SUMMARY: Plenty of studies find anti-inflammatory effects of dietary antioxidants such as green tea for chronic disease. Even in IBD patients, who have a very messed up microbiome (a finding of the American Gut data), the benefits of antioxidant therapy is well documented (see below studies). Read here about a simple EASY N=1 hack for one IBD patient that shut down a mild psoriasis skin flare that began two years ago. They flared psoriasis, but not the autoimmune IBD, eating strict healing diet Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) probably due to a gluten/sugar airborne exposure. The hack that worked for stopping psoriasis: Green Tea, Black Tea with Lemon Juice antioxidant blend! I share their recipe here! It is simple enough that you may want to add it to your immune calming anti-inflammatory arsenal too! Make sure to see below for why it isimportant to NOT drink Green Tea for antioxidant benefit along with Iron.
SUMMARY: Quinoa is a whole grain substitute that is gluten-free though it actually is a seed, commonly termed pseudograin. Most simply rinse, drain, then toss quinoa into a pot and simmer for 12 minutes calling that cooked. Though cooked, it may not be very digestible, and this method may be downright harmful to your gut. So how do you properly prepare soak quinoa? Learn here that quinoa is super easy to properly prepare although it does require, as a minimum to reduce anti-nutrients, a 12 to 24 hour acid soak prior to cooking. I’d do the quinoa soak purely for the culinary taste improvement truth be known as it removes bitterness from quinoa’s anti-nutrients in addition to making it easier on your gut! For more science, see below the recipe for quinoa’s: Impact to the microbiome, nutrient (including protein) punch, anti-nutrients and impact on those due to quinoa processing, and label de-coding for a Kind bar containing quinoa!
Summary: Serve these Mini Loaf Pancakes to your Valentine on Valentine’s Day, or anytime actually! These pancakes use almond flour, SCD lactose free yogurt or coconut milk, eggs and honey. When in a pinch for yogurt, I’ve even used thawed frozen SCD banana yogurt, and it worked great! What I most like about this recipe is that you can bake these in bulk, even doubling the recipe. They freeze well and make scrambling for breakfast a no brainer. These pancakes are also great travel and on the run food.
Special ingredients I use:
Actually, there is nothing “odd” ingredient wise in this recipe!
It is SCD/GAPS/UMass IBD-AID legal, full of wholesome whole food ingredients such as this SCD lactose-free yogurt(Update: coconut milk can be substituted) and this Honeyville blanched almond flour, which you are already familiar with if you follow the healing diet tenets for PALEO, SCD, GAPS, or Mediterranean.
Regarding coconut milk; it is difficult to find such without added gums and other additives. Trader Joe’s does carry an organic coconut milk that seems SCD legal; the ingredients are: organic coconut milk (filtered water, organic coconut extracts 48%) but they have refused to give out information on the product or provide a letter indicating no other hidden ingredients; be cautious for reactions if you use it.Wellbee’s sales Organic Natural Value coconut milkwhich has a letter on file at the BTVC yahoo health blog thus it is SCD legal. Last, coconut milk is easy to make. I usethis recipebut I use a whip stick instead of a blender and just use the back of a spoon to push on the pulp to further drain the milk through the fine sieve.
SUMMARY: Here is a heads up on an upcoming Costco EVOO and Berries Organic Feb Sale! And of course.. there’s other things listed but those caught my eye as they are staples in my kitchen and should be in yours too. The EVOO isn’t adulterated and the berries…. learn here why you want to eat some daily for your heart, brain, and anti-cancer!
Specifics: My local Costco has a “Save on Organic at your local Costco” deal going on Feb 1-21, 2016. Check if yours does… The kitchen staples I’ll be stocking up on are:
Kirkland Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil. One word: Unadulterated with other oils that are associated with diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Ok… lied; that was a dozen words. Sale is $1.50 off, limit 2.
Sunrise Growers Organic Antioxidant Berry Blend (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, cranberries — See product information here.Sale is $2.20 off, no limit.
Costco EVOO and Berries
Kirkland Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil. This Kirkland Organic EVOO isn’t adulterated by rancid industrial seed oils. See UC Davis pdf. That is a big deal. Those oils that adulterate tons of other olive oils are usually those that are associated with diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Use unadulterated EVOO to make salad dressings so you can absorb the micronutrients in those salads. NOTE: Lowfat salad dressings won’t absorb those micronutrients. See the posts here, MEET THE FATS & BEST SALAD DRESSING OIL, PART1 and here, SOYBEAN OIL, CORN OIL, DIABETES, AND METABOLIC SYNDROMEfor specifics and great dressing recipes.
Summary: Most everyone wonders what are the ingredients that make up healing diet holiday recipesand that create nutrient dense, anti-inflammatory, low toxin great tasting traditional food that even folks not on any dietary restrictions will enjoy. Seems impossible, but it is absolutelypossible. I do it all of the time; guests are amazed and hosts welcome such! For predinner delights, check out these appetizers! Otherwise, lets dive into our soup, tenderloin and sauce recipes, as well as many AIP blogger all time holiday favorites! Happy Holidays!
I’m sharing four of my family’s and guests favorite holiday recipes (and my Pinterest Holiday board shares more) for ourButternut Squash Soup opener and incredible Whole Beef Tenderloinrecipe which literally melts in your mouth and is great topped with Alton Brown’s Horseradish Cream Sauce or our fav Mushroom Sauce. The Horseradish Cream Sauce uses SCD 24 hour dripped yogurt (or Greek yogurt), and it is also a great salad dressing! We’ve tested lots of recipes but these stand the test of time and remain our holiday tradition first course and main entree. It is interesting that long before I even knew what a healing diet truly was, the soup, tenderoin, and mushroom sauce recipes are coincidentally also autoimmune-protocol (AIP) compliant as well as PALEO, SCD, AND GAPS compliant. The Horseradish Cream Sauce is PALEO, SCD, AND GAPS compliant, but not AIP compliant due to the dairy. AIP is explained further below, but suffice it to say AIP is perhaps the most challenging of the healing diets due to the vast amount of foods eliminated, albeit this is temporary. I bet some of your own family favorites are AIP compliant!
I’m also sharing an incredible roundup of AIP blogger all time favorite and most popular holiday recipes. Check out the AIP ingredients listed below for several of those recipes for clues as to what are less gut irritating recipe ingredients and to learn more about this healing diet.
My Butternut Squash Soup Recipe has evolved over the years and is a combination of the best of many recipes including Epicurous. Usually for the holidays we serve this plain; you can add ingredients (lentils or berries) for a complete meal after the holiday blitz. For easy “How-to” instructions for making calcium rich nutrient dense bone broth for use in recipes see therecipe in this post. Another insider tip: This soup stays frozen for all day travel replacing ice packs nicely and moving through TSA without incident!
Whole Beef Tenderloin (AIP, PALEO, SCD, GAPS) — at every Christmas meal for as long as I can recall:
Source: biomeonboardawareness.ccom
MANY MORE AIP Healing diet holiday recipes
Actually, there are a wealth of AIP compliant recipes online from amazing bloggers. This download, “Holidays on the Autoimmune Protocol, a recipe guide by the AIP blogging community”gathers together over 80 AIP compliant holiday recipes by the top AIP bloggers. The free pdf link is here. The document is interactive meaning you’ll need to click on the links to go to the recipe page on the original author’s website.
AIP is arguably one of the strictest of the healing diet protocols. AIP is used to induce remission in autoimmune diseases eliminating most all gut irritants. An AIP compliant recipe eliminates grains, beans, dairy, eggs, nuts, seeds (this includes spices such as nutmeg, fennel, coriander, cumin, dill, and poppy and sesame seed — cautious use is recommended for pepper, vanilla bean, cardamom, juniper, and allspice), and nightshades (these are potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and spices such as cayenne, chili powder, chili pepper flakes, curry, paprika and red pepper)! Don’t panic here… AIP is successfully used by many and although it is not a forever diet, you are never meant to return to the Standard American Diet. Following gut healing AIP, you reintroduce foods; most can successfully reintroduce nuts, seeds, dairy, eggs, rice, buckwheat, and quinoa (properly prepared in most cases).
SUMMARY: This… Thanksgiving morning! Homemade Chocolate Hazelnut Spread. Actually, don’t save this for only one day; we certainly don’t! Easily make this in bulk and freeze.
Ingredients and Processing I Prefer to Use
The nut ingredients in this recipe make these bars an advanced food for those on healing diets such as SCD, UMass IBD-AID, GAPS, or PALEO. For this very reason, I recommend using these instructions to properly prepare nut and seed ingredientswhenever possible to make such more easily digestible. But if you don’t do this step, no worries since the notes section of the recipe provides alternate instructions for toasting those nuts! The recipe is not SCD/GAPS legal due to the cocoa, but it is in accordance with The PRODUCE Study (a modified version of SCD), the UMass version of SCD which is called IBD-AID, PALEO and also FODMAP friendly if maple syrup is substituted for the dates; details are broken out below the recipe for those interested.
Summary: I subscribe to the Julia Child philosophy of
“I’d rather eat an occasional little piece of the real thing than a giant bowl of the imitation!”
November… two Scorpios living under the same roof, celebrate lit candles on this So Simple Chocolate Birthday Cake. FODMAP friendly, and within limits of UMass modified SCD named IBD-AID. This coconut flour and maple syrup based seven ingredient cake was actually preferred in its taste trial test compared to the traditional iced cookie cake. That is reason enough to not relegate this dessert to a once a year show, rather keep it in your families rotation. We certainly do.
It’s size? Small? Yes, see… it is so nutrient dense and satiating that a little goes a far way.
So Simple Birthday Chocolate Cake and healing diets
Only seven ingredients to evaluate. The verdict: legal for UMass version of SCD and FODMAPs, but not legal for SCD/GAPS:
The deal breaker for SCD/GAPS is the cacao. SCD/GAPS would just substitute honey for maple syrup.
But the UMass version of SCD, called IBD-AID, would permit the ingredients of this cake providing sugar-free dairy-free chocolate shavings are substituted for the dark chocolate chips.
FODMAPs would permit this recipe (recognizing small sizes are consumed) providing:
The sweetener used is maple syrup (honey is not permitted due to excess fructose) and
Summary: This post nails the need for increased variety of vegetables for chronic disease prevention and management and addresses quantities. It includes a delicious, phytonutrient rich, and quick recipe for eating the beets, cabbage, red colors; this subcategory of vegetables can be a hard sale to your family but you’ll learn in this post why you want to include such. It is especially timely given the fall seasonal foods now available and your requests for more vegetable recipes.
This recipe is PALEO, SCD, GAPS, AIP, and NIGHTSHADE friendly fare, but notFODMAP friendly unless within your unique re-intro tolerance limits. Cabbage, beets and onions are fructans, one food compound eliminated on FODMAP unless you’ve reintroduced these vegetables and you know your tolerance quantities. Keep in mind that FODMAP loads are cumulative, and this recipe contains three fructan foods which bumps up it’s fructan total load. One family’s tip for integrating cabbage back into their low FODMAP lifestyle is detailed immediately below the recipe, and perhaps this preparation technique can work for you too.
I am glad to see the word is getting out on the importance of increasing carotenoids,
RA. Lupus, IBD, psoriasis, and neurological such as Parkinson’s and early memory loss/dementia, depression, anxiety, event PTSD (fighter pilots with narcolepsy), traumatic brain injury, as well as diabetes and obesity (to normalize blood sugars), and heart disease atherosclerosis which is now being looked at as possible autoimmune since it is a gut and inflammation issue.
Interestingly, the diet has been shown to statistically significantly increase micronutrient status from baseline to 12 months (see below slide.) Not surprising really when you realize vegetable wise, these folks (men and tall women) are consuming 9 cups of vegetables a day, 3 cups from each of three categories: greens, colorful, and sulfur rich. Smaller frames target 6 cups/day. There are other diet requirements as well.
Source: biomeonboardawareness.com
It is the gist of this diet, vegetable wise, that I want to focus as I do believe this is one part you need to get for chronic disease prevention and management. In general, when you eat whole foods you get much more than the vitamins; you get thousands of compounds that science has yet to discover and which aren’t present in supplements.All work synergistically together to give the cells in your body what they need.
Phytonutrients are one category of compounds found in food.
Fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts and teas are rich sources of phytonutrients.Phytonutrients help slow down the aging process, enhances immunity, and serves as antioxidants. Many subgroups comprise phytonutrients. Different phytonutrients offer different benefits and work synergistically with each other. One orange contains over 170different phytonutrients.
It is important to eat a variety of phytonutrients and to eat vegetable phytonutrients with a healthy fat for absorption.One strategy is to rotate diet. So for green phytonutrients, one day add in some kale, the next lettuce, the next spinach, and then beet greens or chard. You can use endless frozen varieties of greens in soups, smoothies, or even added to your eggs, with ease.Eating wide diverse foods gives more health-promoting phytonutrient benefits. Here’s what you can do with frozen phytonutrients:
Yellow, orange, and red pigment in fruits and vegetables and
Dark, green, leafy vegetables. Surprised? These are not the common yellow color since chlorophyll, the green pigment, masks the rich carotenoid, beta carotene, which greens contain.
Flavonoids (polyphenols, isoflavens, and phytoestrogens) Over 9000 flavonoids have been identified.Flavonoids are reddish pigments, found in red grape skins and citrus fruits. Polyphenols are found in green tea and berries. Isoflavones are found in peanuts, lentils, soy, and other legumes. Other phytonutrients include inositol phosphates (phytates),lignans found in flaxseed (phytoestrogens), isothiocyanates and indoles (indoles are found in cruciferous vegetables), phenols and cyclic compounds, saponins, sulfides, and thiols, and therpenes. Some of these are actually anti-nutrients and/or gut irritants. For example, some chronic kidney disease diets focus on reduced oxalate foods):
Slide source Maelán Fontes PhD — Food and Western Disease Beyond Nutrients: Antinutrients, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb3CFXcqEcI
This recipe targets all three phytonutrient categories used for theWAHLs Protocolhealing diet
which consists of:greens, colorful, and sulfur rich foods; Details of each of these categories can be found below the recipe.Dr. Wahl explains that these categories can be thought of as:
providing your cells what they needandtaking away that which interferes with their proper function.
SUMMARY: Finally! A peek into our trillions of innards on a 3 day fruit and vegetable blitz! Spoiler alert: There is NOT much impact 10 days after stopping that 3 day cleanse, microbiome resulting from healing diet tenets persist!
And that, I think, is the lesson to be learned for the healing diets such as SCD, GAPS, PALEO, AIP, WAHLs, to name a few. Realize, the tenets of these healing diets are for everyone if you want to prevent chronic disease, not just those with chronic disease. These protocols increase vegetables and fruits beyond what the normal Standard American Diet (SAD) yokel is consuming and adds in healthy fats so fat soluble vitamins are actually absorbed. This is done concomitant with ditching processed foods, including processed sugars, and other inflammatory foods. How powerful are these tenets? They are healing and inducing remission in messed up impoverished gut microbiomes, and some of those folks are only 80% compliant with the diet! Nuff said. Shouldn’t you know what these tenets are?
SUMMARY: I hear you… school lunch bags and dessert. Well… here is what I pack; it is the very same chocolate chip cookie recipe that you sampled. Actually, I always double this recipe making it in bulk using a very large stainless steel mixing bowl that I happened upon at Marshall’s. I freeze all these cookies, and we just eat them straight out of the freezer! They make great packable school lunch bag chocolate chip cookies! Substitutions for healing diets SCD, GAPS, and UMass IBD-AID are noted.
The best part: it beats any store bought snack or protein bar because this recipe uses protein rich blanched almond flour and eggs. Kick it up a nutritional notch and use pastured eggs. The fat is a medium chain triglyceride full of antimicrobial lauric acid — coconut oil; it is easily absorbed in the small intestine. Finding prepared food that uses coconut oil is rare. Even Whole Foods bakery and other prepared foods uses soybean oil (soybean oil, corn oil, and vegetable oil which was found to increase diabetes, metabolic syndrome and paired with fructose, replicate IBD symptoms.)
And the sweetener — none other than maple syrup (it’s beneficials are called out below the recipe) and Enjoy Life Dark Chocolate Morsels. Updated to provide substitutions for the healing diets: for SCD/GAPStry subbing honey for the maple syrup, and for the chocolate, sub raisins, apples orproperly prepared chopped nuts.For UMass IBD-AIDsub Penzeys cocoa for the chocolate chips (see slide below for the How-To’s). But remember… make sure you are not filling up on these; consuming adequate vegs/fruits/meats, etc… is priority on healing diet regimens — for why, see WHY EAT THE BEETS, CABBAGE, RED COLORS, my top read post thanks to CNN.
It’s great to nix the processed sugars, rice syrups, and industrial seed oils of commercial baked goods. This recipe does it deliciously, and honestly, these are so great, they have replaced their traditional wheat flour counterpart on all my Christmas platters shared with family and friends.
Interestingly you’ll learn that you actually eat less of these types of whole foods compared to their commercial counterparts “where you can’t eat just one.” Many equate this to the increased nutrient density and more satisfying protein/carbohydrate/fat components.
Lucky kidos that get to nosh these out of their lunch bags. Lucky too those that nosh these straight out of their freezers!
What a _great protein and fat combo_ this cookie is! It tastes so great, that it honestly has replaced the traditional chocolate chip cookie recipe on all my Christmas platters that we share with family and friends. I _always double_ this recipe and freeze these cookies. They are great in the school lunch bags! Credit for the original recipe goes to [Primal Palate|http://www.primalpalate.com/paleo-recipe/chocolate-chip-cookies/] though I do incorporate several changes. Source: biomeonboardawareness.com
Credit for the original recipe goes to Primal Palate though I do incorporate several changes.
The ingredients I use:
Blanched Almond Flour. Tip: Buy this in bulk, break into user friendly sizes, and then freeze. Keep a container in the fridge for use. My Biome Onboard Awareness, LLC Facebook Page, notes every time a discount code becomes available, so make sure you “like” that page for notice.
Vanilla — This is tricky; just kidding. I make my own soaking real vanilla beans (cut lengthwise) with vodka! Couldn’t be easier. It takes about 4 months to get a decent flavoring but you certainly can use it sooner. All you do is pour off a small sized glass container amount for baking use, and then just top off the original, shake, and let it rest till you need more. Just pour off, repeat top off… as used. Now you know how to make amazing vanilla. Reuse your beans until your bean flavoring runs out, which is a very long time, years in fact. If you use store bought, read labels to be certain the only ingredients are vanilla beans, alcohol, and perhaps water as most add in a sugar compound.
Maple syrup… it is a plant derived natural sweetenerused throughout the world and truly… it is another functional food. The skinny on why I advocate nixing processed sugars (used predominately in US) and instead move to foods using maple syrup (or honey) (see the post, TWO WEEK SUGAR ELIMINATION: MIND AND BODY PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES for inspiration in weaning off and eliminating sugar) is that amazing health benefits keep being found for maple syrup. Most important: Read labels and make sure yours is 100% pure or it’s guaranteed to be adulterated with sugar and chemical additives.
A “WOW” maple syrup finding: Take this 2015 study reported in Oncology Reports: the researchers examined the effect of three grades of maple syrup (grades are based on the color of the syrup and ranges from light to darker with color being influenced by time of year and processing technique) on the proliferation, migration, and invasion of colorectal cancer (CRC) cells in order to investigate whether maple syrup is suitable as a phytomedicine for cancer treatment. Their findings, which need to be carried forth in human trials, show:
Maple syrup inhibits CRC cell growth, proliferation, and invasion through suppression of AKT signaling pathway activation… These findings suggest that maple syrup, particularly dark colored ones, might be suitable as phytomedicines, which have fewer adverse effects than traditional chemotherapy for CRC treatment. –Inhibitory effect of maple syrup on the cell growth and invasion of human colorectal cancer cells
providing your cells what they need and taking away that which interferes with their proper function. 
Interestingly you’ll learn that you actually eat less of these types of whole foods compared to their commercial counterparts “where you can’t eat just one.” Many equate this to the increased nutrient density and more satisfying protein/carbohydrate/fat components.