Earlier this week I took the time to complete the first lesson of the Surf & Turf class. Lots of great information about why we need more protein, how traditional diets always included sources of animal protein, best choices of protein and why fats are good for us. I realized since cutting out yogurt I’m not getting enough protein with my breakfast. Two eggs is not very much, so I will be looking at getting more protein in the morning.

One of the activities in the course involved taking an online questionnaire http://www.moodcure.com/Questionnaire.html. I remember doing this questionnaire a while ago and scored high in each section, meaning I was low in all the neurotransmitters listed. This time I took it and the only one that I scored high in was Type 3. Over Stressed, Low in GABA. According to Julia Ross, Author of The Mood Cure, if you’re low in any of them then taking an amino acid supplement can help with symptoms.

I think for something like the Over Stressed type that I scored high in, it’s good to reevaluate what changes I can make to address this before supplementing. One thing is obviously reducing sources of stress, which I seem to have accumulated all summer. Yesterday I came home from work and had a 15 minute nap on the couch. It’s the first time I allowed myself to rest like that on a work day all summer. Yes dinner was late, after 8pm, but I felt good. Coming home from work and powering through the evening trying to get everything done is stressful. Taking a quick break allowed me to physically calm down and approach the evening with less anxiety. Thing is, even doing this doesn’t seem to get rid of the physical anxiety feeling. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it’s been a feeling I have had off and on for years.

I did a quick search for natural sources of GABA and found a nice article about it here http://holistic-nutrition.suite101.com/article.cfm/gaba_foods_the_natural_antianxiety_diet. Green tea, L-Theanine amino acids, and complex carbohydrates are all supposed to help and there’s a list of good foods to stimulate GABA production. Since I like using food first, I will be picking and choosing from this list a bit more often. I love how beef liver shows up on there. No matter what I search for it seems like it all comes back to beef liver! I have been doing well with sweet potatoes, potatoes, and more root vegetables in my diet lately. My blood sugar seems more stable now and I can tolerate carbs from these sources as well as fruit. It’s interesting that complex carbs can help with anxiety and stress too.

It has been over 5 years that I’ve turned to the Internet and alternative health sources to learn more about nutrition and search for answers to my health problems. I feel like there’s still so much to discover.

In the past few weeks one of the biggest news stories was about yet another food recall, this time eggs. People in the US were getting sick with salmonella from contaminated eggs. What shocked me was the number of eggs being recalled, half a billion as of August 23, 2010.

I’ve mentioned before that I get pastured eggs and sometimes whole chickens from a local farmer. While this doesn’t protect me from ever getting sick from food, it certainly does help. Chickens are less likely to get sick when they have more room, access to outdoors, proper diet (including bugs!) and no stress. These chickens are also not given antibiotics in their feed, and so are not contributing to breeding super-salmonella resistant to treatment.

I wanted to share in pictures what this farm looks like. It’s a pretty small farm, with just about 20 chickens, some ducks, a few cats and a dog. I visited a few weeks ago to pick up some eggs and snap some photos. It was like visiting a little piece of heaven!

Here’s the chicken coop.

It used to be a barn for horses. In one of the stalls is the chicken feed.

They made some nesting boxes out of wood for the hens to lay in. One hen was in there while I visited. She moved aside for them to take the egg and then she hopped down to get a snack.

In behind the barn is a fenced-in secure area. The chicks they raised for meat stayed in this area mostly, but the hens can run around in there too.

The hens are also free to run around the property. This is not fenced in at all, the chickens just know to come back to the barn at night for safety and food. When the farmer cuts the lawn, the chickens run along behind him eating all the bugs that come up with the turned grass.

The chickens are given a natural feed but in the summer they tend to eat less of it, since they’re scratching around outside eating bugs.

If you stand around long enough, all the animals come close for a visit.

The ducks have a little kiddy pool to float around in too. I couldn’t get a picture of them in there without another animal popping into view! It’s so cute how they all hang out.

This farm just seemed so peaceful.

And here’s what I came home with, a dozen dozen fresh eggs.

I know not everyone can find an egg farmer as perfect as this one, but it’s worth trying to find one that uses good farming practices. I found this farmer by posting a wanted ad on an online classifieds site. I had been getting pastured eggs from a vendor at the farmer’s market in the summer, but found that they couldn’t supply me with enough and I would resort to buying expensive eggs from the store. So I just posted up an ad and within a couple days I had three local egg farmers to choose from. Since then I’ve found other food sources through online classifieds sites. It makes sense that there are a lot of farmers on these sites, as they are often looking to buy or share equipment and animals. I highly suggest using these kinds of resources to find good local food.

These eggs cost me $3.50 a dozen and have gorgeous deep orange yolks full of flavor. It’s over $6.00 a dozen for organic cage-free eggs from the store, but anytime I have to buy those we end up complaining about the lack of taste. Nothing compares to fresh pastured eggs from a small farm where the chickens can roam around and eat whatever they want.

Naturopath Visit
My acne hasn’t gone away completely but it is a little bit better. I’m sticking with dairy-free for probably a few more months. My naturopath wants me to get hormone levels tested so I’ll be doing that this week. Once she has a clearer picture of whats going on she’ll start me on a new plan. In the meantime I’m taking a few supplements for hormones and acne, including Vitamin B5 (plus small doses of B-complex I’m already taking), zinc, cod liver oil, fish oil, evening primrose oil. She also told me to try a clay mask and suggested a good natural cleanser. I couldn’t find the cleanser but got some clay for a mask and it was quite soothing.

Tomatoes
It’s my first time gardening tomatoes and I really should have gotten cages to hold them up. I have just metal rods that I’m tying the branches of the plants to, which worked fine until they actually got tomatoes on them. Now all the tomatoes have weighed down the branches and they’re each sitting in a heap on the ground. They still seem to be healthy and producing lots of tomatoes so I’m not worried. But, every now and then I get an orange tomato that falls off the vine. A few friends on Twitter said they should ripen fine on the counter, and sure enough they do. Here’s a picture of various stages of ripening. The one on the left has been on the counter 4 days and looks fully ripe, while the one on the right has only been on the counter 1 day and is still ripening. They taste just as delicious as the ones that ripen on the vine.

Coconut Macaroons
I finally got around to using my KitchenAid Stand Mixer to do some mixing. Up until now I’ve used the attachments a lot, shredding, slicing and griding food. I made some coconut macaroons from Elana’s Pantry which are so good when you actually whip the egg whites properly! I made them before by hand but the macaroons would always fall flat. These were fluffy and light. I substituted honey in place of agave nectar for that recipe to be SCD-legal.

Bacon
I used to be able to find a honey-cured organic nitrate-free bacon in Ottawa. Lately I haven’t been able to get it. So, I decided to start trying out different kinds from the store or local farmers. Now sugar is not legal on SCD, but even Elaine said it was ok to have crisp-fried bacon once a week. It is such a treat on SCD! I have 3 kinds to try right now and at least 3 other ones from local farmers to pick up once I finish with these. Hopefully out of those 6 I’ll find one I like that doesn’t have too much sugar. So far I tried the Woodstown Farms one and it’s too sweet.

That’s a picture of an oyster I shucked, with some horseradish. Mmmmm

Fish & seafood, especially mollusks, are very nutrient-dense foods. I have been eating fish and shrimp since before SCD but lately I have been trying things like mussels, scallops, fish eggs, and oysters.

Oysters are a great source of nutrients that many people with digestive problems lack. Iron, vitamin D and B12 are often low in people with autoimmune or gut problems and oysters are a great source. Another important nutrient is zinc, which also helps with acne. As someone with a history of low iron, B12 and still struggling with acne, this is a good option for me.

Maybe coming from my experiences eating organ meats once a week, I was expecting it to have a strong (gross) flavour but they were tasty. When I first tried oysters I was scared to eat them raw so I steamed them. They were ok, taste was good but they were a little chewy. Once I got the courage up to have them raw, I loved them. The texture was great, not at all slimy like I thought it would be. Just soft, easy to chew, with the perfect amount of saltiness. Yum!

If you’re not eating organ meats, you should be eating oysters. And if you’re not eating organ meats or seafood, you’re missing out on the best foods!

Nutrition Info

Although they are relatively low in fat, the fats oysters do contain are excellent with more Omega 3 than 6. Here is a sample Omega fats content of 6 medium oysters:
Omega-3 fatty acids 565mg
Omega-6 fatty acids 48.7mg

Check out the vitamin and mineral levels, again for 6 oysters:

See full nutrition information on the Nutrition Data site: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4189/2

That’s quite a high amount of Vitamin D, B12, iron, zinc, copper, and selenium. Magnesium and other B vitamins are in decent amounts as well. Something that may come as a surprise is the Vitamin C content. Some organ meat and seafood are pretty good sources if eaten raw.

Where to Get Them

If you want to eat them at home, find a good fish market and ask them when they get their shipments in. Live oysters will keep over a week at refrigerated temperatures but it’s best to get them as fresh as possible. Also ask them where the oysters are from and how they are caught. Wild oysters are best for nutrient levels, and it’s always best to support sustainable catch methods. I get mine in Ottawa from the Whalesbone Sustainable Oyster and Fish Supply or at restaurants that are supplied by them. If you live near the coast, you might even be able to get them fresh at farmers markets. If you can’t get them fresh, you might want to look for smoked and canned oysters, which have a long shelf life.

How to Eat Them Raw

If you have an oyster knife and know how to shuck them properly (without slicing your hand open) then they’re pretty easy to do at home. If once open they smell bad or are black, they aren’t safe to eat (it’s pretty easy to tell). Here’s an example video showing how to shuck them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzWvvyfB4tw&feature=player_embedded (found through Nutrition and Physical Regeneration).

If you’re squeamish or don’t have an oyster knife, it’s easiest to go to a good restaurant and try them there. Look for a place with oyster happy hour.

Raw oysters are usually served at restaurants with a few choices of spicy sauces. The restaurant I went to told me the ingredients of each and there were none completely SCD-legal (most had sugar, or Worcestershire sauce) so I had them with grated horseradish and a squeeze of lemon juice. They were delicious just like that.

How to Eat Them Cooked

The first few times I tried oysters I just didn’t want to try them raw so I steamed them. Place them all in a steaming pot for about 3-4 minutes. Let them cool enough to handle them. They should be just opened enough to be able to grab with your hands to open them fully. You can use a spoon to scrape out the oyster into a bowl or plate. If they don’t open easily, it’s best not to have them as they might be spoiled. You can cook oysters pretty much any way, grilling, baking etc, I just found steaming them to be the easiest for me. I also like to make a little sauce to go with them if they’re cooked.

Garlic butter sauce
2 tbsp butter
1 clove garlic, chopped
dash lemon juice
Melt butter in a pan, add garlic and saute a few minutes. Add lemon juice and pour over oysters.

Tomato Sauce
1 tomato, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tbsp butter
salt & pepper
Saute tomato and garlic in butter, add salt & pepper to taste. Pour over oysters.

Check out http://girlgoneprimal.blogspot.com/2009/08/primal-by-beach.html (4th picture down) for a different method and topping. Broiled with bacon and cheese! Can’t go wrong with that.

And if you don’t think kids would like oysters, check out this: http://www.cheeseslave.com/2009/03/22/these-toddlers-love-raw-oysters/

I had quite a reaction the first two weeks I went off dairy. I have gone dairy-free before but that was when I still had some digestive symptoms and was gauging a reaction based on those. This time without any digestive changes, I noticed other effects.

The first thing that happened is I quickly lost weight. The first week I lost at least 5 lbs. I’m pretty sure it was due to lack of calories. I should have prepared snacks better, got some shredded coconut, bananas, avocado and nuts ready, but for some reason I just didn’t think to. The second week went better and I started gaining some weight back.

The second thing I noticed was my hands started cracking. I ended up with about 6 ‘cuts’ on my hands that I thought at first was from cutting myself with a knife while preparing food. But I quickly realized it was just my skin splitting. It was painful but only lasted about a week. A few people on Twitter said they had the same thing during periods of stress, so I’m assuming it was that.

The third thing I noticed was how my appetite seemed much more normal. At first it felt like I was hungry all the time, but now it seems like an appropriate hunger feeling. I feel hungry (but still energetic) before breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don’t know if I ever felt normal hunger before.

And finally, I noticed the first week my skin did get a lot better. The acne on the back of my shoulders disappeared and my face stopped getting new pimples. Then, all of a sudden it all came back. I woke up one morning a couple days ago with a fresh batch of acne. Sigh.

If I didn’t have such a crazy reaction when I went off dairy I probably would have added it back into my diet by now, but I want to keep it out a bit longer. I’m not sure if dairy was contributing to nutritional deficiencies (I have read it can block zinc absorption – important nutrient for acne) and I don’t want to take any chances.

I have gotten a lot of help from people commenting here about acne. So I plan on trying a few more things nutritionally before looking into anything else. I’m remembering to take my B-complex more often. It’s a low dose one that I can take a few times a day, so I seem to do ok with it. I’ve added to that a B5 (pantothenic acid) which is supposed to help with acne, hormones and fat metabolism. I also am taking a zinc supplement most days, cod liver oil and fish oil. My next naturopath appointment is this week and I’ll be sure to ask her about other things I can try.

Raw Oysters
After trying raw oysters last week at a restaurant, I decided to get some to eat at home. I went to the Whalesbone Sustainable Oyster & Fish Supply where I got some oysters, horseradish, an oyster knife and some lessons on how to use it. I managed to shuck 6 oysters at home without hurting myself! They were yummy.

Still Dairy-free
I’m still eating dairy-free. Most days have been nut-free as well. I’m not doing so great coming up with snack ideas other than eating lots of fruit. I might try to get back into making some coconut flour treats this week. The last batch of coconut flour pancakes I made only lasted about 2 days so I think muffins might be a better one to try. I’ll give a full update on the dairy-free situation later today.

Hamburger Press
I keep forgetting to show one of my favorite kitchen tools. I got this from my grandparents and we have used it every time we make homemade burgers. It’s just a simple burger press that can do a thin burger or full thick burger. You push a little disc into the side you want (thin or thick) and then pack it full of ground meat. Pop the disc + patty out by pushing on the backside of it and you get a perfectly shaped burger. I have seen electric burger makers or fancy things that make 8 at once, but I think this is easier to clean and works well.

Online Meat & Seafood e-Course
The cooking e-course I’m taking starts this week! I’m excited and have planned out a bit of time each week to be able to keep up with it. I’ll take pictures of everything I make while the course is going on. If you want to take it, Ann Marie has extended the enrollment until this Saturday, August 21. Click here to sign up!

My first year on SCD involved a lot of trial and error and cutting out certain foods. I discovered nuts didn’t agree with me in large amounts. Too many vegetables, even if cooked, would aggravate digestive issues. Too much fruit or honey and I was a raving lunatic craving carbs (even dreaming about them!). So I spent a lot of time cutting out food and narrowing down to a base ‘safe diet’.

The second year on SCD, after reading articles from a number of sources like the Weston A. Price Foundation, I started to change my thinking. Rather than focusing on cutting out food, I realized I needed to add more nutrient-dense food to my diet. I could cut out all the food that irritated my already damaged gut, but until I got enough nutrients to repair and heal that damaged gut, I would not be able to truly be healthy. SCD alone is a very nourishing diet, but focusing on a few key foods can really bring about a lot of healing.

I was surprised when I had been on SCD for over a year and stopped taking B vitamins that I still showed a deficiency on blood tests. I plugged in a decent SCD day’s worth of food into Fitday.com and it was obvious that I didn’t meet all the RDA for vitamins and minerals. For those nutrients I did get a lot of, it was still only a bit above the RDA value. When recovering from illness it’s important to get more of each vitamin and mineral than the RDA minimums. These are levels that are required to not have any illnesses that are associated with low nutrient status. Meeting these levels in your daily diet probably won’t help fix a deficiency brought on by years of eating the Standard American Diet coupled with digestive illness.

I never did well with multivitamins but my doctor and naturopath were always telling me to take them. A multi-mineral supplement my naturopath had me on for a while seemed to be ok and even helped with symptoms of panic attacks. But every multi-vitamin and B-complex vitamins I tried I ended up with urinary urgency and stomach cramping. I have no idea why and my naturopath was a bit perplexed too, but I just didn’t tolerate them. The best I could do was get a liquid supplement and have small amounts of it spread throughout the day. For nutrients I knew I was lacking in often, I got individual supplements and took those most days.

Once I started looking into the nutrient profile of different foods, I quickly found my answer. I looked up liver, kidney, bone marrow, heart, butter, egg yolks, and various fish and seafood.  I always thought of animal foods as just ‘protein’. I was surprised at the high levels of vitamins and minerals in these foods. I knew liver was high in iron so I had been trying to eat that often, but I realized that getting a variety of nutrient dense foods would be better than focusing on one in particular.

Please note that I’m not encouraging anyone to stop taking supplements. I just did a lot better once I started eating these foods. If you have a known deficiency or your doctor wants you on a certain supplement, then you probably need to be taking it. I still take a few small doses of vitamins at the advice of my naturopath but I try not to rely on these as the only source of that nutrient. There are so many other nutrients in whole foods that I can’t help but believe they are meant to be eaten as a package. If you’re deficient in something, getting some from a pill and lots from food is probably a good idea!

Incorporating all these nutrient dense foods into my diet has started to pay off at least in how I’m feeling. I have a lot more energy and more steady (lack of) digestive symptoms. Even though lately I have had to tweak my diet again and cut out dairy, I still feel like I’m moving forward and healing more. I will be writing up some profiles of SCD-legal nutrient dense foods that have helped me with healing. I like to believe that if we give our bodies all the nutrients it needs, it might just work properly. I’ll also give plenty of links to recipes featuring these foods, so there’s no excuse not to eat them.

I bought a bunch of over-ripe perfect SCD bananas the other day. Rather than just eat them plain I wanted to have more ‘snacky’ things to satisfy cravings. So, I made two of my now favorite banana recipes. The pancakes I had originally seen on Pecanbread‘s site which has many kid-friendly SCD recipes. Honestly I’ve liked every recipe I tried from that site, so it’s worth having a look! Lots of dairy-free ones too. I had heard about banana ice cream a long time ago but had never tried it. Instead I kept making ice cream with SCD yogurt. Since I’m dairy-free right now I wanted to try it out and it was pretty good!

Banana Pancakes
1 banana
2 eggs

Mash the banana in a bowl. Add the eggs and whisk until it’s pretty smooth. Heat butter or lard in a pan over medium-low heat. Drop a spoonful of batter at a time onto the pan. The smaller you make these the easier it is to flip them. Cook on one side until firm enough to flip, then finish on the other side a couple minutes.

Serve with bacon and some berries.

Banana Ice Cream
Bananas

Peel and cut up the bananas into chunks. Place in the freezer for a few hours (maybe while you’re cooking and eating dinner). Put the pieces in a blender of food processor and blend until smooth.

Scoop into a bowl and put in the freezer for a while if you need to harden it up a bit. I left a portion of mine overnight in the freezer and it was perfect ice cream even the next morning.

You can also add things to the banana ice cream. I made it a second time with 1 tbsp vanilla per banana (I love vanilla) and it was delicious! Strawberries mixed in would be nice too.

If you need more step-by-step instructions, How to Cook Like Your Grandmother has a nice post. You don’t need to use milk or any liquid to get the banana to blend perfectly smooth.

Gotta love simple 1 or 2 ingredient recipes!

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This post is part of Two for Tuesdays recipe blog hop, Real Food Wednesday hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop, and Wheatless Wednesday over at Naturally Knocked Up.

The following video is a little sneak peek at the Surf & Turf: How to Cook Meat & Seafood e-course.

I can’t wait to try this. When I went to a restaurant last week for oysters, they also had ceviche on the menu. My friend who joined me for dinner said she had tried it once and loved it. I think I’ll try making it at home for my first time tasting it.

If you think this is just a bit too weird or ‘raw’ for your tastes, don’t worry. Ann Marie will be covering some basics too including how to grill grass-fed meat, make bone broths and what to do with all those organs.

You can still sign up for the Surf & Turf e-course but only this week. Enrollment ends August 14.

Click here to sign up!

If you participated in the giveaway last week, don’t forget to email me for a discount coupon code of $20 off – kat.garson @ gmail.com.

Oysters
I have been buying oysters from a great seafood shop in Ottawa called The Whalesbone Sustainable Oyster & Fish Supply. Usually I will steam them and them eat them with some buttery garlic sauce. They are a super-food when it comes to nutrient density, especially for zinc, B12 and vitamin D. I heard they are even better for you when raw but didn’t feel comfortable preparing them at home. So I went to the Whalesbone Oyster House restaurant and ordered a few raw oysters. Something about having them served on a nice platter with some fresh lemon and horseradish made them seem easier to eat. I absolutely loved them! The texture of raw oysters is so much better than cooked. I don’t think I’ll ever cook them again.

Dairy-free
I’m still going strong on the dairy-free challenge. It’s actually been more enjoyable than I thought. I’m experimenting a bit more with snacks since I don’t have yogurt to rely on. Also I have been rendering lard and tallow, which are great for cooking with. Expect to see some new snack ideas this week (hint: bananas!).

Wild Weekend
This weekend was a great weekend of wild food. I found some wild-picked blueberries at the Dekok Family Berry Farm stand. They had just been picked that day and were absolutely amazing. Expensive, but worth the price for the most delicious berries ever. I think I ate about 3 cups worth and put the rest in freezer bags to freeze for later.

I also found a hunter on a local classified site who was looking to trade wild boar meat. They had hunted it on a reserve in Quebec last fall and were tired of eating it. I could only offer them some grass-fed beef but they seemed pretty happy with it. So I traded them some grass-fed beef steaks, stew and ground for wild boar chops, ribs and ground. I can’t wait to try it.

Meat & Seafood Cooking Class
At first I was very excited for the organ meat lessons, and I still am, but even more so now I’m looking forward to the oyster shucking and raw fish lessons! It starts in a little over a week (August 18). The giveaway is over and if you didn’t win but still want to register, email me for a $20-off coupon kat.garson @ gmail.com. You can sign up for the course by clicking here.