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
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
Delicious stick-to-your-ribs meal for a chilly day!
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
What should we eat for easy and effective weight loss that lasts?
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
A delicious summer meal on the grill for a small dinner party.
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)
Vanilla, Berry, and Carrot Cake.
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)
A unique South Africa dish that is easy and delicious!
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
The second best topping for steak, after herb garlic butter. Especially good on flank steak.
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
Easy, delicious, and can be low-carb and protein-sparing for weight loss days.
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
My favorite low-carb dessert.
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
Why should we take vitamin D, and how much?
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/