Tag Archives: fermented foods

Guacamole Avocado Mash, PALEO, SCD GAPS

Summary:  This is the third of five family favorite VEGETABLE redic delic recipes I’m posting –> Guacamole Avocado Mash, PALEO, SCD GAPS!  The other two recipes posted at SCD PALEO Cucumber Salad and SCD PALEO Cauliflower Mock Potato Salad! These salads meet all healing diet tenets be it:  Mediterranean Diet, Whole Foods, SCD, GAPS, PALEO, AIP…  I’m posting these recipes because so many stumble over how to make vegetables taste fabulous!  I was there too ⇒ These recipes evolved over a decade of trialing what our friends and kidos loved vegetable-wise!  Increasing consumption of many different colorful vegs is vitally important to your health ⇒ The American Gut Data finds that a target of 30 different vegetables each week increases microbiome diversity, and that is thought to be correlated to improved health because most all chronic diseases have reduced microbiome diversity! The beauty of all of these recipes are that they top leafy greens deliciously which further increases vegetable diversity, and this Guacamole Avocado Mash ALSO is a great topper on salmon or chicken!  Four take-aways from this recipe include use of fermented apple cider vinegar for probiotics, use of garlic and onion for prebiotics (or FODMAPs) to feed the microbiome (and hacks to those if intolerant), and the benefits of avocado which includes its fiber and high monounsaturated fat content for heart and brain health!  Here’s my Instagram recipe card:

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CME MICROBIOME Questions & Answers

SUMMARY CME MICROBIOME Questions is where the rubber meets the road!  I learn what you really take away from the evidence packed Introduction to Microbiome presentation!!!  Not only was it a GREAT turnout for the CME MICROBIOME, DISEASE, THERAPEUTICS, NUTRITION held OCT 25, 2017 in Pittsburgh, at Passavant Hospital (see this post for details), but the questions asked by these medical providers were spot on! Read below for some of the Q&A with focus on:  What to do if on the “Avoid Diet”,  the MIND Diet and Dementia Prevention, fermented foods, and the ketogenic diet — MACS, fruit and weight!  The Therapeutic Manipulation of Microbiome slide (see below) shows how microbiome nourishingly sick the Standard America Diet is.  Some call this diet void of MACs, or microbiota-accessible carbohydrates, leaving the microbiome to nosh on our carb-rich mucus gut lining, when dietary pickings get slim.  [Desai et al 2016]  This CME crowd took their first ever pass into the anaerobic world of this newly discovered organ and saw its systemic body-wide devastating health impact when the gut lining becomes compromised (see the below slide) ⇒ The next step is to learn our bolt on presentations of evidence based therapeutic diet ⇔  lifestyle changes that can move this organ to health.   ♥ You want great timely, current, incredible microbiome and nutrition CME programs  because microbiome information is what your medical professionals NEED to stay cutting edge current in understanding how to help patients keep (or move) off diseasespan!  Click here to contact us 

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2nd Pittsburgh Fermentation Festival

Summary:  Just sharing a fun educational event, that literally could change your health, wellness, and vitality, occurring this Sunday, February 26, 2017, in Pittsburgh should you be nearby.  The FREE event is the SECOND Pittsburgh Fermentation Festival or read the Ferment Festival Facebook page.  I’ll be attending and talking about how ferment consumers and vendors can become a cohort for upcoming American Gut fermenting microbiome studies!  Last year I profiled many for participation and if you missed that, but still want in, or to ask me ANY question on microbiome, ferments, diet, and health, stop by my table and let’s catch up!  Added onto this year’s Ferment Festival…  attend the potluck night Saturday night!   BONUS:  See below for Cleveland Clinic, “5 Reasons You Should Add More Fermented Foods to Your Diet.”  Share this post to pass on the info!

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Get SCD Cheese Right. It is Loaded with Nutrients & Bacteria!

SUMMARY:  Hey… listen up! You want to get SCD Cheese right because it is loaded with Nutrients & Beneficial Bacteria!  ALL healing diets (SCD, GAPS, PALEO,  AIP, FODMAP…) eliminate lactose because most inflamed guts can not digest lactose!  Actually, the lactase enzyme in our gut (which breaks down lactose) is the last to return to normal after the gut has healed (see page 25, Breaking the Vicious Cycle (BTVC), Edition 13, 2010).   Further, certain diseases (like 65% of autism have a lactase deficiency) are associated with lactose intolerance, and some diseases (like IBS which afffects ten to fifteen percent of the population) may have an intolerance to the quantity of lactose consumed in the diet. For IBS  sufferers, 3 out of 4 are helped with the FODMAP  diet which figures out if foods we all digest poorly (which includes lactose) are even tolerated and if so, in what amount!  And the British Dietetic Association 2016 update for IBS recommends a trial period of a low lactose diet where sensitivity to milk is suspected and a lactose hydrogen breath test is not available or appropriate.  So many people are benefited by reducing or eliminating lactose in their diet!  This post explains how to do that deliciously using the SCD tenets, and it explains why eating lactose-free cheese is important (if you tolerate the casein protein) sharing 7 SCD cheese requirments to consider in selecting cheeses!  Bottom Line:  Everyone wants to get cheese right because it contains a whopping  10,000,000,000 or 10 billion MICROBES, and it seems they survive the gut transit ride and  beneficially impact your microbiome diversity + richness… all good immune boosting stuff!    

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Ferment Consumer Profile Opportunity for American Gut Studies

Summary:  Just sharing a fun educational event, that literally could change your health, wellness, and vitality, occurring this Sunday, February 28, 2016, in Pittsburgh should you be nearby. The FREE event is Pittsburgh’s Fermentation Festival I’ll be attending and profiling ferment consumers and vendors for consideration in upcoming American Gut fermenting microbiome studies! Stop by and fill out the questionnaire!

Be a part of this unique FREE Ferment Consumer Profile Opportunity for American Gut fermenting microbiome studies and help further the understanding of the “How” and “Why” ferments modulate our immune system! For an added bonus… attend 5 workshops and learn how to ferment while you are at the festival. The workshops are led by an incredible battery of knowledge! I’ll be sharing how to make lactose-free grassfed yogurt that is part of the healing diet protocols (PALEO (some camps), SCD, GAPS, UMass IBD-AID).  Learn why fermented and traditional foods is part of WHAT EATING REAL WHOLE FOODS LOOKS LIKE.  For a start, read below for Cleveland Clinic’s 5 reasons why you should be consuming ferments.

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Preserve & Restore Loss of Microbiome Diversity is Aggressive Preventative Medicine

SUMMARY:  Aggressive Preventative Medicine means preserving the microbiome you have and restoring any loss incurred.  See how far that thought goes with your doctor!  Diet really does work to alter the microbiome and can help to restore loss of microbiome; for example, fermented kimchi actually positively impacted metabolic syndrome factors including systolic and diastolic blood pressures, percent body fat, fasting glucose, and total cholesterol.  

⇒⇒  This post teaches how to reduce the loss of microbiome diversity and restore such – crowding out concept.

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16S rRNA challenges healthy vaginal microbiome; ferments & coconut oil rock!

SUMMARY:   Incredulously, the latest 16S rRNA research now challenges what was thought for years to be a ‘protective,’ ‘normal,’ and healthy vaginal microbiome. Our many microbiomes ideally are “inherited” and originate from our passage through the vagina, and yet it seems a ‘healthy’ and ‘normal’ vaginal microbiome has been elusive; in fact, many women have a compromised vaginal microbiome and many are asymptomatic, or perhaps not… 

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