Strawberry Ice Cream Fat Bombs

Take care dear reader, I am not supplying you with a recipe intended to make your jeans tighter or wreck your perfect “clean diet”. If anything I’m here to set the record straight about fat. Fat has spent many years in nutrient jail due to the 1976 congress decision to write dietary guidelines for America based on the idea that since saturated fat–that resides in high levels in meat and eggs–could raise LDL cholesterol, the reduction of fat intake would lead to reversal and prevention of heart disease, a common killer during the 1960’s and 1970’s.

NPR has provided an insightful article on the subject of that 1976 congress decision that will definitely do it more justice than I could. It is important to note that while no-fat was the belief back then, it severely lacked data and there were plenty of intricacies of the human body and nutrition that scientist did not yet understand.

We now understand that fat is necessary.

From digestion, nutrient transport, hormone activation, immune function, energy extraction and support of your nervous system, fat literally keeps you alive (if you want the nitty gritty science go here). You’re body needs it, you’re body craves it–want those fried foods and pizza often? Eat more healthy fats–and its time you listen to your body.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “But won’t eating fat make me fat??!”.

You’re body doesn’t just swallow the fat down and deposit it straight to your thighs. Yes, fat is very calorie dense. However, it has to be broken down through many steps so it stays around longer than protein or carbs and keeps you fuller for longer. You also extract energy from fat. One pound of stored fat provides approximately 3,600 calories of energy.

Now say it with me, Fat is good.

There! That wasn’t so hard!

At this point you’re hopefully thinking, how can I make sure I’m getting enough healthy fats? Enter the Fat bomb. It may not have the most appealing name–feel free to share alternatives–but I’m warning you I may be introducing you to a new addiction. Pick any flavor–sweet or savory–and there’s probably a recipe out there for them. Some are made with cream cheese and butter while others are more friendly to those of us that are dairy free. They are essentially a small portion of healthy fats that you freeze and eat when the cravings hit, as a snack or if you’re tracking all your nutrients, you come up short on your daily fat intake.

Finally, before we get to this recipe…I wish I could tell you just how much fat you need to eat everyday. Not only does this number vary from person to person based on the other macronutrients and calories you are consuming, but so far I have been hard pressed to find an adequate resource–read: unbiased by the American dietary guidelines– to even give you a ball park estimate. The best advice I can give is to listen to you body and see how it feels with different intake amounts of fat. Don’t overdo it, just remember that you’re body likes healthy fats and its always a good idea to treat your body kindly 🙂

Strawberry Ice Cream Fat Bombs

Makes 6

3/4 cup coconut cream

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup blended strawberries (Four large strawberries should do)

2 TBSP honey

pinch of salt

Line a muffin tin. In a medium sauce pan, melt coconut oil and coconut cream together on low. Once combined, stir in honey and strawberries and turn off the heat. Pour liquid into lined muffin tin, a little over halfway full. Freeze overnight for best results although you can probably sneak a semi-frozen one around the 5 hour mark.

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Cumin Lamb Hash

Sometimes, I forget to eat.

Or rather, I don’t eat as often as I should. There was a long period during my teen years where I was constantly trying to lose weight and deluded as I was, by conventional diet weight loss, I thought skipping meals was the way to slim down. I taught my mind to ignore the hunger signals. I couldn’t however stop my body from telling me how it really was. By the time 2:00 pm rolls around and I haven’t eaten lunch, I’m a bit of a grump. My bones start aching, my hands shake, my head complains and my stomach even starts to feel bad.

I know better now but old habits die hard it seems. To combat my absent mind and starving belly, I typically have to whip up a lunch that is quick but also filling and nutrient dense. Enter, THE HASH.

Hashes are supreme. Like a blank canvas, your skillet waits for you to throw in whatever suits your fancy and if you blend the colors correctly, you get a wonderfully caramelized, nutrient filled meal in as little as twenty minutes.

Don’t limit your possibilities to thinking hashes HAVE to have potatoes in them. This recipe happens to have sweet potato because the sweetness pulls everything together and goes great with the spices. Think about flavor combinations! You could go greek with this lamb hash and use dill, cilantro and olives instead. The possibilities are really limitless and it can be breakfast, lunch or dinner. It also keeps over really well so any leftovers won’t go to waste.

Try experimenting with your own hash recipes and let me know in the comments how they turn out!

Cumin Lamb Hash

Serves 6

1 lb ground lamb

1 cup fresh corn

3 cups kale

1 small onion-chopped

2 cloves garlic-chopped

1 medium sweet potato- roasted with skin removed

1 TBSP cumin

1 TBSP Coriander

1/2 tsp Turmeric

Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat a oiled skillet to medium heat and add in chopped onion and ground lamb. Allow both to brown before adding the corn and kale. Once the kale has wilted and the corn is adequately cooked through, you can add the garlic, sweet potato and spices. You may need to add a tablespoon or so of water to remove all the good stuff from the bottom of the pan and completely cook the kale. Once everything is combined, serve hot. If you’re feeling the need to treat yo’ self, drizzle with a tablespoon more of olive oil and tahini and use some Paleo pita bread as a vehicle to your mouth.

Happy Eating 🙂

Basic Vinaigrette and Spring Break!

A lot has happened this past March. I turned 20 years old rather anticlimactically in the beginning of the month although I did enjoy a very delish strawberry AIP cake from Beyond the Bite For Life for the occasion. I also spent the past two weeks traveling between Missouri, Kentucky and Arkansas for rock climbing and family visits. Frankly, I’m astounded that I managed it. Over 32 hours of driving, miles hiked to crags, actually climbing the rock, limited food options while camping, a good five days where I cheated and ate gluten which ended in a five day headache, and crazy sleep schedules has not ended with me writhing in bed in pain. The contrary I have been feeling better and better over this past month.

After a positive diagnosis of adrenal insufficiency at the end of February I’ve been on supplements to support adrenal function for a month now and while at the start I doubted their effectiveness, something has been helping me feel better. More good news from the doctor that I received on Monday is that my SIBO–small intestine bacteria overgrowth– test came back negative! This is great news for my diet which I’m not going to lie, on top of all my allergies and AIP would have been pretty dang difficult to eliminate even further for SIBO. The next step for me is a visit to a ENT–ear, nose and throat–doctor to look further into my severe vertigo episodes, a heavy metal test and continue on my supplements and diet for now. For those of you who are still going through test after test, it is an exhausting ordeal and the results can be disheartening. Even negative results–which you’d think would be relieving–can leave you hopeless. My only advice would be to continuously affirm in your mind that every test result you get is a step in the right direction. Positive or negative, you learn more about your body and eliminate possibilities.

 

Since I’ve been very bad about posting recipes lately, I thought I would leave you with a quick, classic one that is great to have in your recipe arsenal because its tastes good on so many things and its super simple to make. I whip up a balsamic vinaigrette a couple times a week to drizzle over salads, sautéed veggies, grilled chicken, etc for a nice zing! Feel free to try out different acids, oils, herbs and spices on your own but I have written out some good combinations that I have found so far.

Basic Vinaigrette 

Makes 2 cups*

1 cup oil

1 cup vinegar

3 medium cloves of garlic

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Mince garlic in food processor, add in salt, pepper, and herbs. Add oil and pulse until combined and then slowly add in vinegar, pulsing your food processor until oil and vinegar have emulsified.

Italian Dressing

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Oregano

Asian Dressing

3/4 Olive Oil

1/4 Sesame oil  (omit for AIP)

1/2 inch chopped ginger or 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

Coconut aminos

Orange Dressing

Olive Oil

1/2 Red Wine Vinegar

1/2 Orange Juice

1-2 TBS Honey

Raspberry Dressing

Olive Oil

Red wine vinegar

1-2 TBS honey

1/2 Cup pureed raspberries

Happy Healing 🙂

-A

 

Turmeric Chicken Soup and Listening to Ourselves

          I’ve been through a rough go of it this past week and a half. There are many factors that could be adding to my distress…the forefront one in my mind being that this is the longest I have gone without seeing my boyfriend since we started dating last year and I am not taking it very well. Others include stressing over the results of my adrenal function test which have not come back yet, whether I have been improving enough over the past month which of course leads to thoughts of if I’ll ever improve to where I want to be, and practically obsessing over my diet and fitness routine. Not exactly nurturing healing thoughts!

Things have gotten so bad that eating has become a horrendous chore again and I came very close to relapsing into my habit of last year, which was to just not eat. If I am worried about how much progress I have made, think about how scared I am of losing that progress! The typical bloated, constant nausea and lack of appetite that I have quite a bit of experience with has plagued me this past week and a half but I decided to ignore it and just force myself to eat, thinking that at least I would be getting plenty of nutrients. Since I was ignoring these symptoms I also figured now would be as good a time as ever to reintroduce egg yolks.

Please for your sake, do as I say, not as I do.

Of course I made things worse and now instead of preventing a flare up, I am nursing myself back from one. This means chicken soup made with bone broth, turmeric and coconut oil as my only food for a couple of days, lots of restorative yoga and getting back in the habit of meditation and mindfulness. This has become a lesson in listening to my body and remembering to nurture my mind.

One of the difficulties with autoimmune diseases is not just the physical symptoms they present but also how they effect you mentally. Some small thing not right in your diet or sleep cycle, a little extra stress, anything that can set you off and not only could you be dealing with body/stomach/head aches, skin flares, respiratory problems, etc…but also anxiety and depression. All because you ate those silly egg yolks…

In this past month of healing from being practically bed ridden, one of the most helpful things I discovered from talking with a therapist and reading up/practicing mediation is that not all thoughts and feeling that enter your head are true. This may seem like a no brainer but we can get so wrapped up in what’s going on inside our noggin that we don’t notice “Hey…this anxiety that I’m feeling really doesn’t have a leg to stand on”. Once you take a small step back and examine these false thoughts and feelings, its easy to take away the power they hold over you and instead replace them with ones more rooted in truth. It all goes back to listening to your mind and body! This is a topic I hope to discuss further in the future…

Now however, I think I mentioned something about chicken soup! There are plenty of AIP and paleo recipes out there for chicken soup which a quick google search will tell you. I encourage you to try them all out because you can seriously not overdo the chicken soup and with all the variances between them, you gotta find one you really really like! My recipe is as simple as simple gets but its tasty, good in a pinch and is healing to the gut which is all that matters to me. The turmeric is a great anti-inflammatory and the coconut oil not only adds great taste but it also helps your digestive system break down the protein in the chicken. If you are having difficulties eating right now, feel free to cook the soup as is and then strain the veggies and meat out and just drink the broth. Other alternatives would be leaving the meat out and just having veggies which would be a step above just broth and then eating both veggies and meat which would be the hardest to digest.

Turmeric Chicken Soup 

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1 whole pastured young chicken

3-5 cups bone broth

3 TBS coconut oil

1 1/2 tsp turmeric

1 TBS tarragon

3 tsp salt

2 cups chopped carrots

2 cups chopped celery

*1 can organic pumpkin puree

Start by placing your whole chicken in a big pot and filling it with bone broth until half the bird is submerged. Alternatively, you could use other cuts of chicken, just making sure that you use a bit more bone broth. Simmer on low for two and a half hours until chicken is completely cooked and remove from broth. Add in carrots, celery, spices and coconut oil and allow to simmer until carrots and celery are cooked but still crisp, about 25-30 minutes. While the vegetables are cooking, remove meat from the bone and pull into chunks. Save the bones and cartilage to make bone broth later! Once vegetables are cooked, add chicken back in–I only ended up using half the meat I pulled off the bird but use as much as you want– and enjoy!

*If you tolerate fiber and starch well, feel free to add in a can of pumpkin to the pot. Paleo diets are typically very low-carb however, carbs can be very helpful in the recovery phase after physical activity and contrary to popular opinion, are not evil 😉

Happy Healing!

-A

Raspberry Carob Cups

     Valentine’s Day is not my favorite holiday and chocolate isn’t a gift from the gods in my opinion. My tastes are much more savory–and I’m pretty much a grinch on any holiday–but these carob cups are perfect for those busy weekday nights when you find yourself craving something sweet and refreshing. They literally take five minutes to make and you can store them in your freezer for up to 2 weeks!

     If you find yourself craving chocolate on AIP or you’ve given it up for other reasons and need your fix, carob is a great alternative. It has a more roasted flavor than cocoa and is less bitter so most recipes that use it call for less sweetener. Keep this in mind if you want to sub it in your recipe. It also has zero caffeine which is great for us with thyroid and adrenal problems.

Enjoy this recipe and maybe share it with others 😉

Raspberry Carob Cups

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Prep: 5 min
Freeze: 30 min
Makes 24

1/4 cup carob powder
1/2 cup coconut manna (I use this brand)
1/2 + 1 TBS coconut oil
2 TBS maple syrup
1/4 cup fresh or frozen raspberries (If using frozen you should thaw them first)

Melt coconut manna, coconut oil and maple syrup in a small pot on medium heat. Once melted, remove from heat and whisk in the carob powder. Set aside. In a lined muffin tin, add a tablespoon of raspberries to each cup, then spoon in enough carob sauce to cover the raspberries. You don’t want to put too much because once they are frozen it will be harder to bite into the thicker the cups are. Put muffin tin in freezer for 30 minutes. Once frozen, I recommend enjoying them with a glass of coconut or almond milk!

*Feel free to sub other fruits for the raspberries. Blueberries, blackberries, strawberries…just make sure they are in small pieces before freezing, otherwise you might have a hard time biting into your treats.

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Happy Healing!
-A