and it feels like a wonderful dessert on a PSMF day.

-Lean pork loin and boneless skinless chicken breasts for dinner.

-Lean seafood like white fish, salmon without the skin, shrimp, oysters, scallops, and. mussels.

There’s nothing better than losing weight while full. Please reach out for a nutrition session with me if you have questions!

Salmon Greek Salad

This is one of my favorite salads ever. You can really use any kind of meat or fish you want but I love it with grilled or sauteed salmon. Serves 4.

Ingredients:

4 large wild-caught salmon fillets, 6-8 oz. each

1 tablespoon grass-fed butter

8 eggs

4 C zucchini noodles (or thin slice)

1/2 C kalamata olives

1/2 C feta cheese

2 C chopped cucumber

1/8 C super high-quality extra virgin olive oil

1/4 C balsamic vinegar

Sea salt and pepper, to taste

1 t each dried oregano, parsley, and dill

Optional: a few cherry tomatoes, if you tolerate nightshades (not recommended)

Directions:

Salt the salmon fillets and fry them in a hot buttered cast iron pan for a couple minutes on each side, so they are still rare in the middle. For the soft-boiled eggs, start with boiling a few inches of water in a medium pan until there is a roiling boil. Lower the eggs into the boiling water with a large spoon and immediately set a timer to simmer for 8 minutes. After the timer goes off, pour out the simmering water and fill with cold tap water to stop them from cooking. Peal and quarter the eggs. Plate the zucchini, cucumber, salmon, feta, eggs, and olives. Drizzle the dish with o.o. (olive oil), balsamic, herbs, and sea salt. Yum!

Beef Larb Salad

These are fun, easy, and absolutely delicious. Even my kids will eat them - in fact, they gobble them up! Double or triple the recipe for more than one hungry person.

Beef Larb Salad:

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef

1 t sea salt

1 t garlic powder

1 t ginger powder

2 scallions (green onions), sliced, both white and green parts

juice and zest of one large lime

2 T fish sauce

2 T low sodium/ wheat-free tamari OR Braggs liquid aminos

2 T rice vinegar

1/2 Cup chopped fresh cilantro, mint, and basil (thai basil or regular)

For serving: julienned English cucumber (skinny cucumber with thin skin, wrapped in plastic).

Directions:

Brown the beef in a cast-iron pan with the ginger, garlic, and sea salt until cooked through. Turn the heat down and stir in the sliced scallions, tamari, fish sauce, rice vinegar, and lime juice and zest, and warm through. Sprinkle some of the herbs on top to serve, and plate the remaining herbs, and cucumber on the side. Serve the beef larb in bowls, topped with cucumbers and herbs, and enjoy!

Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

Best. Dessert. Ever. 64 grams of carbs in the whole dish, so split it into 16 pieces and they have only 4 grams each. Amazing!

Crust:

1 12 oz bag unsweetened shredded coconut

1 stick butter (8 tablespoons), melted

2 teaspoons ceylon cinnamon

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

2 T raw honey

Cheesecake:

3 packages (24 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature

4 eggs

3/4 Cup sour cream

zest and juice of two lemons

1 Cup raw honey

2 Cups blueberries

Instructions:

Place all crust ingredients except coconut in a bowl and stir with a whisk. Add the shredded coconut and stir. Press into a 9x13 rectangular glass baking dish. Bake for 10-15 minutes at 350 degrees or until browned and cooked through.

Place all cheesecake ingredients, except blueberries, in a stand mixer or food processor and combine until smooth. Pour over the baked crust. Sprinkle the blueberries on top evenly, lightly pressing them into the cheesecake batter, and bake in the oven 40 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Chill in the fridge for a couple hours before slicing and serving. YUM!

Chicken Kebabs with Lemon-Yogurt Sauce

I grilled these up for some friends last night, and multiple people told me it was the best meal they’d had in months. The kebabs and yogurt sauce can be made in advance, so all you have to do is grill them up and serve!

Kebabs:

4 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into 40 2-inch chunks

2 sweet potatoes, cut into large slices

4 zucchinis, cut into large chunks

1 pineapple, cut into large chunks

Marinade:

1 Cup sour cream

1 t garlic powder

2 Tablespoons Herb de Provence, dried (or 4 Tablespoons fresh herbs)

zest and juice from 2 lemons

1 Tablespoon sea salt

Yogurt Sauce:

3 Cups Plain Greek yogurt

juice of 1 lemon

1 t garlic powder

salt to taste

1 onion powder

Optional sides:

Mixed Greek olives, pitted

feta cheese, crumbled

Instructions:

Whisk the marinade ingredients in a small bowl and pour 2/3 of it over the chicken to marinade for 30 minutes. Also soak the wooden kebab sticks in water for 30 minutues so they don’t catch fire on the grill.

The other 1/3 of the marinade can be poured over the “veggies” after the kebabs are prepared. I like to position the potato and chicken toward the middle of the kebab since the middle of the grill is often the hottest and these parts need to cook more.

To prepare the yogurt sauce, combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and whisk. Serve the yogurt sauce as a dip for the kebabs, with feta cheese and olives sprinkled on top! Enjoy!

Animal-Based Cake! (Can be made dairy-free)

This basic cake recipe can easily be turned into any number of cake flavors. Just add another ingredient or two to the classic cake recipe below, and the possibilities are endless!

Basic Vanilla Cake Recipe:

Ingredients:

12 eggs (yes, a dozen eggs)

7/8 Cup coconut flour (scant one cup)

1/2 Cup dairy of your choice: milk, heavy cream, coconut milk, etc

1/2 Cup Butter or Coconut Oil

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1 C raw honey + 1 T vanilla OR 100 drops of Nunaturals liquid vanilla stevia

Optional flavors:

Any kind of berry: Add 2 cups of boiled frozen berries and lightly stir into the batter in the pan, making swirls.

Carrot cake: Add 1 cup finely shredded carrot, 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ginger, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon cloves. Frost with cream cheese frosting (1 room-temperture package of cream cheese with 3 T raw honey OR 15 drops liquid stevia and enough heavy cream poured in during mixing to be frosting-consistency, about 1/8-1/4 cup)

Directions:

Mix all ingredients in a bowl with a whisk or immersion blender until smooth. Butter the sides of a baking sheet and lay parchment paper in the bottom. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Frost with homemade whipped cream sweetened with a few drops of liquid vanilla stevia or a little honey and vanilla.

Bobotie (Curry Beef Custard)

This is one of my favorite dishes. Its from South Africa and is quite popular there. It’s a unique combination of flavors, but it’s magical how they all come together. It’s also easy enough for a quite and hearty weeknight dinner. Sometimes it is dressed up for weekends or holidays by cooking it in a hollowed-out pumpkin!

Ingredients:

2 pounds ground beef, preferably grass-fed

1 T beef tallow or butter

2 t sea salt

2 T nightshade-free curry powder (2 t ceylon cinnamon, 2 t turmeric, 2 t ground ginger)

2 t garlic powder

1 t onion powder

8 eggs

1 can coconut milk or 2 C raw milk

1/4 C raisins

1/4 C chopped apricots

2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped

Optional: 5 bay leaves

Preheat oven to 350. Saute ground beef, tallow or butter, and salt, and break it up until well cooked. Add all spices and turn off the heat. It should be a little too salty at this point, as the custard will absorb the saltiness. Combine eggs and milk/coconut milk with an immersion blender or regular blender until well mixed, and pour it into the beef/spice mixture. Stir well, adding the raisins, apricots, and chopped apple. Lay the bay leaves on top in a decorative pattern. Bake (in a cast iron pan, dutch oven, glass baking dish, or hollowed pumpkin!) in the oven for 20 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Do not overcook. Serve warm.

Taco Meat for Burrito Bowls

Taco Tuesday! Pile on top of shredded lettuce with your toppings of choice: sour cream, shredded cheese, diced avocado, cucumber, olives, and lime juice.

Ingredients

Per pound ground beef: (I like to make 1 pound per person and there will likely be leftovers)

1 teaspoon paprika, if tolerated

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin, if tolerated

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 - 1 teaspoon sea salt

Instructions:

Brown the ground beef in a cast iron skillet with a teaspoon of bacon fat per pound of beef. When it’s cooked halfway through, add the seasonings and stir well, breaking up the beef and salting to taste.

Lemon Zucchini Bread with Lemon-Coconut Glaze

Lemon Poppyseed Zucchini Bread:

10 Large Eggs

1 C softened butter or coconut oil

1 C raw honey + 1 t vanilla OR 100 drops Nunaturals liquid vanilla stevia

Zest and juice of 1 large lemon (or 2 teaspoons lemon extract)

1 C Coconut Flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ceylon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 C shredded zucchini, water thoroughly pressed out with paper towels

Lemon-Coconut Glaze:

1/2 C coconut butter

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

1 T raw honey

water to desired consistency

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place all dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and stir thoroughly. Place eggs, honey and vanilla OR stevia, and butter into a medium bowl and mix thoroughly. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients, and add the shredded zucchini. Line a loaf pan with parchement paper and grease any unlined sides with butter. Pour the batter into the pan and bake until a knife comes out clean, 45-60 minutes. For the glaze, blend all ingredients, adding water until you get the desired consistency that will drizzle on top of the cooled zucchini bread.

Chimichurri

Next to herb garlic butter, this is my favorite topping for steak. I like to double the raw garlic and cayenne if I feel a cold coming on, but then my kids think it’s too spicy and won’t eat it. Although, that just leaves more for me!

Ingredients:

I large bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley, stems removed

1 large bunch fresh cilantro, stems removed

juice of one lime

2 T red wine vinegar

2 T finely chopped oregano

dash cayenne

dash cumin

sea salt and pepper

1/2 C melted butter

Directions:

Place all ingredients except olive oil into a food processor. If you don’t have one, an immersion blender works or you can fine chop the herbs and stir in all other ingredients. While machine is running, drizzle in the melted butter in a thin stream to emulsify. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

Egg Custard

A super easy and delicious dessert. Can also be made into a pie, using an coconut flour crust and topped with whipped cream.

Ingredients:

4 eggs

2 C heavy whipping cream, half and half, OR milk

1/3 C raw honey OR 30 drops Nunaturals liquid vanilla stevia

pinch salt

couple dashes of nutmeg, preferably fresh ground

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients using a whisk or immersion blender. Pour into custard cups placed into a glass baking dish and add warm water to fill the baking dish halfway, this is called a “bain marie” or water bath, and helps the eggs to cook slowly and not scramble. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Panna Cotta with Fresh Berries

Probably my favorite dessert in the whole world. Gelled cream, slightly sweetened with stevia, and topped with fresh berries. Melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

2 C heavy raw milk OR half and half

1 packet unflavored powdered gelatin

4 teaspoons honey and a 1/2 teaspoon vanilla OR 20 drops Nunaturals liquid vanilla stevia

pinch salt

1 C fresh berries, I recommend raspberries or sliced strawberries

Directions:

Pour one cup of the milk or cream into a small saucepan. Sprinkle the gelatin over the top and let it stand for a few minutes to “bloom”. Add the honey and vanilla (or vanilla stevia) and salt and stir over medium heat until it’s very warm but not boiling and the gelatin has dissolved. Take off the heat, add the second cup of cold milk and stir. Pour into custard cups or wine glasses and chill until set, 1-2 hours. Top with the berries and serve. Makes 4 servings.

Vitamin D

I recently had a sinus infection that just wouldn’t go away. I rarely get sick, although I am historically prone to sinus problems. Although this one wasn’t very painful, it just wouldn’t quit. I happened across an article by one of my favorite bloggers (link below) that discussed Vitamin D and its importance in killing viral infections like influenza. I’d been largely treating my sinus infection as either bacteria or fungal with 10 different remedies, with no luck, and I suspected it must be a viral infection. Also, my kids had all had a brief bout of the flu right when my sinus problems started, so that was suspicious. The study I found mentioned something called the “vitamin D hammer,” and I had to learn more. Within 24 hours of trying it, I was significantly better for the first time in a month, and within a few days I wasn’t sick anymore. It was magical.

The “vitamin D hammer” is a one-time dose of 50,000 IU in one day (or 10,000 IU 3 times a day for 2 or 3 days), for adults with viral infections who haven’t been previously supplementing with sufficient amounts of vitamin D before they acquired the infection. As the FDA only recommends 400 IU of vitamin D daily for adults, this is a much larger dose than I’d ever heard of taking. Many people recognize that the FDA recommendation is wholy inadequate, and daily doses of 1,000-5,000 are common. According to the research, it takes almost 9,000 IU per day for 97.5% of adults to reach serum vitamin D levels of 50 nmol/L or more. Some vitamin D scientific researchers advise taking doses high enough to reach serum vitamin D levels of closer to 100 nmol/L, especially while fighting a viral infection like influenza. Up to 75% of Americans are deficient in vitamin D, which is actually a hormone usually produced by the skin’s exposure to sunlight.

According to the researchers from Canada who discovered the “vitamin D hammer”, “The results are dramatic, with complete resolution of symptoms in 48 to 72 hours. One-time doses of vitamin D at this level have been used safely and have never been shown to be toxic. We urgently need a study of this intervention. The cost of vitamin D is about a penny for 1,000 IU, so this treatment costs less than a dollar.”

Another group of researchers interested in the “remarkable seasonality” of influenza noted that the sunshine causes “robust seasonal vitamin D production in the skin; vitamin D deficiency is common in the winter, and activated vitamin D, a steroid hormone, has profound effects on human immunity. [Vitamin D] acts as an immune system modulator, preventing excessive expression of inflammatory cytokines and increasing the ‘oxidative burst’ potential of macrophages” (white blood cells found at sites of infection). His research found that not only did a study involving volunteers injected with influenza have more fever and illness in the winter, but that children with vitamin D deficiencies had higher rates of viral respiratory infections.

I was not only amazed by vitamin D’s ability to stop influenza in its tracks, but in my resulting research I found scientific links between high vitamin D levels and the prevention of many other illnesses and conditions, including autoimmune diseases; type 1 diabetes (which many researchers believe to be an autoimmune disease); insulin resistance including prediabetes and type 2 diabetes (also associated with obesity); neuromuscular issues including muscle weakness, a reduction in falls of elderly patients (one study found a 20% reduction and another found a 72% reduction in falls), idiopathic low back pain, and fibromyalgia; multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis (40% reductions in the risks of developing either with supplementation of vitamin D); as well as a possible protective effective in cardiovascular disease by lowering systolic blood pressure and heart rate; and cancer (by inducing cell death in some kinds of cancer cells, including breast, colon, ovarian, and prostate cancers).

Obviously, I had largely underestimated the importance of vitamin D supplementation. It is found in animal based foods like eggs, salmon and other seafood including cod liver oil, beef liver, and cheese; but since the researchers are showing that we need 9,000 IU/day, food sources are not enough. I now buy 5,000 IU gel caps, and recommend taking enough that your levels are close to 100 nmol/L, when tested by your doctor, especially in the winter months.

Learn more:

https://www.cheeseslave.com/how-to-get-enough-vitamin-d/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870528/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870528/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3317188/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2426990/

Keto Sushi Handrolls

This is one of my favorite meals. Adding seafood to our diets is essential, and I highly recommend wild caught seafood whenever possible to minimize toxins and maximize nutrients. Seafood has long-chain fats that cannot be found in any other food, including DHA and EPA, and is also rich in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins D and B2 (riboflavin), as well as calcium, phosphorus, iron, zinc, iodine, magnesium, and potassium. Seaweed paper (called nori) is also highly nutritous, containing as much protein as some meat, as well as high levels of iodine, an essential mineral.

Keto Salmon Handrolls:

1 lb wild salmon, seasoned with ground ginger and soy sauce, and sauteed in butter until medium rare

a few ounces of salmon roe (fish eggs), optional

1 package nori (seaweed paper)

1 hothouse cucumber, julienned

1 carrot, grated fine, optional

1 red or yellow bell pepper, julienned

2 ripe avocados, julienned or sliced fine

4 scallions, sliced fine

one jar of pickled ginger

wasabi

tamari (gluten-free soy sauce)

Instructions:

Take a nori seaweed wrap and lay a slice of salmon down diagonally, adding your desired julienned vegetables and toppings, and roll up, pinching the bottom and adding roe, tamari, and wasabi to the top. Enjoy, with bites of ginger before and after!

Barbacoa Beef (Instapot)

My family eats this for dinner about once a week, it’s our main staple. I can’t get my kids to eat plain pot roast because they think it’s too boring, but they inhale my Barbacoa Beef on “taco salad night”. Hope your family loves it too! (This recipe can be easily doubled or tripled and makes great leftovers, too.)

Barbacoa Beef (Instapot)

Ingredients:

2 T butter

2 lb beef chuck roast

1 C beef broth

Juice of one lime

1 T apple cider vinegar

1 T tomato paste, optional

1 T chili powder, optional

1/2 t cumin

2 t oregano

1 T sea salt

1 t garlic powder

1 t onion powder

Instructions:

1.     Cut beef into large chunks. Either place on a cookie sheet, salted, under the broiler, flipping once, until brown; or saute in the Instapot with the butter until all sides are browned and then press cancel.

2.     Combine lime juice, vinegar, tomato paste, cumin, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt in a lidded mason jar and shake.

3.     Add the mixture to the Instapot with the browned beef.

4.     Secure the lid on the Instapot, closing the pressure valve. Press the “manual” button and set the timer to 30 minutes. Afterword, allow the pressure to naturally release for at least 20 minutes, releasing the pressure valve at this time if it hasn’t released on its own yet. Remove the lid, transfer the beef chunks to a bowl, and shred the barbacoa beef with two large forks, stirring in enough of the remaining liquid/fat so that the beef is saturated and moist.

5.     Serve the barbacoa beef in bowls with various toppings of your choice: shredded lettuce, sliced olives, sour cream and cheese, chopped avocado, lime juice, etc.