On our last trip to the farmer’s market there were green onions galore and some very fragrant cilantro. I brought home some of both and have been using them all week with various other ingredients.

Last night I didn’t get a chance to start dinner until very late. I came up with this quick chicken salad and had to share it because it was so simple and even tastier than I was imagining as I threw it all together.

Ingredients

• leftover chicken, roughly chopped*
• a few branches of fresh cilantro, stems removed and minced
• 3 green onions, chopped
• 1 avocado
• lime juice
• 2 teaspoons avocado oil
• unrefined sea salt

Directions

1. Add chicken, cilantro and green onions to a mixing bowl and stir.
2. Puree avocado, avocado oil and a splash of lime juice in a food processor. (It should be the consistency of a thick sauce.)
3. Add avocado sauce to chicken mixture and stir. Add unrefined sea salt to taste.

Serves 2.

*Not sure how much chicken it was, maybe about 1 pound. (I roasted a pastured whole chicken that was about 3 pounds. We ate the legs and thighs on another night and used the bones for broth. I chopped the rest of the meat for this dish.)

When Peter was a newborn (and seemed to be nursing 12 or more hours out of every 24) I read a lot. One of my favorites was Dr. Sears’ Attachment Parenting book and one tidbit that stuck with me is that crying is the main way babies communicate. When a baby cries, they are trying to communicate a need the only way they know how.

As time goes on, they learn other methods of making their needs known. Because we responded to his crying from the beginning, Peter rarely cries now. Crying now means he’s overtired or hurt and fussing means he’s getting frustrated that I’m not “getting it.” When this happens, I know I need to take a step back and try to figure out what I’m missing.

Recently no matter how content or engaged Peter was, as soon as I started trying to wash dishes he would scoot over, pull himself up on my pants and start fussing. I would end up washing only one or two things and then stop to try and figure out what he needed.

I was guessing wrong every time.

And the pile of dishes was growing every day.

I finally realized he wanted to help! I used to often put his highchair next to the sink while I did dishes so he could watch. Once he was mobile he didn’t want to be confined to the highchair anymore, but babies are always changing.

Now that he’s tall enough to see and reach into the sink from the highchair he didn’t mind being stuck. I gave him a long spoon to splash and stir the water with and he had a blast.

And I did all these dishes (plus a few more that I dried and put away) before he was ready to be released from the highchair.

This is the first time we held a garage sale in April and we didn’t get nearly as much traffic as we usually do in May (despite more advertising than usual).

We did sell a decent amount of stuff and made $100.50. At the end we packed up a few boxes and took them to Goodwill. Last week I also went to a “cash for gold” place and was offered $45 for one necklace. What a huge difference in money for my time. Oh well.

I’ll add everything to our tally at the end of the month.

Instead of an EC update, today I’m sharing my second self-portrait. I rarely use the computer when Peter is awake, and I try to get all my internet work (and fun) completed during his nap. Here I am working while he was sleeping a few days ago.

And just for fun, here’s what we looked like a year ago.

This is one of my favorite Paleo breakfasts to make. It’s a great way to incorporate leftover ground meat into breakfast the next morning and it’s easy to vary by changing up the toppings. If you’re short on time, you can slice the avocado instead of making guacamole (though the guacamole is great for helping keep the meat on your fork).

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound grass-fed ground beef or pastured ground lamb
• cooking fat, such as pastured lard
• 4 pastured eggs, divided
• 1 avocado
• juice from 1/2 lime, or to taste
• unrefined sea salt, to taste
• optional: lettuce, tomatoes, scallions, cilantro etc

Directions

1. Cook or reheat meat in cast-iron skillet.
2. Meanwhile, slice and pit an avocado and mash in a molcajete. Add a splash of lime juice and a pinch of sea salt and stir.
3. Heat some fat in a well-seasoned 10″ cast iron pan. Beat 2 eggs and cook on very low heat until cooked through, you can swirl the pan to get the eggs as thin as possible, but do not stir. If you feel capable, you can flip the eggs but it’s not necessary (they will cook through without burning if you keep the heat very low). Remove to plate and repeat with the other 2 eggs.
4. Top each “tortilla” with meat and guacamole and any other vegetables or herbs desired. Serve open faced, or roll and serve.

Serves 2.

• Did you know that breastmilk is still nutrient dense in starvation conditions? Maintaining your own nutrition while nursing is important so that you don’t deplete your body. And since breastmilk is so nutrient dense, why isn’t milk sharing the go-to alternative?
• Getting the right kind of support for the stage of change you’re in matters. We’re in the “maintenance” stage of our dietary changes, and have recently been working to avoid ending up in the “relapse” stage.
• One method I’m using to avoid relapse is mindfully eating. I don’t want to fall back into old habits, mindlessly downing foods that aren’t healthy for me.
• Finally, if you feel okay, maybe you are okay.

The first quarter of 2012 is over and we are only at 159 items. I do have many more things sorted and ready for a garage sale though.

I’ve been taking photos of everything and then making a list to track my progress. In addition to admitting to myself that certain things I was keeping were trash, I’ve given away food we no longer eat (oatmeal, flour, etc) to some friends, sold a couple pieces of furniture on craigslist and a few books on Amazon. I also took some too-small baby clothes to a consignment shop.

I thought the total was going to be a lot more than 159. Trying to match individual items with people who want them is proving to be much harder than I anticipated. My husband is starting to lean toward the instant gratification of dumping a bunch of boxes off at Goodwill. Depending on how the garage sale goes, we may just resort to that.

Would you find it amusing, inspiring or at all worth your time to see the list as I update it?

For the last year we’ve had it perpendicular to the closet, creating a small dressing area. It has been the best arrangement so far but still not ideal (only one of us could get to our clothes at a time). We liked how it made the room feel more intimate to have two separate areas for dressing and sleeping though.

When I saw this great faux walk-in closet on the IKEA website I knew we had to try it. It takes the idea one step further, creating two separate spaces. We’ve been trying out living with the new arrangement before committing to adding a divider, moving our full length mirror  and so on. We’re loving it so far.

What do you think? Doesn’t our “closet” look so much bigger now?

I’m still having a hard time believing a whole year has gone by since Peter’s birth. It’s been an amazing experience so far, with all the excitement and challeneges of new parenthood. Watching him learn and explore the world is so much fun. He has brought us closer as a couple, transformed us into a family and helped us focus even more on what’s important to us. We love our little guy more than we ever could have imagined. Happy first birthday Peter Clarence!

I’ve tried to teach my husband a bit of what I’ve learned about taking good photos, hoping for a few good candid photos that I’m in front of the camera instead of behind it. Now I’m motivated me to learn how to take photos like this of myself in addition to enlisting my husband’s help.

Yesterday we were playing on the floor and I caught our reflection in the mirror that I have at Peter’s level. I got a lot of out-of-focus, camera bouncing around, off-center photos and Peter wanted to get the camera out of my hand so badly! (Yes those are his fingers over the lens.) It’s not a perfect first attempt, but it’s fun and at least I started, right?

My husband recently came across an old list I made. It was great timing because lately we’ve been wondering if we’ll ever finish many of our goals and it was inspiring to see how many things from the old list are either completed or started.

There were two very big goals on this list that aren’t yet complete.

1. Finish project of removing things we don’t need from our home and reorganizing: I’m working on de-cluttering 2012 items this year which should really help with the first goal (though I’m starting to realize that you can never be “finished” organizing because life changes and needs change…)

2. Pay wedding loan off in next 2 years: We just made a huge payment on our debt reduction recently. Though it’s not paid off, we only have 10% of the original debt left to pay and it feels really good to be this close. Hopefully it will be gone very soon.

Have you ever found an old list like this?

You might have noticed the “Pin It” button popping up on a few of my recent posts. I’ve been playing around with making images suitable for Pinterest and some WordPress plugins for displaying the button. After some trial and error, I decided to ditch the plugins and write my own (much simpler) code.

I’ve also started testing out pinning a few things, so you can now follow me on Pinterest.

Are you on Pinterest? Leave your link in the comments and I’ll follow you too!

I’ve recently decided it was time to admit to myself that I’m keeping trash. Since I discovered the concept of zero-waste, I started hanging on to a bunch of different things that I wanted to find a way to reuse. As I’ve been working on my 2012 in 2012 and getting started on spring cleaning, I came to the conclusion that just because I keep it, doesn’t mean it’s not trash. So, out, trash I say!

For example, two baking sheets that I have had since long before I knew about using inert and safe cooking materials. Their coatings were scrubbed off, they have black marks all over them and I think I even spied some rust. I now use glass, so these baking sheets sit in the cabinet taking up space and never get used.

This weekend I’m going to try and figure out if I can recycle any of the stuff and then I’ll post my first (long overdue) 2012 tally. It’s been going very well so far.

Do you have trash like this or is it just me?

I’ve really been focusing on de-cluttering this year, as I promised I would earlier. I’ve been working on everything from our “stuff” (both physical and digital, ahem iTunes library) to my commitments. I think that visually de-cluttering my world is important, and that includes my blog. I still want to make a few more adjustments but overall I feel it’s a lot easier on the eyes with more white space, less text and simpler fonts. What do you think?

After my big fail, we took the mattress apart and put it together again as a team. This time we put it together directly on the bed frame. I guess I would have done this to begin with if I hadn’t skipped reading the instructions.

For the last week or so we have been so comfortable and are enjoying not sleeping on top of each other! We got the king size frame secondhand on craigslist a while ago but then took a few weeks to decide what type of mattress to order. Once we decided, we had to wait 4-6 weeks for it to be delivered. We filled in the empty space next to our queen mattress with some pillows “just in case” but on more than one occasion I spied Peter sleeping in the little spot with his arms pinned to his sides. I can’t imagine him getting a restful sleep that way.

Now we have a supportive natural latex mattress by Pure Rest, with three customizable layers and an organic cotton zippered cover.

Why Pure Rest?

• Natural latex with no chemicals
• Very comfortable with even support (no springs)
• Organic cotton tested for chemical residue
• Only fair labor used in producing mattresses
• Less motion transfer (when I wake up with the baby it doesn’t disturb Peter)

I was a little skeptical of the zippered cover option but ultimately I’m really glad we went for it:

• Once all the layers are inside and it’s zipped up, it looks just like a regular mattress
• The mattress shipped with the different layers rolled up in standard boxes
• If we decide we want to change the firmness of the layer closest to us, we can reorder them
• We can also exchange one layer at no charge
• The price was significantly lower

(We also got a discount since I am a member of the Holistic Moms Network and we bought the mattress from a company owned by another Holistic Mom, Organic and Healthy Inc.)

I thought it would be a nice Valentine’s Day surprise to have our new mattress (which came in four boxes) put together before my husband got home from work.

I spent the last hour plus wrestling with these latex layers with a baby on my back (and sweating, even though I turned the heat off).

I finally got the cover zipped up, only to realize I put the layers in upside down. Also it’s so heavy there is no way I’m getting this thing to budge by myself.

At least someone is having fun…

Happy Valentine’s Day!

After a rough weekend, this week is shaping up to be much better. Yesterday our UPS delivery guy arrived with our new king size non-toxic, natural latex and wool mattress and our new water filter, which will remove chlorine, fluoride and other chemicals from our drinking water. As you can see, the cats were also very excited about the new arrivals and inspected all the packages.

When Sarah first approached me about beginning the Whole30 diet on January 1st, I was nervous. I thought that I could’t do it. Before committing to it, I tried to practice a few days beforehand. I had been visiting my in-laws out of state. The 250 mile drive back from Maryland was tough. It’s hard to get food that fits the Whole30 criteria at highway rest stops. Luckily, Delaware’s rest stop sold both bananas and hard boiled eggs. It was tough, I tell you. If this is what it was going to be like, then I was in for a rough time.

Putting my trepidations aside though, I agreed to go on the Whole30 diet with Sarah beginning on January 1st. Though we had one minor misstep on January 1st, we were off the ground by January 2nd. A day or two into the diet I came down with a cold. It was make or break time. Normally when I get a cold, I love to load up on carbs and all kinds of junk food. I guess it’s an old habit of mine where I try to soothe the lousy feeling of cold. Yet, I really wanted to succeed at completing this diet with my wife. I mustered up the willpower and managed to stick to the Whole30 regimen despite my feeling lousy.

Sarah made sure to cook healthy breakfasts and to make and pack lunches and snacks for me. Without her support, I would not have been able to do this. I am reminded of the old saying that anything worth doing takes hard work. While the Whole30 can be quite tough to stick to, it is worth doing.

I have noticed several significant changes since adopting the Whole30 diet. Since I have shifted from being a carb burner to a fat burner, I don’t feel extreme hunger pangs anymore. I no longer feel like I have to keep stuffing my face every couple of hours. My stomach doesn’t really get upset anymore as it frequently did pre-Whole30. I also have a newfound appreciation for the flavor of fruits and vegetables. I suppose processed sugars have a way of inundating and burning out your taste buds to point where you no longer taste the natural sweetness of veggies and fruits. After a short time on Whole30, this was no longer the case. Did I mention that I lost some weight too? So, you can see that the Whole30 was a positive experience for me.

Now that I have successfully completed the Whole30, where do I go from here? Well, I have decided that I want to continue adhering to the principles of the diet going forward. I feel too good not to continue. What this means for me is eating delicious home-cooked food with a minimum of eating out. I will also refrain from eating grains and dairy. There will definitely be no extra sugar in my diet. Of course I may occasionally treat myself to a little something but nowhere near the amount I used to before Whole30. I am pretty excited about this new eating lifestyle. I’d like to thank my wife, Sarah for introducing me to the Whole30 diet. If she hadn’t shown me this diet, I would not be where I am today.

We don’t pack our food in plastic because of health concerns as well as environmental reasons. Here’s how we avoid plastic lunches to go:

1. Stainless steel airtight containers by Sanctus Mundo. I love these so much that I’ve written about them before. We have seven of them and use them for lunches, leftovers (at home or restaurants), and taking to the farmer’s market for seafood, delicate fruit or anything really. They hold about 3 cups.
2. We just added a recycled cotton carrier by To-Go Ware that holds three of the containers perfectly (or two with a couple of “sidekicks,” and has a pocket for silverware. It’s also available in green and 2-tier.
3. An Insulated Klean Kanteen keeps the contents hot for hours, and is great for packing soup. If you pack a chunky soup, you’ll probably want to have a bowl to pour it into, but pureed soup or bone broth are easy to drink right from the “kanteen.”
4. Small stainless steel sidekick containers by To-Go Ware. These are great for salad dressing, nut butter, or any other food that you want to keep separate until lunch time.
5. Large stainless steel sidekick containers by To-Go Ware. These are great for nuts, cut fruit, coconut flakes or other snacks that you want a little more than will fit in the small sidekick, but not quite so much that you need one of the large airtight containers.
6. Reusable cotton bags (not pictured). These are also good for snacks like nuts and coconut flakes (we also used to use them for sandwiches).

Questions I asked Peter

Q: Do you heat your lunches?

A: I mostly eat them room temperature, right out of the stainless steel containers. I used to keep a ceramic bowl at work to warm food in the microwave but I’ve since learned that microwaves destroy nutrients. In the future I don’t plan to heat the food unless I have access to a toaster oven. (The stainless steel containers are oven safe.)

Q: Regarding the stainless steel containers: How well do the clamps work? Are they spill proof?

A: The clamps work quite well; I’ve never had a problem with them opening. Yes, they are spill proof, even for liquids.

Q: What has it been like having lunch packed every day?

A: Initially I was reluctant because it’s one more thing to carry. That’s the main reason I never stuck with bringing lunch to work everyday in the past. Now that I committed to the Whole30, it became a habit. I feel like I could incorporate anything into my schedule by making it a habit.

Q: What is it like eating Whole30 in the “real world?” How have your coworkers reacted? (I asked this question because Peter works in a small office and they all order lunch in and eat together around one big table.)

A: They definitely noticed. In the beginning they asked me questions about what kind of diet I was on but now they are used to me bringing food.

Q: What was the biggest challenge this month?

A: Not drinking beer, even though I drink very infrequently. It’s challenging not because I desire a beer but more not being able to partake and enjoy a social drink with friends.

Q: Have you noticed any positive changes?

A: I definitely noticed my waistline go down and I’ve definitely had way fewer reactions to food than I’ve had in the past (like heavy, bloated feelings after eating). I generally feel good that I’m able to take control over the situation and it’s not at the expense of something else in my life. It’s a great feeling.

Peter felt inspired to write more about his perspective after I interviewed him. Check back soon for his guest post!

We have 14 Dunkin Donuts within one mile of our apartment. No joke.

Don’t worry, I won’t do it. I hope. I don’t think it would taste nearly as good as it looks and it’s bound to have dairy  or something else that the baby is allergic to anyway, right?

I did try looking for a bar of 90% dark chocolate as a treat while I was out running errands today. The highest I could find was 85% and it had “milk solids” as one of the ingredients, whatever that is. So, the Whole30 continues…

Here’s what we ate the last two days:

Meals

Day 29

Breakfast: 3 eggs with spinach and slow roasted tomatoes, sweet potato hash

Lunch: Applegate sliced roasted turkey breast, red leaf lettuce, rosemary mayo, scallions, fermented ginger carrots, slow roasted tomatoes

Dinner: ground beef liver over kale, onions and mushrooms (cremini and shitake)

Day 30

Breakfast: 3 eggs with green peppers, slow roasted tomatoes and parsley, sweet potatoes, chicken bone broth

Lunch (not pictured): beef hot dog dipped in tomato paste, avocado, pumpkin butter

Dinner: leftover ground beef liver, sauerkraut, kale, shallots, baked Japanese sweet potato, ghee

Peter’s lunches

Day 29: chicken avocado salad from Pret

Day 30: mug of chicken bone broth, salad (red leaf lettuce, carrot sticks, green peppers, turkey breast slices, tomatoes), dressing (rosemary mayo), Crispin apple

Snacks

I think I forgot to write about snacks last week. I’ve been working on reducing how much fruit I eat (goal is one or two pieces per day). I’m finding that it’s much easier now than it was at the beginning of the month when I was still missing sugar. I also have heard from Paleo and GAPS people that you should have fruit in between meals and not with meals since your body digests fruit differently than meat and vegetables. Here’s what I’ve been snacking on lately:

• Bone broth
• Avocados
• Hazelnuts and walnuts (Peter isn’t allergic, yay!)
• Cold hot-dogs (100% organic, grass-fed beef)
• Oranges
• Grapefruits
• Raspberries
• Blackberries
• Apples

What do you think?

It turned out to be so much easier than I expected to eat this way. Would you ever try the Whole30?

I have to share some more recipes soon, like the cauliflower mash we made this week. I had the recipe for a long time but figured there was no way it could compare to real mashed potatoes. I. Was. Wrong.

Now that we’ve got our routines down, it’s very easy to have a whole meal three times a day. Usually I make two meals at once (like making Peter’s lunch while cooking breakfast) or have one of the three meals centered around leftovers.

Here’s what we’ve been eating…

Meals

Day 22

Breakfast: burrito (eggs, beef, red leaf lettuce, tomatoes), sweet potatoes cooked in ghee and ginger, 1/2 of a grapefruit

Lunch: egg drop soup (bone broth, chicken fat, egg, parsley), steamed broccoli, EVOO, USS

Dinner: beef stew (beef stew meat, bone broth, onion, celery, carrots, white sweet potatoes, tomato paste, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, USS)

Day 23

Breakfast: eggs with rosemary and scallions, sirloin steak, Japanese sweet potato “chips”

Lunch: sirloin steak, mushroom and onion cooked in bone broth, steamed green beans with EVOO, salad (red leaf lettuce, raw onion, fermented radishes, slow roasted tomatoes), dressing (homemade mayo with garlic and rosemary), seltzer

Dinner: roasted chicken, cauliflower mash (steamed cauliflower, turmeric, ghee, USS), salad (red leaf lettuce, cremini mushrooms, slow roasted tomatoes, fermented radishes), dressing (homemade mayo with garlic and rosemary)

Day 24

Breakfast: lightly scrambled eggs, cilantro, white sweet potatoes cooked in mix of lard and chicken fat

Lunch: chicken salad wrap (chicken, mayo, rosemary, red leaf lettuce), braised leeks, mug of bone broth

Dinner: slow cooker lamb shanks (onion, celery, carrots, garlic, bone broth, tomato paste, thyme, bay leaf, lamb, lard)

Day 25

Breakfast: chorizo, 2 fried eggs with parsley, lard

Lunch: Beef hot dogs, dijon, tomato paste, sauerkraut, avocado

Dinner (not pictured since we were eating it cold and running out the door): sliced roasted turkey with rosemary mayo, avocado

Day 26

Breakfast: 3 egg omelet with crumbled chorizo, avocado and slow roasted tomatoes, sweet potato hash

Lunch: chicken bone broth, sliced roasted turkey, rosemary mayo, red leave lettuce, 1/2 of an avocado, tomatoes

Dinner: hamburger on red leaf lettuce, cooked mushrooms and onions, rosemary mayo, fermented radishes, leftover beef stew with green pepper added

Day 27

Breakfast: lamb/chicken bone broth, 3 fried eggs with minced rosemary and parsley, sweet potato hash

Lunch: hamburger, red leaf lettuce, tomato paste, dijon, avocado, leftover sweet potatoes, coffee

Dinner: chip steak, roasted golden beets, beet greens, shallot, bone broth, baked Japanese sweet potatoes with ghee and USS

Day 28

Breakfast: eggs with cilantro, chip steak, sweet potato hash, coffee

Lunch: beef hot dogs, fermented ginger carrots, cauliflower mash (ghee, turmeric, USS), dijon, tomato paste

Dinner: chip steak, cauliflower mash (ghee, turmeric, USS), roasted brussels sprouts, mug of bone broth

Peter’s lunches

This week we had a special treat. Since Peter was working at a clients’ office nearby he came home for lunch every day and all his lunches are the same as mine above. It was really nice to see him in the middle of the day!

Baby’s reactions

None! He’s doing really well.

According to the FDA

About seven years ago I started hearing the message that whole grains are good for you. According to the FDA, you should eat three or more servings of whole grains daily. If you’ve switched to whole grains or are thinking about it, please read this first.

Switching to Whole Grains

When I first learned whole grains are good, my staple single girl dinner was mac ‘n cheese mixed with a can of tuna or a cut up hot dog and preferably eaten while watching the Simpsons. I started buying whole grain macaroni elbows to make my mac ‘n cheese. I also bought whole grain bagels for breakfast most mornings and any time I found whole grains on a menu I would order them instead of white flour products.

Fast forward a few years: I cook just about everything myself from scratch. I learned to make my own whole grain sandwich bread, pizza dough and even whole grain cookies with organic soft white wheat and spelt flour grown in upstate New York.

But then I learned there was a problem…

The Anti-nutrient Problem

Most people have heard of Celiac or gluten-intolerance, but there are many more problems with grains that effect us all, and gluten is just one of the proteins that can cause problems. A little over a year ago I learned that whole grains contain anti-nutrients such as phytic acid, which block your body from absorbing nutrients in the grains, and worse, bind with other minerals you consume (such as calcium, magnesium, zinc and iron) so you don’t absorb those either.

When I learned this, I started soaking grains to neutralize phytic acid. (This includes oatmeal, which I ate for breakfast almost every day.) I also bought sprouted flour, which according to this book changes the structure of the grain to make them digest like a vegetable. I’ve since read that this may not be true (see the Wheat Germ Agglutinin link at the bottom of this post).

Today’s Wheat Isn’t Even Wheat

To make matters even worse, today’s grains are a result of “some of the most intense crossbreeding efforts ever seen” to “develop a higher-yielding crop.” “The wheat products sold to you today are nothing like the wheat products of our grandmother’s age, very different from the wheat of the early 20th Century, and completely transformed from the wheat of the Bible and earlier.” (See link The Dark Side of “Healthy” Wheat for more information.)

Leaky Gut

I recently learned about “leaky gut,” which is a widespread but little known problem associated with grain consumption. Basically your intestines become permeable and proteins and toxins then enter the bloodstream and cause all kinds of havoc throughout the body.

Millions of people have leaky gut syndrome and don’t know it. I personally only noticed gas and migraines before this year. The only reason I figured out I have leaky gut is because allergenic proteins from cow’s milk, peanuts and other foods were ending up in my breast milk and causing apparent food allergies in the baby.

Here are just a few possible outcomes:

• ADD/ADHD
• Arthritis
• Seasonal Allergies
• Apparent Food Allergies
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Depression
• Eczema
• Fibromyalgia
• Infertility
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Osteoporosis
• Weight Gain/Weight Loss Resistance
• Yeast/Fungal Overgrowth

Passing on Grains for Now

For the past six months I’ve drastically reduced my consumption of grains and for the last month I stopped eating grains completely. I believe that eating whole grains for so many years damaged my intestinal lining. I don’t think I was like this before because when I was in college I went to Mexico and ate fresh fruit, brushed my teeth with the water etc and had no issues, while two other people in my group were hospitalized for E. coli. (I started reading the GAPS book last night and learned that a healthy gut has helpful strains of E. coli that fight off the dangerous ones.)

I don’t know if this would have happened if I had gone straight from white flour to properly prepared grains (see Weston A. Price Foundation links below for more information on traditional preparation of grains). Since I can’t change the past, I am leaving grains off my plate for the duration of the Whole30 and beyond. I don’t plan to reintroduce grains until I’m sure my body is ready for them. If or when that day comes, you bet the grains will be traditionally prepared and in limited quantities.

Further reading:

• The Dark Side of “Healthy” Wheat
• Living with Phytic Acid (Weston A. Price Foundation)
• Be Kind to Your Grains (Weston A. Price Foundation)
• Wheat Germ Agglutinin (WGA)
• Leaky Gut Syndrom Description
• Leaky Gut Symptoms by Stages

I’m starting to notice which foods I’m not digesting well. Sadly for me it looks like just about all squash is out (which is supposed to be easy to digest). I still have some roasted pumpkin in my freezer from the fall that I’ve been saving for my favorite soup; hopefully pumpkin will be an exception! Bananas are also out for both of us.

Here’s what we’ve been eating…

Meals

Day 15

Breakfast: fried eggs, braised kale and shallots

Lunch: leftover kale and shallots, 1/2 of a roasted butternut squash

Dinner: chicken leg/thigh, carrots, celery, bone broth, onions, broccoli, chestnuts

Day 16

Breakfast: scrambled eggs with thyme and onions, coffee

Lunch: double serving of salad (red leaf lettuce, tomato, mushroom, chicken breast) with dressing (homemade mayo, EVOO, crushed garlic), mug of chicken bone broth

Dinner: flounder, fermented carrots, fermented cauliflower, applesauce

Day 17

Breakfast: sirloin steak, fried eggs, sweet potato “chips,” green chai tea

Lunch: roasted spagetti squash, roasted beets, salad (red leaf lettuce, mushrooms, fermented carrots, chicken?), dressing (homemade mayo, EVOO, crushed garlic)

Dinner: two bowls soup (chicken bone broth, carrots, celery, white sweet potatoes)

Day 18

Breakfast: leftover sirloin steak, fried eggs, sweet potato hash

Lunch: chicken liver, heirloom greenhouse tomatoes

Dinner: chicken liver, mushrooms, kale and shallots braised in chicken bone broth

Day 19

Breakfast: kale, onions, eggs*, sweet potato chips

Lunch: chicken liver pate (chicken liver, sun-dried tomatoes, cumin, garlic, paprika, cayenne, sage), avocado, 1/2 of a roasted butternut squash

Dinner: meatloaf (Nourishing Traditions recipe: used ground beef, ground heart, coconut flour instead of breadcrumbs, omitted cream), sauerkraut, fermented carrots

*I have no idea if there is a name for this cooking method but eggs are delicious like this! Basically I braised the kale and onions, made sure they were evenly distributed in the pan and then cracked eggs directly on top throughout the pan. I covered it and turned the heat very low. The steam from the bone broth cooked the eggs very gently.

Day 20

Breakfast: avocado, bone broth, 1/2 of a grapefruit

Lunch: leftover meatloaf and sauerkraut

Dinner: scallops over beet greens (red onion, garlic, sausage, bone broth, beet greens, crushed red pepper, apple cider vinegar), leftover roasted butternut squash

Day 21

Breakfast: crumbled chorizo, onions, garlic, bone broth, kale, eggs, 2 cups coffee (really tired today since baby is teething!)

Lunch: meatloaf, fermented radishes, roasted beets

Dinner: hamburger (ground beef, red leaf lettuce, red onion, yellow heirloom tomato), sauerkraut, carrots sautéed with ghee and ginger, guacamole (avocado, red onion, heirloom tomato, lime juice, USS)

Peter’s lunches

Day 15: can of sardines, avocado, salad from Pret (walnuts, avocado, tomatoes and chicken)

Day 16: chicken soup (chicken breast, carrots, celery, chicken bone broth), roasted beets, sardines

Day 17: sirloin steak, salad (red leaf lettuce, tomato, mushroom), dressing (homemade mayo, EVOO, crushed garlic)

Day 18: leftover sirloin steak, egg drop soup, orange

Days 19, 20 and 21: same as my lunch above

Baby’s Reactions

After another bout of diarrhea, we found the culprit… paper! (You may recall, last time I wasn’t sure if the problem was almonds, carrots or paper.) We have got to make sure this little guy doesn’t get ahold of any more paper scraps. As he’s crawling around he is so good at finding every speck on the floor.

We haven’t given him any more fruit and he is doing well with meat and vegetables. I have been doing some reading on peanut allergies, and discovered one possible reason why I haven’t been able to pin down whether or not he’s sensitive to other nuts: peanut contamination from peanuts being processed in the same facilities as nuts. By the way, peanuts aren’t even nuts!