Things I’m Learning on the Autoimmune Protocol

Tags

AIP, Autoimmune Disease, Elimination Diet, food, Healing, Healing through diet, Healing through Food, Health, Hippocrates, Liver, Observations, Paleo, The Autoimmune Protocol

(Image by TSL)

I’m currently on the Autoimmune Protocol, a nutrient-rich elimination diet that removes foods that irritate the gut, cause gut imbalance and activate the immune system. You can read more about the protocol and why I’m doing this here.

Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity. (Hippocrates)

People who know me well will tell you that I’m a moderately impatient woman (I prefer to think of myself as ‘passionate’). When I set a course of action, I want it to happen. NOW. So, with that in mind, given I am now five days into the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP), it will be of little surprise to you when I say changes are not happening fast enough… Never-the-less, I thought a wee update on my observations – so far – might help me to pace myself.

Once you get your head around what the AIP involves, there are really two key things to understand, even if you forget everything else:

Planning is everything: You really can’t decide at the eleventh hour what you’ll be having for any given meal. It just doesn’t work. I am finding I plan (loosely) about a week out. I’m doing this on a Friday so that I can pick up as much as possible at the farmers market on Saturday morning. When you get home late from work and you’re tired and the kids are yelling at you and the dog needs a walk  – the last thing you feel like doing is planning what to eat for dinner.

As part of the AIP planning phase, it’s also critical that you give your pantry (and fridge) an overhaul. Get rid of all the non-AIP food. My brother-in-law happily received all the chocolates I had made. I got rid of mustards and other ‘illicit’ foods that were just waiting to call out to me at a moment of weakness.

Learn to love your kitchen: Seriously. You will definitely be spending more time in it. It is impossible to truly undertake the AIP without preparing food from scratch. There are no packets of pasta. In fact, there are no tins of tomatoes, either. (A staple for me before AIP).

To be honest, I find myself enjoying this aspect of the protocol. I get a kick out of creating good food from quality ingredients. I like experimenting with different cuts of meat and I find myself looking at unusual vegetables at the farmers market, wondering how I can incorporate them into a meal.

(Graphic by TSL; Kitchen Image from here)

OK. We’ve moved past the two key things to remember. What else have I discovered?

Mindfulness

Sounds a tad weird, but I am definitely becoming more mindful about what I’m eating. When you limit your food to primarily fresh vegetables, quality animal protein, a little fruit and healthy fats, you really start to notice flavours. Partly, this is because there are no heavily spiced sauces to accompany your meals. And, yes – this has taken a little getting used to. Because seed based spices are out, I’m using a LOT of garlic, my fresh herb intake has increased and I’m finding all sorts of uses for mace.

Full disclosure: a good friend of mine in New Zealand sent me an email in response to my last post introducing the AIP. She said, “I will confess that I am in shock – no more COFFEE. You were the original coffee queen back in the day (before coffee was even the thing!).”  I was dreading giving up coffee. Absolutely DREADING it. You know what? – It’s been easy. But, what I
R E A L L Y miss are eggs. That is taking some getting used to.

Mood

As crazy as it sounds, I think my mood is lighter. I’m feeling more positive generally. I had read that this would happen and I was a smidge sceptical. But, it’s true. AND, we’re only on day 5. I could be dangerous by day 20!

Batch Cooking Saves the Day

If you know a recipe works, when you next make it, double it. Use the leftovers for the next day or freeze them for the day you can’t face cooking another meal.

Roasts go a long way. Depending on the cut of meat, leftover meat can be made into shepherds pie, be added to a salad, or chopped up for breakfast hash (with leftover sweet potato). Then save the bones for bone broth.

And, I’ve discovered you can get a pretty good gravy by roasting onions with your meat. After cooking, while your meat is resting, pour a cup or two of bone broth into the roasting dish that still has the onions and all the good crusty bits in the bottom. Bring it to a slow boil and scrape up all the goodies from the bottom of the pan. Whip out your stick blender and whiz it all up. Pretty damn tasty!

Easy Ways to Incorporate Liver 

Increasing consumption of organ meat is a key pillar in the AIP. And, liver is arguably the best for us of all of them. The liver is a storage organ for many important nutrients (vitamins A, D, E, K, B12 and folic acid, and minerals such as copper and iron). When we eat the liver, especially from pasture raised, hormone-free, happy animals; these nutrients give us some of the tools we need to get rid of toxins. And, we don’t eat enough of it any more.

I now have the Paleo Mom’s chicken liver pate recipe on rotation. I love it. But then, I like liver. I have no recollection of where I read this tip but, a great way to incorporate more liver into your diet is to dice it finely and freeze in ice cube trays. Every time you make a braise or ragu, throw a couple of blocks in. Unless you are my sister, you won’t even know its there.

Soups

You can make very good soups FAST by cooking your vegetable of choice (broccoli, cauliflower, parsnip, carrot) in chicken bone broth, then adding an avocado (mace optional) for a few minutes. Throw everything into a blender or food processor and blitz. Check for seasoning.

Great way to incorporate your bone broth AND more vegetables into your diet. We had a broccoli number last night as an entree (starter). It was surprisingly tasty. And, the avocado adds a creaminess. YUM!

So, at day 5, I’m humming along quite nicely on the AIP. Really, I think it was a bigger mental shift to give up gluten (grains). But it is early days, yet.

I’ll keep you posted!

I’ve Got a Girl-Crush on Sally Fallon-Morell

Tags

Diet, Healing through Food, Health, Lacto-fermented food, Nourishing Traditions, Nutrition, Sally Fallon-Morell, Traditional Diet, Weston A. Price

Sally Fallon-Morell
(Image from here)

The diet dictocrats don’t want you to know that…
Your body needs old-fashioned animal fats
New-fangled polyunsaturated oils can be bad for you
Modern whole grain products can cause health problems
Traditional sauces promote digestion and assimilation
Modern food procession denatures our foods, but
Ancient preservation methods actually increase nutrients in fruits, nuts, vegetables, meats and milk products!
(Sally Fallon-Morell, Nourishing Traditions – The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats)

Until I was about 30 years old, I never really cooked. I loved great food, but I just didn’t really connect eating great food with my kitchen. I’m not sure why – my Mum was a very good cook. She still is. So, I had a great role model. Maybe I’m just a slow learner in that particular department.

Fast forward a good few years and, not only do I now love to cook, but over the last couple of years I’ve become convinced that my failure to question the source and quality of my food sources in my twenties and thirties has contributed to some of the niggly (and not so niggly) health stuff I have going on today. I’m trying to fix that.

Sally Fallon-Morell’s seminal cookbook on traditional eating, ‘Nourishing Traditions – The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats‘, was the first book that put me on this road to making more conscious decisions about the food I eat.

Nourishing Traditions – by Sally Fallon-Morell with Mary G. Enig
(Image from here)

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been spending all my free time ‘attending’ some of the  sessions on offer at the Future of Nutrition Online Conference. It’s been fascinating listening to some of the leading voices in the field of nutrition today – but, hearing Sally Fallon-Morell’s talk today, I was reminded of why she had become such a big influence on my approach to eating and nutrition.

If you’ve never heard of her, Sally is a disciple of Weston A. Price, a dentist from the late 1800s and early 1900s known primarily for his theories on the relationship between nutrition, dental health, and physical health. Called the “Charles Darwin of Nutrition,” Doctor Price traveled the world over studying healthy primitive populations and their diets. The compelling photographs contained in his book document the naturally beautiful facial structure and superb physiques of isolated groups consuming only whole, natural foods. Price noted that all of these diets contained a source of good quality animal fat, which provided numerous factors necessary for the full expression of our genetic potential and optimum health.

Sally Fallon-Morell applied the principles of this Price research when it came to the feeding of her own children. Essentially, an experiment. And, a successful one. She proved for herself that a diet rich in animal fats, and containing the protective factors in old-fashioned foods like cod liver oil, liver and eggs, make for  happy, healthy children with a high immunity to illness.*

And, she is the founding president of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

What has Sally Fallon-Morell taught me?

1. I got rid of all the industrialised oils from my diet. That means I cook with coconut oil, butter, lard, tallow. I make my salad dressings from scratch. Always. No exceptions.
2. I now make bone broth at least once a fortnight. I bung a whole lot of good quality bones in a stock pot with a glug of apple cider vinegar, some veggies and herbs, cover it with water and let it simmer away for a long time. I alternate between beef and chicken (can’t quite bring myself to make fish!) It’s nutrient dense and full of minerals. It has no preservatives.
3. I try to eat ‘happy’ animal products – that is pasture raised, sustainably fished, free from hormones and other nasties.
4. Raw dairy is not the same as the milk we buy from the supermarket. Pasteurisation kills everything – good and bad. Regular readers will know that LM can’t consume cow juice. His reaction is violent and almost immediate. But guess what. He can have raw milk. Sadly, it’s illegal in Australia.
5. We’re eating more lacto-fermented foods. Probably not quite as often as we should, and I’m not quite as good at making my own as I could be. But, here in Australia we’ve found Life In a Jar and Kitsa’s Kitchen. They both make awesome live cultured foods. Hopefully, after I see Sandor Katz in action next month, I’ll become a guru of lacto-fermentation!
6. Nose to tail eating is important. We still don’t eat as much offal as we should here at Casa TSL. But we eat a lot more than we used to. I am becoming quite proficient at hiding it in my Ragu Bolognese. I’m setting myself a personal goal to cook more organ meat…

So, you see – Sally has had quite a profound effect on both how I cook and how I eat. If you have an interest in nutrition and you have not yet picked up Sally Fallon-Morell’s first book, I can’t recommend it more highly. 

*Thanks for your world-famous-in-New-Zealand chicken liver pate, Mum!