foodie update

I thought it was about time for a food post:) Even though I am bound to be repetitive, my food posts seem to be very similar lately. It's been about six months now for me on this super-improved-immune-functioning diet. That's no grains, no sugar (refined, artificial and most fruit), no dairy and a few other miscellaneous - potatoes, due to their blood sugar raising high starchy-carb-ness. Anyway. Mostly I feel ok, up and down. Sometimes I wonder if the diet helps SUCH a great deal. My dh reminds me that I have not had another major inflammation so perhaps the diet is what is keeping it at bay? It may be that I have no auto immune disorder and that a freak inflammation wrecked havoc and now I am just adjusting. I like that theory best of all :) But either way doing this diet feels positive (except those mad moments where I literally am tired and hungry and don't know what the heck to eat). I can get around the not being the same as everyone else bit by planning ahead and making enough snacks and food to keep myself covered. Nuts and seeds I have been relying upon heavily and have just decided to give them a total rest for a couple of weeks and reintroduce them to see what effect they have. One thing about having such a..... pure (?) diet is that I can literally tell the effect of foods upon me as soon as I eat them (or near enough). I think one supplement was causing me wheeziness as since I have stopped the wheeziness also has subsided. That interests me because one of the components of that was extract of liquorice root. Liquorice root is a know TH1 stimulator and since I have not had my TH1 TH2 blood panel (er, because it doesn't seem to exist this side of the Atlantic) I am having to figure it out with these subtleties of diet. Just for a recap, it's thought that those who express an immune disorder are either TH1 or TH2 dominant (T stands for T-helper cells) and that one or the other is raised instead of in good ratio, instead of suppressing the entire immune system - as is standard practice - one theory and practice is to stimulate the more dormant TH thus raising it in ratio to the higher level being expressed. There are many botanical extracts noted for raising either one or the other, green tea and echinacea are the two most common (as is caffeine) but I have been diligent in keeping both from my diet in an effort to avoid irritating an immune response. The liquorice root I had not noticed on either list..... but removing it coincided anyway with my nut elimination!!!!! Geesh, I didn't time that well. I'll have to wait and see for a couple of weeks. I *could* in theory test the two main substances out for three days apiece, thee days on green tea extract and three days on echinacea and see how I feel, but I am a scaredy cat, they seem so mild and harmless but I know from having pared down my consumption of everything that the body is s super sensitive piece of magnificence. I just started reading Primal Body Primal Mind again, knowing I would have missed bits in my eagerness to devour it the first time. It's fabulous to re read it, and I'd recommend it to ANYONE with any auto immune condition or anyone who just wants to be in better health and doesn't know where to start. This book is mind blowing, even second time around.

Without the nuts though I am seriously lacking in snack material..... I am eating hard boiled eggs and lots of virgin coconut oil 'candy'. Both are pretty good at filling the hunger, little fat logs of energy keeping me going.... an apple or carrot with a dip would be like throwing a twig on my fire. Rubbish essentially at keeping energy levels up and my body going on an even keel (mood wise and physically). I am pretty sure my body is switching to being a fat-burner rather than a sugar-burner. Mainly because my body fat has mostly gone! In the book this is one of the themes, and the presence of love handles is a sure sign of leptin resistance and thus insulin resistance - ie, the body trying it's best to stop you becoming diabetic and storing the sugar you eat as body fat (rather than vastly accumulating in the blood). Even thin people can be flabby and it can have nothing to do with exercise, because, carbs are converted to glucose. Two slices of bread becomes something similar to six tea spoons of glucose in the blood. Apparently our bodies are designed to be able to cope with no more than 1 tsp at any given point. We have lots of mechanisms to up regulate glucose levels from body stores in the emergency need of anaerobic activity (out running a tiger, say) but nothing to down regulate. Apparently it's not even insulin's 'job' to regulate sugar, insulin's function is to coordinate stores for reproduction capabilities and for future famine, crudely it gets sidetracked to deal with excess glucose and it stores it first in the liver and then when out of space, as fat..... we desensitise our insulin response by it being overworked - oh so lets say on average for us now that would be - every time we eat (carbivores we have become)?

I still find it amazing, after repeating this here and reading it again (and again!) about the way our bodies work. I truly do. But what does insulin have to do with immune function? Well insulin is controlled by our super master hormone, leptin, (which was discovered as existing only several years ago) guess where this hormone was discovered as residing? Fat cells! (We don't hear about lepin anywhere because despite it's crucial role on every system in the body, drug companies have yet to find anything to influence leptin function - only diet can do that). Which leads a circle back to changing diet and keeping lepin levels low - essentially cutting out carbs and sugar and increasing fat intake. The fat burning cannot happen though when insulin is present in the blood. Isn't that a super sensitive thing? That the body will preferentially burn sugar when ever it has the option since sugar has such disastrous effects upon the body and we strive to rid ourselves of it constantly (lets just store that fat until later after we have dealt with the poisonous sugar). Even though our red blood cells need a tiny bit of fuel in the form of glucose, our body can manufacture that independently, no carbohydrates are needed in the diet to do this.

I have been trying rather unsuccessfully (I have to say) to reduce the carbs in my kid's diets. How could I not when I know this stuff?? They moan like mad when I neglect to put a bread roll beside the soup bowl, or serve omelette instead of pancakes for breakfast..... but it's baby steps for them, being babies themselves:) For me the transition was from one day to the next. I can see it was HUGELY superior to doing it bit by bit, I think because sweet tastes foster sweet cravings? You 'suffer' for a day or two but then are home free... well kinda :) Or at least when cold turkey it's easier to just stay off the carb wagon? I don't know. Motivational factors obviously feature highly.

And so, I am sticking with it. When I eat 'right', meaning low carb, low sugar and with just enough protein (no more than 40-60g per day) and plenty plenty plenty PLENTY of natural fats - KEY KEY KEY since we only get good at being fat burners by eating fat in absence of sugar (animal and from coconuts, since I am dairy free, although good quality butter would be good). I have so much energy I feel grand; after meals I am satiated and energetic, not drowsy or irritable. When I get it wrong my joints ache, I feel tired. I try not to get it wrong. Sometimes I do, because I like things like this:

Tiffin



tahini, coconut oil, agave, cacoa powder, nuts, goji berries - proper recipe found here. Although with my nut thing this belongs to Isaac now :)

And I forget to take supplemets sometimes. Out of everything I have found taking omega 3's in the form of fish oil to be fantastic a supplement. I take miles more than recommended on the packet because eating things like nuts would increase the ratio of omega 6 and so be out of whack. I do eat hemp oil and hemp seeds but as a sole source of omega 3 these plant based sources are supposedly not so bio available due to needing the body to convert them, and converting takes energy and a process hindered by not having an abundant supply of omega 3 to start with..... I cannot imagine prehistoric people shelling hemp seeds..... Can you imagine the energy expenditure and the return from the seeds? Not worth it! But a piece of fish? Worth it ( I am glad of the mechanical process that shells hemp seeds, oh I LOVE them!) Lets not forget we all have prehistoric bodies honed over hundreds of thousands of years, most of which was during and after an ice age. Picture those foods; the fat, the animals, the fish, eggs, game, insects, the occasional tart berries and fruit - not much plant matter, the energy in gathering versus the potentially toxic alkaloids and needing to cook to reduce cellulose - not worth it (for us now though I think greens are worth it, we live in too toxic a time to do without them, but not so starchy veg). According to archaeological evidence we are genetically and physically ice age creatures. Not the Adam and Eve strolling through lush warm forests picking ripe fruit, it's a lovely myth that one (equatorial land was plagued with drought much of the time, and uninhabitable, despite other parts of the world being covered in ice) :) Our bodies show these things to be true. Excess carbs as seen all over the world today are creating humans that are obese and ill and sick. I was sick. I am hoping not to be. I see now that I ate lots of carbs.

Look! The egg at the bottom is from our own hens. The one above is from a local free range organic farm. Unbelievable. But true. I can't imagine how a supermarket egg would compare... dire. We need more hens here, ours cannot keep up with demand for their lovely, lovely eggs :) If you could keep just one hen see what a difference in eggs (or *egg*) you would get!