Cheese!

Here's a link to a great blog post about all the different types of Trader Joe's cheeses.

I believe people with compromised immunity should avoid raw milk products, especially people on long-term antibiotic therapy.

But Trader Joe's also carries goat milk cheddar for $10 a pound -- far below the price you will pay anywhere else.

So! Enjoy! :)

Antibiotic protocol

OK, I wrote this back in June, and I have no idea why I didn't post it here.

I think part of the reason was because I wanted to sprinkle this post with links. Obviously I never got around to that, so I'm going to just dump this out there and hopefully at some other point, I'll be able to post properly.

So...

In June I went to the rheumatologist. At that point, my joints were swelled up more than was usual, and I had MORE affected joints at the moment than I have before. There are a few reasons for this: 1) a poorly tolerated probiotic 2) possibly one of their supplements and 3) unblanched almond flour. Apparently I CANNOT eat unblanched almond flour. It made me incredibly sick.

But according to my labs, I was better than ever before. All my disease markers were down.

AND... there was something new.

Some of you know I'm on long term antibiotic therapy. This is something the Arthritis Center in Riverside specializes in.

Their theory is that a large percentage of people with rheumatoid arthritis are actually infected with a microorganism -- called mycoplasma.

Organisms in the genus mycoplasma are very small -- so small, in fact, they are virtually undetectable. They're single celled bacteria with no cell wall. They behave much like viruses and are capable of hiding in tissues -- tissues like your joints. Your body can't really detect them very well, seeing as they don't look like normal bacteria.

But even though traditional rheumatologists think people with RA have randomly malfunctioning immune systems, the doctors at this center believe that your immune system is reacting to something (mycoplasma infection). Thus, your immune system is NOT just going haywire in a random fashion.

Now, testing someone for mycoplasma infection doesn't work all that well. The tests are VERY expensive and difficult to do. So what the Arthritis Center does is put people on long term antibiotic therapy, and then they wait and see what will happen.

Eventually, if you are infected with a strain of mycoplasma (there are several), the antibiotics will be steadily killing them over time. And when they die, they can't hide any more, and they get flushed out of your joints and wherever else they are, and make it into the mainstream functions of your body as they are eliminated. They also will cause a temporary increase in inflammation, because they release toxins as they die.

Once you kill off a certain number of them (billions), your body finally 'sees' all the dead guys and goes, "Hey! Those are not supposed to be there!" and starts to produce antibodies.

Now, as I said, the doctors cannot detect mycoplasmas easily. But they can check for those antibodies.

And for the first time -- after more than a year! -- they found antibodies to a specific strain of mycoplasmas -- mycoplasma pneumoniae, to be exact.

What does this mean? It means I have a confirmed mycoplasma infection.

It also means that their therapy is working.

!

Pretty cool, huh?

When your doc starts talking about remission, that's pretty cool. :)

Anyway, he wrote me a prescription for a stronger anti-inflammatory and pain medication and sent me on my way.

Yay!

PART TWO

After thinking about this, I started to formulate a bit more about my theory with autoimmune diseases and infections such as mycoplasma. I think that everything starts with disordered digestion, which affects the immune system over time -- the standard leaky gut explanation. Due to disordered digestion, the immune system then becomes disordered.

This allows infections such as mycoplasma to take hold more easily.

OK, now, stay with me here.

Your child inherits the bacteria of the mother's digestive system. So if the mother has disordered digestion, that will be passed on to the child.

Mothers of autistic children have a higher incidence of autoimmune disorders than the general population.

Autistic children have a higher rate of gut dysfunction than their neurotypical peers.

So, is it a stretch to say that autistic children might also be suffering from a mycoplasma infection in addition to their disordered digestive and immune systems?

I don't think it is.

So I did more research.

Can mycoplasma be passed from mother to child? Yes.

Can mycoplasma cross the blood brain barrier? Yes.

Can doxycycline and minocycline, the drugs used to treat mycoplasma infection, cross the blood brain barrier? Yes.

So could some cases of autism be caused by the effects of mycoplasma infection of the brain?

And could they be treated similarly to the way I'm being treated right now?

...

This gives a whole new meaning to the "feeding bad bacteria" portion of straying from the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. Starving bad bacteria through the digestive system has a systemic effect. It stands to reason that it starves out the parasitic mycoplasma bacteria strains as well as imbalanced digestive bacteria.

I don't know all the answers here, but I am compelled to discuss this with my rheumatologist at my next appointment.

I want guidance and I want answers, and I want people to not think I'm crazy. I sometimes dream that I am telling people about the dietary changes we've made and the great strides we've also made, and they ignore me and mock me.

Sigh.

So this is the post I've been meaning to make for months. Hopefully I can clean it up with appropriate references at some point. Thanks for listening.

More RA relief

New blogger Jen contacted me to share a link to Jen's RA journey. It's so gratifying to see somebody else who had such a dramatic response to dietary changes, as I did. :)

Elimination diets are difficult, but I can definitely tell you -- it's worth it!

Links

I'm sorry I haven't had much to post about. I'm exhausted, and there's a lot going on in our lives right now.

But yet, we still manage to keep on doing SCD. :)

The Heart Scan Blog has an interesting explanation for those man-boobs. Who knew it was due to wheat? I didn't.

Dr. Mike weighs in with a great article: The China Study vs. The China study. Anyone who's been following the controversy should really check this article out.

For now, I'm hanging in there. My rheumatoid arthritis disease activity is way down. I'm now only seeing a rheumatologist every three months, and I'm on antibiotics and an NSAID, not a DMARD.

My son is about to start third grade. We've decided to go with a special ed aid for him this year due to ballooning class sizes in California. The distraction will be difficult, so this is for the best and hopefully a temporary measure.

I hope you all are doing well!

Digestive Wellness

Just wanted to point you all to the Digestive Wellness Blog.

Enjoy!

The China Study

I thought I'd post this link, since practically everybody in the paleo communities has been talking about it.

The China Study has been much lauded by vegetarian and vegan communities. It's both famous and flawed, much like the food pyramid.

Here's the analysis that everybody's buzzing about.

Work, work, work...

Sorry for being so sporadic. But! I am working on some new recipes. Hopefully I'll have something tasty to share with you guys soon.

Instead of making you wait, though, I'm sharing the recipes that I'm tinkering with. NOTE: THESE ARE NOT NECSSARILY SCD LEGAL YET. But I'm of course making them that way.

Moroccan Coconut Chicken

Homemade curry powder

Caveman chili

Lemon meringue pie

So yeah! Here's to more recipe fun soon! :)

Links, links and more links!

So sorry to bombard you. Life has been positively INSANE for us lately.

But yes, we still somehow manage to stay on the SCD. Priorities must stay in line, and they always do around here. :)

The Food Renegade weighs in on the new dietary recommendations.

She also posted about how high fat dairy is good for you. Cheese lovers rejoice!

Dr. Eades reviews a book about the importance of vitamin D.

The Heart Scan Blog talks about how grain free diets may negate the need for supplemental calcium.

And there's a lovely post here from Five Seed about vegetarians, vegans, and the fear of real food.

I've always said real foodists and veggies need to see that we're all on the same side. We're all in the same quest for clean, healthy eating.

Watermelon

I have a wonderful SCD legal watermelon recipe!



WATERMELON

1. Buy watermelon.
2. Cut watermelon.
3. Eat watermelon.

:D

We liked this recipe very much, and will do it again. :)

Links

I thought I'd throw a few more links your way, but first I have an update!

Clark is doing much better with newly introduced foods. He's tried cantaloupe recently with no problems, and we've also tried guacamole. I'm going to try raw carrots next. Wish us luck!

A lot of people who cut out all grains have a bunch of symptoms that are typical of people going to a low carb diet. Mark's Daily Apple ran two articles about this:

The Low Carb Flu

How to Quit Grains

Also, The Heart Scan Blog had an interview with a low carb fertility doctor:

Low Carb Gynecologist

The interview with the gynecologist blew me away. I had HORRIBLE morning sickness throughout my entire pregnancy, and after I went into labor, I could keep nothing down. Even then, it seems my dysfunctional processing of carbs was to blame. :(

I hope you are all having a great week!

Salt

This New York Times Article, The Hard Sell on Salt, was very interesting to me.

There's been a lot of talk about salt reduction lately. Of course, many doctors still tell people to cut back on salt intake if they have high blood pressure.

However, many physicians now know that this tactic only works on a small percentage of salt-sensitive people.

Here's a quote from Mary Dan Eades, MD, on the issue:

Even if the point is to reduce high blood pressure, only a tiny minority of people who have elevated blood pressure have what’s called “salt sensitive” hypertension. For the rest, cutting sodium has been shown not only not to help but possibly to be downright detrimental.

(source)

Now I happen to think that Mary Dan Eades is a pretty smart cookie. I started to do my own research into studies with salt, and to be honest, there are just too many for me to do a quick rundown.

But I think the New York Times article really says it all, without drawing a more obvious conclusion.

Personally, I happen to think that upwards of 3000 mg of sodium chloride per day is excessive, although not in and of itself unhealthy. So what's the big deal about?

Here's a very interesting passage from that NY Times article:

The power that salt holds over processed foods can be seen in an American snack icon, the Cheez-It.

At the company’s laboratories in Battle Creek, Mich., a Kellogg vice president and food scientist, John Kepplinger, ticked off the ways salt makes its little square cracker work.

Salt sprinkled on top gives the tongue a quick buzz. More salt in the cheese adds crunch. Still more in the dough blocks the tang that develops during fermentation. In all, a generous cup of Cheez-Its delivers one-third of the daily amount of sodium recommended for most Americans.

As a demonstration, Kellogg prepared some of its biggest sellers with most of the salt removed. The Cheez-It fell apart in surprising ways. The golden yellow hue faded. The crackers became sticky when chewed, and the mash packed onto the teeth. The taste was not merely bland but medicinal.

“I really get the bitter on that,” the company’s spokeswoman, J. Adaire Putnam, said with a wince as she watched Mr. Kepplinger struggle to swallow.

They moved on to Corn Flakes. Without salt the cereal tasted metallic. The Eggo waffles evoked stale straw. The butter flavor in the Keebler Light Buttery Crackers, which have no actual butter, simply disappeared.

In that demonstration, Kellogg basically admitted that some of their most popular, heavily processed foods taste like garbage without salt.

And, well, you know how I feel about processed food, right?

The unvarnished truth is that people need to eat less processed foods. Salt hides the truth from them, and really, that's its only crime, if you're going to assign one.

Salt makes unhealthy foods palatable, and that's why it's so widely used.

So if you cut down on unhealthy processed foods, you are automatically consuming a whole lot less sodium, no matter how much you sprinkle on the rest of what you eat.

Eat less processed foods. The rest will take care of itself.

Vitamin D, sunscreen, and cancer

Sorry for the length of time between postings. I don't yet have a new recipe to post for you all.

I came across an article by Food Renegade titled Should you use sunscreen? It's thought provoking, to be sure.

Personally, I have not had much trouble with sunburn, despite rarely using sunscreen, being outside several times a week, and living in southern California. Yet when I was a child, I burned often.

I would still use sunblock if I were to go to the beach, and I would use it on my son as well. But for normal daily exposure or for a few hours at the park or the pier, I'm really not concerned about sunblock anymore.

Inflammation and the gut

Here's a nice article that explains a bit about the anti-inflammatory effects of a grain-free diet.

Diets such as these have been found to not only alleviate colitis, Crohn's, and autoimmune diseases, but have also been found to help people with autism, multiple sclerosis and fibromyalgia.

Beef stew

I haven't made beef stew in a while. This time I thought I'd write down my basic recipe. :)

You're going to need some SCD legal beef stock, so make that first.

BEEF STOCK

1.5 pounds beef marrow bones or shank bones
water

Toss the bones into your crockpot with a quartered onion, some garlic, a few carrots, some whole peppercorns, a glug of vinegar, and a stick of celery if desired. Heat on high until the mixture comes to a simmer.

Leave your crock pot on whatever temperature keeps the mix bubbling. Check it every six hours or so and add more water.

Strain and discard bones and veggies after 24 hours.

OK, so you should have somewhere in the neighborhood of six cups of stock, if you used a 4 quart crockpot.

BEEF STEW

6 cups beef stock
2-3 onions
3-5 pounds stew beef
1/3 cup SCD legal red wine
1 pound fresh or frozen green beans
1 pound fresh or frozen carrots
1 pound frozen spinach
2 bay leaves
16 oz tomato juice
1 tsp ground celery seed (if desired)
1 tsp garlic (or more whole garlic cloves)
2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp ground pepper
2 tsp salt

Brown the beef (in batches if you have to) with onions and a little olive oil (or reserved bacon grease - yum!). I used five pounds of beef and so I browned it in two batches, with one onion per batch.

Dump the beef into a very large stock pot with the six cups of stock. Deglaze your pan with the red wine. This is a fancy way of saying pour the wine in, let it bubble for a second, and then scrape out all the delicious bits and wine into your stew pot.

Add the beans, carrots, spinach, tomato juice, garlic, thyme and bay leaves. Check the liquid level in your pot -- you don't want it too full, and if you're using frozen veggies, make sure you leave enough room for the melted ice water. Bring to a boil and then simmer with a splatter shield on or a lid slightly ajar. Add water as necessary until the meat is done and falling apart (this can take an hour or longer).

Is this a lot of work? Kind of. But most of the steps are just you throwing stuff in a pot and walking away. Plus, you end up with a huge amount of leftovers, so I'm OK with it. :)



Enjoy!

Chai

I've had a recipe for chai for a while now, and I haven't really had much success with it. Until today, anyway!

This is a nice, mild chai recipe. I'm not going to lie to you -- if you want to make your own chai, you're going to have to order some special stuff for it. Luckily, it's not too hard to find. Penzeys and The Spice House offer whole spices that are SCD legal, and The Spice House offers muslin bags.

I know, I know, muslin bags? In essence, to make your own chai, you need to make your own tea bag. Muslin bags are inexpensive and reusable, so don't forget to order a few when you order your chai spices.

OK, enough of that. Here's what you need:

SCD LEGAL CHAI TEA

2 c water
2 black tea bags (earl grey can be used), or 1 tbsp loose black tea
6 whole green cardamom pods
1 tsp whole fennel seeds (or 1/2 tsp ground fennel)
10 peppercorns

Put the cardamom pods in the muslin bag. Use the back of a measuring cup to bang on the pods. You want them open and the seeds inside to be partially crushed.

Add the rest of the spices to the muslin bag and draw it up tight. Put the bag in the water and bring to a boil.

Simmer for five minutes, and then add the tea bags. Simmer for another five minutes. Turn the heat off and let it sit for 2-3 minutes more. Pull out all your tea bags.

Put a little honey in the bottom of a large mug (I use about 1 tsp). Add the chai tea and 1/3 cup coconut milk.

Serves one person. :)

You can adjust the strength by putting the black tea in earlier or later. Try it out a few different ways until you find a strength you like.

Enjoy! :)

Ginger spice cookies

What, another recipe in one day?!

It's true.

I'm actually in the midst of a bit of a cooking marathon. I've got marrow bones in the crock pot for 24 hour beef broth, I made Murgh Kabuli for lunch, I've got green beans steaming, and I just finished making these ginger spice cookies.

I've still got to make hard boiled eggs and hamburgers, but I thought I'd take a little break. :)

I've tried to make ginger spice cookies before and they were a dismal failure. I have been trying to clean out a completely full notebook of mine, and thus I came across the failed recipe today. With a few tweaks, I had success! So here you go.



These cookies taste light and not too sweet. I think with raisins they'd make a great fake oatmeal raisin cookie!

SCD LEGAL (ITALIAN) GINGER SPICE COOKIES

2 cups almond meal (I used the Trader Joe's brand)
1/3 c palm shortening
1/3 c honey
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon or allspice
1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt

Grease two cookie sheets with extra shortening. Beat all ingredients together and drop onto trays, about 2" apart or so. Bake at 325 (or 300, depending on your oven) degrees for about 15 minutes -- watch the bottoms for burning. Cookies should be evenly golden brown.

Makes about 14 cookies.

Let them cool completely... if you can wait that long. We couldn't. :)

EDITS: I changed the temperature, and I added the word "Italian" to the recipe. I am Italian, so I figure I'm allowed. LOL.

Murgh Kabuli

Today I finally finished up my recipe for SCD legal Murgh Kabuli.

Obviously this isn't an authentic recipe, but it's close enough for me!

I never had the chance to really fall in love with Indian food, before I learned that I wasn't going to be able to eat a whole bunch of foods. I do remember sharing a meal with my very best friend from college, and dipping naan into palak paneer, which I thought was absolutely amazing. That was the only time I enjoyed Indian food before realizing I was unable to eat gluten.

So I've been interested in trying more ethnic recipes for some time.

I cobbled this together from a variety of sources; I expect it would work well in a crock pot too.

SCD LEGAL MURGH KABULI (STAGE TWO, STAGE THREE WITH ONION)

EDIT: 2 chopped onions
3 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts
4 plum tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp almond butter
1/4 c coconut oil
1 can SCD legal coconut milk (Trader Joe's makes a legal one)
2 tsp SCD legal garlic powder OR up to six cloves garlic
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp coriander
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

In a large skillet, combine 2 tsp garlic, 2 tsp ginger, 1/4 c coconut oil, and half the can of coconut milk. Turn the heat on medium, and add the chopped tomatoes.

EDIT: If you're using onions, start by sauteing the onions in the coconut oil until translucent, then add the garlic.

Cut the chicken into 1" pieces (I use kitchen shears) and add it to the pan while the skillet is heating up. Add 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp cumin, and 2 tsp coriander

Mix it all together and place a lid on the pan slightly ajar. Simmer for 30 minutes on medium.

Check the chicken (it should be done). Add 2 tbsp almond butter, 1/2 tsp pepper, the rest of the coconut milk, and 2 tsp salt. Stir well, turn off the heat, and let sit for 15 minutes.

When serving it, taste it, and if desired, top with a drizzle of honey and a touch more salt.

Enjoy!

Meatloaf

I loooove meatloaf. Of course, most recipes involve breadcrumbs. I've decided to omit them, and I've come up with a pretty basic recipe that works for us, so I'll share it with you here.

But! I'm also going to give you tips on making meatloaf in bulk.

Generally I make four meatloaves at one time, each of them weighing in at about 1.5 pounds.

First, I get my largest Pyrex bowl and a small bowl or container.

I measure two sets of the spices listed below -- one set into the large bowl, and one set into the small bowl/container.

Then I dump three pounds of ground beef in with the spices in the large bowl. I mix well, and shape this into two loaves, which go into a prepared foil-lined pan.

I then dump the smaller container of spices into the now-empty bowl, add three more pounds of ground beef, and mix and shape two more loaves.

Voila! Six pounds of meatloaf, baking at once and ready for your whole week (or for freezing).

Here's my three-pound recipe.

MEATLOAF (STAGE TWO)

3 pounds ground beef
3 tbsps SCD legal onion powder
1 tbsp SCD legal garlic powder
2 eggs
1 tbsp oregano
1 1/2 tsp basil
1 tbsp salt

Mix well and divide into two (or three) loaves. Bake at 400 degrees for about an hour, or until a meat thermometer shows 165.

As a variation, you can add about 1 pound steamed spinach per 3 pounds beef.

ETA: OR try my stage one version here!

Serve with SCD legal ketchup (reduced Campbell's tomato juice). Yum!

Fat, addicting foods

You may have seen a recent news report that stated that high fat foods were "addictive."

Instead of linking to the report, I'll just link you to the Fat Head analysis.

I admit, I hit the roof when I read about it, because they almost completely ignore the role of SUGAR in the addictive nature of certain foods.

I doubt very much that the rats couldn't stop eating a plain stick of butter. Have you ever tried to eat just butter? I can do it in small amounts, but I guarantee you I couldn't eat the whole stick.

But if you soften the butter and mix it up with sugar, I'm betting you could eat it all juuuuust fine.

Blah!

Food recalls

I haven't seen this discussed on any other blogs recently, but there has been a massive food recall concerning hydrolyzed vegetable protein.

If you're interested in following these issues, visit the U.S. Food Safety blog.

Broken oven!

I know I haven't posted here for a while, but I had some good reasons.

One of the reasons was because we took a very short vacation. This is significant because we haven't actually had a vacation in seven years!

But, of course, drama must ensue.

The week before we left, our oven broke. The stovetop still worked, but the heating element in the oven was completely broken. Not only that, maintenance had to order the part. So I was stuck having to cook food for a trip with no oven.

What's an SCD girl to do?

Well, Pecanbread came to the rescue! I couldn't make my son's favorite almond butter brownies, so instead I used the nut butter pancake recipe found here.

I'll post it below for the peeps too lazy to click the link:

PLAIN NUT BUTTER PANCAKES
by Caroline

1 tablespoon nut butter
1 whole egg
2 egg yolks
dash of baking soda

Of course, I had to adapt this into traveling food proportions.

So I used a 16 oz jar of almond butter and 20 eggs, along with a teaspoon or so of baking soda and a teaspoon or so of salt. And then I cooked a stack of flapjacks like you have never seen!

All went well with the recipe, but they turned out kinda bland. Still, though, I will definitely tinker with this further in the future, and served with honey, they were pretty good. I will definitely make these again.

Other than that, well, I live in Los Angeles, so I fired up the grill and cooked six pounds of hamburgers to take with us. I also had three or four pounds of leftover chicken in the refrigerator, so I made a chicken salad with olive oil, vinegar, and SCD legal spices.

I brought the normal veggies and grape juice jello to round it all out. So the trip was saved.

I was very much hoping to post my almond butter biscotti recipe, but I need to make it again. In fact, I was going to make them to take with us on our trip, but because of the oven fiasco, that wasn't possible.

Thanks for hanging in there, my darling readers! :)

Healthy eating

I popped over to Jimmy Moore's blog for a few minutes to see how he was doing.

If you're familiar with Jimmy Moore at all, he's lost over 100 pounds on a low carb diet. He has no heart blockages to speak of (yes, he's been tested) and he lost his brother to heart disease.

Over the past two years, he's gained some weight, inexplicably. He's lost some of it, but he's being tested for thyroid issues right now. All in all, he's a great guy.

He recently blasted Whole Foods for going with conventional wisdom and promoting a whole grains, low-fat based diet -- that same diet that has made many people sick and fat.

Arguably, a diet like that is the reason people go on SCD. Grains are extremely hard for people to digest, and refined grains are like pure sugar that feed all kinds of naughty bacteria. Add that to a history of antibiotic use (I myself had probably been on antibiotics more than 20 times before I was 20 years old), and you've got a recipe for gut dysfunction.

I was most disturbed by the comments section of the article, though. A lot of vegetarians outright mocked Jimmy for what they thought was an overweight guy. Jimmy is a HUGE man, but I wouldn't exactly call him fat. He's kind of like the Jolly Green Giant. Very huggable!

The other problem I had was that people automatically think low carb diets equal all meat diets. That's just not true. Jimmy eats a salad every day. I know, because he blogs about it. Most low carbers enjoy leafy greens, tomatoes, and fruits like berries.

Now I believe in real food. There are an awful lot of vegetarians who don't. But some do. And for the most part, our similarities outweigh our differences, so we shouldn't be fighting. Here's why.

Most low carbers who believe in real food will agree with vegetarians -- that factory raised meats are bad, that free range doesn't really mean much. The difference is that real food advocates who are meat-eaters will seek out pastured, organic meats. We don't believe in needless suffering and we don't believe in consuming unhealthy forms of meat. Those are commonalities.

Real food advocates (both vegetarian and not) also know the health dangers posed by overconsumption of polyunsaturated fats. It's the same reason that conventional beef is unhealthy -- the fat in conventional beef is bad because they are fed grain and corn, which are both very high in omega-6 fats.

The fat in corn oil is also bad for you for the same reason.

And that is why grains are bad for you -- they are filled with inflammatory omega-6. Yes, your body needs a small amount of omega-6, but we're consuming huge amounts that we'd never be able to consume or produce in a natural setting. Could you produce corn oil or refined flour without machinery? Of course you couldn't. It's not natural nor healthy to eat large amounts of those foods.

So while the vegetarians will likely mention that conventionally raised beef is bad for you, they won't draw that distinction back to the source of the problem -- grains.

So let's be on the same side here, veggies! Real foodists unite! :)

Raw milk

There was a post on the Fat head blog about raw milk, and I thought I'd take a little bit of time to do some research on it.

The basic position of raw milk proponents is that pasteurized milk is not as digestible as raw milk. The pasteurization process kills off beneficial enzymes and changes the protein structure of the milk.

I can buy that. Ultra high pasteurized milk doesn't even need to be refrigerated. That's kind of disgusting.

My main concern with raw milk is about the possibility of contamination with e. coli and other pathogens. There are several disease outbreaks attributed to raw milk.

Weston A. Price says that bias does exist here. That may be true.

Now, I'm not saying that all raw milk producers make contaminated products. The risk may be low, but it's still there.

And if you're following the SCD, chances are you have a compromised immune system. A compromised digestive system goes hand in hand.

So if you have compromised digestion, you should probably avoid raw milk. If you wish to use it for yogurt, you should heat it yourself slowly to kill pathogens, as Elaine recommended in Breaking the Vicious Cycle.

I have even more reason to avoid raw milk products, because I am on long-term antibiotic therapy.

If I were to be exposed to e. coli, my antibiotic use could destroy my kidney function, land me in the hospital, and/or kill me. Antibiotics are expressly contraindicated in e. coli infection.

Please keep these concerns in mind, should you decide to try raw milk products.

Omelet of Yum

Here's a quicky to hold you all over.

I found some jarred jalapeno peppers at Smart and Final here in the Los Angeles area. Instead of using artificial coloring, they are colored using turmeric. How cool is that?

Anyway, I've been making a bunch of stuff with them. I've been eating a ton of salads with hardboiled eggs and jalapenos.

Then I had the idea to make a cheddar jalapeno omelet.

Oh yes.



It was pretty easy.

All I did was break some eggs, stirred them briefly, tossed in the jalapenos, and cooked the whole mass it until it was set on one side.

Then I flipped it over, put some cheese on, and pathetically attempted to fold it.

It's on a Gordon Ramsay plate, which counts for something.

Right?

Enjoy! :D

SCD legal Caesar dressing

Great recipe for Caesar dressing from the Minneapolis Real Food Lover blog.

Some great stuff gets mentioned in this post -- like how canola and soybean oils are still considered good for you by major so-called "health" food manufacturers. Yuck.

Stick with olive oil, and look for sardines packaged similarly (or in water). Use whatever SCD legal cheese you like as well. I'm no purist when it comes to cheese. Whatever works.

Sorry for the lack of recipes. I have them scrawled in my notebook, even with photos that are saved on my computer! But I've been so busy writing and trying to find a job, they are languishing a bit. I'll have to rectify that situation soon.

Saturated fats (oh my!)

So a few blogs out there have mentioned a new meta-analysis that exonerates saturated fats.

I'll break this down for you all.

A meta-analysis is when a researcher (or, in this case, a doctor) reads a bunch of medical studies, and then draws conclusions based on all of the studies together.

Here's the abstract (or summary, for those of you who are not medical editors)

And what did this meta-analysis find?

There was no relationship between heart disease/stroke risk and saturated fat consumption.

So grab a stick of grass fed butter (cow or goat, your choice) and head on over to the Fat Head blog. Tom Naughton does a pretty great breakdown of the study's results here. He also includes another meta-analysis that basically shows the same thing.

Enjoy, and have a wonderful weekend!

Agave nectar

Food Renegade wrote a FANTASTIC post on agave nectar. Man, I'm jealous. I wish I'd written it. But here we are.

Some highlights:

--There is nothing natural about agave nectar
--It is not safe for diabetics
--It can massively raise your triglyceride levels
--Half the carbohydrate content is from highly indigestible inulin, making it SCD illegal.

Read all about it here.

Low fat diets

A few interesting posts on low fat diets caught my attention.

The first is Tom Naughton's low fat diary from 1995. Look familiar to anyone?

And lest we think diets high in complex carbohydrates are healthy, Dr. Davis disavows us of this notion with some pretty hard science.

He also has another post on wheat intolerance that's worth a look.

I know there are still SCDers out there fretting about how they can't be healthy without grains.

You can. In fact, you'll be healthier than your grain-eating brethren. Promise. :)

Happy new year!

I hope you all had a great holiday. Mine was pretty good!

At the last minute, I decided to make Clark some cookies for Christmas. They were with almond flour, and they were egg free. I thought that there was no way this silly recipe would work, but it did. The cookies stayed together when cool as well!

I got the recipe from Comfy Belly's section of SCD legal recipes. I recommend you check it out.

The recipe for EGG FREE ALMOND FLOUR COOKIES.

My son doesn't tolerate cinnamon well, so I should have left it out. He had red spots around his mouth for a day or two. Oopsie. Next time, vanilla!

Enjoy!