Guess what I'm going to make????

Forget what I originally had planned for today's post! I found this!

Must head to the kitchen to experiment, stat!

For the three of you who have been following me all this time, you may remember my attempt at this before during the summer in cupcake form, and by golly I need to make them again!

Nothing quite like beet juice to sweeten things, is there?

Forget avoiding sugar for today, I have got to make that cake!

Bagels, bagels, and more bagels

While reading status updates on Facebook a few weeks ago, I noticed one of my allergic friends (actually, her daughter is the allergic one) said that she had made homemade bagels. Being a foodie I did what any good foodie would do and asked how she made homemade bagels. I mean, come on, aren't bagels hard and something only true, professional bakers should try to make?

She surprised me and told me that the recipe was from one of the blogs we follow, Food Allergy Mama. First, if you've never read this blog you should, it's fabulous and full of lots of allergy-friendly bakery recipes and the pictures are amazing. Second, it was an older recipe that I hadn't seen or from before I started following her. Not only is the recipe allergy friendly it is also quite easy to make. Granted, like anything worthwhile, it does take some time to make, but once you get the process down it's only about an hour total, start to finish. Not to bad for homemade bagels if you ask me!

Here was the catch 22 for me: there was nothing remotely healthy about them other than being homemade (which ups the health quotient of any food since no preservatives or other "stuff" needs to be added). I took one look at the recipe and new I could make it healthier. And I did.

It seems to be a bit of weird thing to me- though I fully admit I am not like most people, and I happen to think it's a good thing- that we in the food allergy community are so obsessed with finding ways to eat sweets and treats. Granted, they are the hardest thing to find allergy-free and I understand that. Over processing and the industrialization of food has made it impossible to find any packaged item that doesn't contain trace amounts of at least one of the top eight allergens. So, when you are suddenly deprived of these items it makes you want them more. It's part of the psychology of food, but I digress. This obsession though leads us to wanting to eat lots of sugary unhealthy things because we can't eat them like other people to do- we have to read the labels and ingredient list with a magnifying glass and still then run the risk of having complications from the food in case some cross-contamination wasn't listed. It makes the idea of finding an allergy-free treat, even something as seemingly benign as a bagel, a luxury and indulgence. But in our unending quest to get those indulgences they become overindulgences really quickly! And for the one community that needs to make sure their health is in top notch shape at all times because we are already at a disadvantage, I wonder why we don't focus more on healthy options as the standard, and when we reinvent these recipes make them healthier in the process, too. Just some food for thought. Plus, why are we focusing so much on sharing allergy-free recipes that are sweets?

Ok, off the soap box.

I wanted to make the bagels a worthwhile treat that could actually become a really healthy breakfast. The original recipe used all-purpose flour and regular sugar. Easy fix, I switched to whole wheat pastry flour and used honey for the sugar. The result was the amazing bagels I pictured above.

I decided that I could still make them even more fiberlicious (I invented that word, you heard it here first) and full of healthy goodness so I made them in to Cinnamon Raisin Whole Wheat Bagels. They were so good I could not stop eating them and made them two weekends in a row. It's my new Sunday morning routine. I'm having a hard time veering from the Cinnamon Raisin bagels though, I know I should make more mixtures but I don't know if any of them can beat it.

This picture is actually of the first batch. I added about twice as many raisins the next week. So good! And extra tasty covered in my low-dairy buttery spread and with agave nectar poured on top. I know, I know, I just made them less healthy with the toppings, but give me some credit for improve the recipe so much to begin with!

Aloe Vera Juice to the Rescue?

In my attempts to not only fix my gallbladder, but also, currently, restore the balance of healthy bacteria in my gut that was upset by those (stupid) antibiotics I had to take for my tooth, I have been religiously drinking Aloe Vera juice in the mornings. Aloe Vera, just like it's topical counter-part helps to heal. The juice is said to help rebalance the PH levels in the stomach, and from personal previous experiences I swear by it for that. I've healed my severe heartburn with it and digestive enzymes several times (if you have frequent heartburn this combo with a few dietary changes will actually treat the heartburn, not just cover it up like OTC and Rx meds do). Additionally, the healing effects for the gut are also applicable to the gallbladder according to gallbladderattack.com and it is supposedly helpful to drink during a GB attack. I can say from experience a month or so ago, that is, in fact, true. Not quite as effective as beet juice (see my previous post), but it works in a pinch.

Anyway, my stomach and body is so jacked up (yes, that's a technical term) from the antibiotics that I'm pulling out all the stops to try and get things back in check. I wasn't exactly doing 100% before the antibiotics (the GB was complaining a bit) and now I need to move things back to attack mode. Yesterday at work I was so nauseous (which happens when my stomach flora gets out of whack) that I had to take a 10 minutes break while I waited for GB anti-nausea drops to kick in. It's been rough.

So, game plan that started today so as not be vomity-feeling anymore: Minimize any and all sugar consumption. Guess I have no option but to give up chocolate right now, huh?

Oh, and I promise more food pix to come, I've been cooking up a storm the last few weeks!

The Healing Powers of Vietnamese Pho

Getting back on track with eating healthy again (I swear I'm off my processed food kick, finally) and refocusing on fixing my darn gallbladder through diet I have been cooking up a storm of healthy, GB friendly, yeast reducing (thanks to the antibiotics for my tooth), and anti-inflammatory foods. All things tummy friendly and to stop the nausea I have redeveloped thanks to said antibiotics that have jacked with my stomach. OK, maybe I hit the sugar a little too much while I was on the antibiotics to, but that's in the past so we aren't going to talk about it. My tooth feels better an I know I had to take them while waiting a MONTH to get the root canal, but man, I hate the side effects of that stuff! Anyway, I'm refocused and trying to heal the damage the antibiotics did to my tummy flora and overall state of well-being.

In comes my all-time favorite healing food. During grad school, my buddy Jonghun introduced me to Vietnamese food. A friend of his from back home (Korea) owned a restaurant in the North neighborhood of Chicago that we lived in and he insisted I needed to try it. Being a foodie, I obliged and told him to pick something out from the menu that I wouldn't be allergic to. he told me that it is the Vietnamese equivalent to chicken noodle soup.

I would say it's better than that. Much, much better.

Experiencing heaven at first taste I subsequently dragged my husband (then humble fiancee) to that restaurant for Pho Bo every weekend for the next year. I also dragged anyone else willing to try it out or that I forced to make try it. They all fell in love with it the same as me. I was such a regular at the restaurant that the waiter joked with my husband and I every week if we were going to try something different. We did try one other dish, Tai Tai, that we loved, but it was only an occasional change up, we ultimately always came back to the Pho.

So, why is it so much better than chicken noodle soup? The seasonings for one. The broth flavored with cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, ginger, anise, onion, beef, and chicken stock. Just the smell of it cooking in the kitchen is enough to make you feel better.

Then, once you are done cooking the stock you pour it over rice noodles, basil, cilantro, jalapeno, lime, green onions, bean sprouts and flanked steak that was cooked to a medium rare in the stock itself.

The broth finishes cooking everything and you are left with the most aromatic and soothing soup you have ever tasted. You dip the beef in a combination of Hoisin and Sriracha sauces, mixed to your preference. It is heaven in a bowl and you immediately begin to feel detoxified and rejuvenated by the soup.

There are many other variations of Pho, though ours will forever remain the Pho Bo, or beef version. My husband adored the seafood version at the little Vietnamese restaurant in Chicago, but unfortunately the owners moved back to Korea and it no longer exists. That was a very sad day in our household when we found out it closed.

So, I leave you with pictures of this healthy and tasty soup. I could bore you with the details of what makes it so healthy and good for you, but I will spare you and let the pictures speak for themselves. If you want to try it out, I follow the recipe in Quick and Easy Vietnamese, which is a fabulous cookbook I highly recommend. Vietnamese food is extremely healthy and these recipes are no exception (and for those of you with nut allergies, just leave the nuts out of the recipes, they are just garnishes anyway).

Back in the kitchen!

There is a good explanation for the lack of food and cooking related posts. I've been a bit of a slacker. It's not that I haven't been cooking, it's that I started doing a lot less of it. Needless to say my health has not been as top notch as a result- there is definitely a correlation!

So, let me share some of my latest endeavors at creating healthy, tasty, and body nourishing and cleansing food!

First, this image should be framed somewhere. Roasted garlic with thyme. I wish I could describe the smell of this in the oven. The house smelled amazing. There is something truly special and warming about the smell of garlic, olive oil, and herbs roasting away in the oven. And this was just for part of a soup recipe! I almost ate it straight out of the package!

The beautifully roasted garlic did not disappoint in the soup either. It was a roasted butternut squash and garlic soup topped off with cool salsa. The recipe called for homemade, but with tomatoes not being in season or looking very good at the markets I opted to throw in some store bought natural salsa. It worked, though I do believe it would have been a completely different experience with the homemade roasted salsa- there was so much depth of flavor to the soup, the store bought blandness detracted from it's magic a bit. Nonetheless, the amount of time it took to roast the squash and garlic was well worth it, and this soup will definitely be made again very soon.

As I was preparing for a very long work week at the time, I was super happy to be able to enjoy the butternut squash soup and the other soup I made, Potato and leek for many days. Hence the non-artistic Tupperware shots, too! Wanting to up the nutritional content of the potato and leek soup I added kale for some extra flavor and filling. The soup was great, though I accidentally put a bit too much onion in it. My husband liked all the onion though, so it was okay by him and I had him eat more of this soup than the squash soup as a result- everyone won!

Another great dish for leftovers is risotto. Sure the risotto loses a bit of it's creaminess after being reheated, but that doesn't mean it loses it's flavor! This particular risotto is one that has a strange effect on my brain, and I can't remember what it's called. Sensory recall? Anyway, the first time my mother ever made this risotto- chicken with green and red peppers- was the night the first Operation Desert Storm started. On top of that, it happened to be the day I sprained both of my wrists after an attempt at poking fun at some boys in my junior high class went awry. Oh, childhood. That aside, I always think of Desert Storm when I eat this risotto, can't be helped. The flavor is wonderful and a great beginner's risotto to make. My mother made it with the wrong kind of rice- long grain instead of arborrio- but I still remember loving it just the same. Now that I make it myself I am proud of the level of refinement I bring to the recipe, having stolen the cookbook from my mother who never really made risotto again after that night.

Last night, neither the hubs or I was hungry, but I cooked anyway. It was a good thing I made this recipe because it was so like and easy to digest. Baked herbed halibut (yum!) and a Warm German Potato salad recipe that I got out of Vegetarian Times magazine. It was a hit. The halibut was cooked to perfection and I was happy to have had it after not eating it for a while- I forgot how much I like it! The Potato salad was a great vegetarian twist on your traditional German potato salads that are laden with bacon and onions. I dare say it was quite refreshing with white balsamic vinegar, sauteed green onions and the addition of some blanched green beans on a bed of spinach. I can't wait to eat the leftovers!

And, did I mention how easy all of these recipes were to make? Who says being healthy is hard? Not this girl!

Medicine as Religion?

I had an interesting conversation the other day with someone who told me that "medicine," or your preference/belief in modern vs. alternative, ancient, natural, whathaveyou, is like a religion for most people. It's one of those taboo subjects you can't talk about, I guess. Just like religion itself, or politics, modern vs. alternative medicine is a no-no subject.

What???

Now, to me, it seems that wanting to be healthy and discussing ways to achieve that shouldn't be a taboo subject. The basic principles of diet, excercise, and adequate rest are universal, but the specifics of how you achieve your health and manage your health are not a subject you can discuss with mixed company. To say I'm flabbergasted by this revelation would be the understatement of the year.

For me, you need to have both. Integrative medicine is the way to go. Natural remedies first (diet, excercise, proper nutrition that aims to optimize health and maintain equilibrium) and conventional medicine when necessary. For example, when it comes to heartburn I am a firm believer that it can be cured by changing your diet in addition to a few natural supplements you will be relieved of your heartburn- "cured" as it were. Over the counter or prescription medicines are meant only for the short term and should not be used exclusively. Granted, I personally lived this and went through years of "modern" medicine not fixing the underlying issue before I finally got relief through dietary changes and supplementation. On the flipside, let's talk about my current health dilemma- an infected tooth nerve. Yup, it's time for me to get a root canal. Now, it would require a massive amount of probiotics (and time) to clear up that bacterial infection to make my life bearable until I can have the root canal (first appt available is in a month- ridiculous!). So, in order to minimize the infection spreading and becoming worse, I have to take antibiotics for a week. I hate antibiotics.

Here is where the integrative part comes in- I am taking probiotics (as I always do) to minimize the elimination of the healthy bacteria in my body, which also minimizes side effects and helps with the healing. Furthermore, to avoid taking massive quantities of pain killers and NSAIDs I tried supplementing with a natural nerve relaxer we sell at my office that has calcium, magnesium, valerian root, and passionflower in it. The combo of that natural pain reliever and a moderate dose of ibuprofen is managing the discomfort until the antibiotics do their job. It gets me through the short term until the underlying cause of the discomfort can be fixed with the root canal. I was offered Tylenol III by my dentist, but I declined it already feeling lightyears better from him starting the root cleaning and putting a temporary filling in. And would you know it, the "medicine" that the dentist packed my tooth filling with is called eugonal- clove oil. Who would have thought it, the recommended and effective pain reliever for toothache is a natural remedy! They just don't call it clove oil outright. Sneaky people in "modern" medicine tricking us in to using natural remedies. :)

Anyway, long story short. Both types of medicine are helping me in this instance, and by using both I am minimizing damage to my liver by taking only select prescriptions and supplementing with natural remedies to get me through the short term. Integrative medicine.

Granted, I apparently can't talk to anyone about this, it might offend their sensibilities or challenge their personal belief system. I don't know, maybe I just value my liver a bit more nowadays... but in the long run, it takes one to know one. I certainly didn't follow natural medicine the way I do now 8 years ago. It took modern medicine failing me repeatedly to make me change my preference for which medicine to use first. That's my experience. "Alternative" medicine healed me and "modern" medicine made me sick, and for that I will always be loyal to natural remedies first and foremost. I can tell my story, and if only one person ever listens to me and tries the alternative route then I've accomplished something. And something is better than nothing, so I won't be stopping my discussion about medicine anytime soon.

Let's Talk About Chocolate...

Something has got to change. A year ago, I was just coming off of a 5 minus hiatus of chocolate and was feeling pretty darn good. Since that time the struggle I have with chocolate has remanifested itself in horrible awful ways. I just can't stop eating the stuff. Doesn't matter how sick I feel after eating, how much mucus I can feel building in my body, or the gallbladder complaints, I can't stop frickin' eating it.

Let's devise a chocolate detox plan, shall we?

Originally I thought I would just resort to chopping off a finger every time I ate a piece of chocolate. Effective? Quite definitely, but too bloody and I would most likely lose fingers and I need them. So the new plan has to be doing what I did before, quitting cold turkey and making it a personal challenge for myself to stop eating it.

Luckily, tomorrow I don't work. Which means Ghiradelli Chocolate Bars aren't sitting in another room whispering my name like they are at work. So, I have a one day jump start before I have to be faced with those bags of scrumptious, velvety chocolate again.

I can do this.

I can do this.

Chocolate is NOT my friend.

I can do this, because chocolate is NOT my friend and I don't want to be it's friend either.

Chocolate detox, day 1... GO!

Beet Juice: Your Liver's Best Friend

It sounds so gross, I know, but I am in love with it. Beet Juice.

I saw it at the natural foods store a month or two and ago and thought, "Gross." Then a week or so ago, I broke down and bought it. See, I haven't been eating like I'm suppose to (chocolate and I currently have a love hate relationship) and as a result of that and some other things my liver has not been too happy with me these last few months. Kind of been having gallbladder attacks and a LOT of liver stagnation that manifests in rashes and other annoying things.

At first I tried it and was only so-so on it. Then I had some serious liver/GB pain the other night, drank a shot of it and what do you know, the pain subsided. Um, yeah, my liver loves this stuff. So, I'm forcing myself to drink at least a shot glass worth a day and I'm starting to enjoy the flavor. You get all the sweetness of the beets, without the weird texture. I'm thinking of it as a thick, slightly less sweet, grape juice.

So, here's to good health! A shot glass of beet juice!

Food for Thought

Happened to catch this over at Food Allergy Assistant this morning and thought it was a great list. These are some resolutions I would like to get back to! Somewhere along the way I allowed crazy overprocessed foods back in to my diet, and looky looky, I haven't been feeling as well. This is a New Year's Resolution list we should all follow:

1. I resolve to work toward elimination of foods containing high fructose corn syrup. Dr. Oz says this cheap sweetener is quickly absorbed by the liver and converted to fat. Who needs that?

2. I resolve to not buy any food containing trans fat. It raises bad cholesterol and lowers good cholesterol. And it contributes to heart disease. Who needs that?

3. I resolve to eat 9 fistfuls of fruits and vegetables...every day.

4. I resolve to visit more produce stands and farmers markets in an effort to buy foods locally and in-season. Read Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" for inspiration.

5. I resolve to avoid buying packaged foods with ingredient lists that require a magnifying glass, a dictionary of chemistry terms and more than 20 seconds of my time to read. If I can't pronounce it, my family doesn't need to ingest it.

I'll stick with five resolutions for now. I do believe we need to get back to bread that contains flour, sugar, salt, yeast and water and cake that calls for flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, baking powder and salt. That's it- the basic ingredients. Food allergy families often follow these resolutions as they look for foods that are minimally processed. I know I've gotten a bit lazy though and I know I can do better. I must do it for the health of my family.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your 2010 is heathier and happier than ever!

Taking My Dedication to Another Level

Yup, I'm obsessed. Not that there was any doubt about my obsession and conviction about natural health and healing, but now I own the definitive proof.

I was hanging out at the local natural foods store, picking up castor oil for a "cheater" (read: not involving drinking massive quantities of EVOO and lemon juice) gallstone cleanse that I am going to try (more on that another day), and noticed a lovely book section in the store. Having had several conversations recently with friends who are currently relying on conventional medicine to treat their symptoms (note, I did not say problems- because in all three cases this is what is happening, treating symptoms and not addressing underlying causes, and all three are different problems), and not seeing results/relief my interest has repeaked in gaining knowledge about healing the body naturally. Whether it be back pain and sciatica, infertility, heartburn, or gallstones there are natural solutions that actually treat the underlying cause. Conventional medicine gives you a pill to treat the symptoms. Anyway, I digress... and the point is, I found this book, Prescription for Nutritional Healing and knew I found my bible.

While I haven't gone as far as to snuggle up with it in bed, I absolutely adore this book and am stupidly excited about having it as a reference guide in my home! Furthermore, it gives me more tools to talk to people about caring for their ailments naturally- and not just my personal testimonials (of which, I have many).

Will anyone listen to me? That's yet to be seen. Some are more receptive to the natural options, having gone long enough with conventional medicine not seeing results and ready to try ANYTHING (kind of where I was when I made the leap too), but most are still in the conventional medicine mindset, lacking the knowledge of the body's innate ability to heal itself. Of course, the body can't heal itself if it's not well taken care of and things kept in check and this is actually where the bigger problem lies. Living in a fast food, processed, microwaved world, where many in my generation don't know how to follow a recipe for roasting a chicken and vegetables it's a big hill, make that mountain to travel. And as only a single voice in this growing movement, there is only so much I can do, but I'm not going to give up. Someday, that little bug I put in some one's ear is finally going to be heard and they too will discover how much better their life can be and true and lasting healing can actually be achieved by helping the body do what it was meant to do.

On that note, I want to dedicate this blog post to the person who started me on my journey to natural healing over 10 years ago. Pat Bickett, the mother of a dear friend of mine from high school, gave me my first acupuncture treatment. At this point I had been dealing with chronic shooting pain in to my arms and hands for over a year, had tried cortisone shots with no relief and been on a series of heavy duty prescription NSAIDs which I now know had already been causing long term damage to my liver. At the time Pat was still studying acupuncture and, at her daughter's suggestion, offered to treat me for free as part of her schooling.

I was freaked out about the needles. I didn't do needles. But I was desperate and willing to try anything if it meant the pain would stop, if only temporarily. So, I agreed to try it. She promised not to show me the needles and allowed me to sip some hot peppermint tea to relax before we began the session. She sat me in a chair and placed needles along my arms, hands, and a few in my legs (if I remember correctly). I was surprised to find the needles didn't hurt at all. There was the slight sensation when she put them in, but after that it didn't feel like anything. Feeling brave, I opened my eyes to peek at the needles. They weren't near as big as I thought they would be- laser thin, long, and with a weird slightly large top for where she held them. It wasn't so bad afterall. About thirty minutes later she pulled them out and the session was done. Although I don't believe I ever went back to see her, I did notice that the pain was markedly reduced after that session. A month or so later, I decided to find an acupuncturist to do more treatment, and found one who did chiropractic as well at the suggestion of another friend. The rest is history, chiropractic found the underlying cause and fixed it, and years later when conventional medicine had failed me again, I remember Pat and rediscovered the healing power of acupuncture and met Dr. Kramer.

To say my one experience with Pat was life changing would both be completely accurate and an understatement at the same time. She introduced me a different kind of healing and even though the bug she placed in my ear lay dormant for awhile, I heard it again when it was time and I am forever changed because of it. Because of her, I learned about healing the body naturally and it has now encompassed my entire life and way of being. I am forever grateful.

Sadly, Pat Bickett passed away on New Year's Eve a few days ago. She is in my thoughts now more than ever. I am forever blessed to have met her and been healed by her. She touched my life in profound ways and her memory will live on in me and the thousands of other people lucky enough to have met her.