Month: May 2014

Yes, Antibiotics Do Cause Obesity

Having spent the better part of my life being told that the reason for my clumsiness was a lack of effort and that my stomach pain was all in my head, I am very sensitive to any situation where a medical condition is treated like a character flaw. No where is this more obvious today than when it comes to obesity. I am sick of fat shaming and acting like willpower can fix obesity. Obesity is not about character, willpower or healthy eating choices. Yes, you can probably force the body to starve and shed the weight, but the truth is that when your health is in alignment, eating without overdoing it is effortless. Oh and there is a staggering amount of research showing that the obesity crisis is actually the result of antibiotic overuse, MSG, and quite possibly pesticides and fruit juice. Wanna see it? I began to suspect that obesity and processed food might not be very related when our household switched back to eating like it was 1973. This got me thinking about life back in 1973. Back in the day when breakfast was cling peaches in heavy syrup, orange juice and a big bowl of sugar coated dyed cereal drowned in whole milk. Lunch was processed meat on squishy white bread with mayonnaise and a side of chips and of course, dessert. Dinner was pork,...

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Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Soy-Free Corn-Free Banana Bread

Once you go gluten-free with children, you must have recipes for banana bread. Bananas are always in season. Bananas are low in salicylates. Bananas are nutritious and always on the list of the “clean fifteen” foods that are low in pesticides. In addition your kids will eat them, they come in convenient single serving sizes with their own wrapper, and they do not need to be washed. My house is never without bananas. Occasionally my son is totally and completely sick of bananas which means we have leftover bananas. Now often they go into banana pancakes, but honestly, banana...

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Dairy-Free Soy-Free Corn-Free Vegan Mocha Frosting

I may not eat gluten, dairy, soy or corn, but I do eat sugar, and I like mocha frosting. Many dairy free frostings have what I call the “crayon problem”. When first removed from the refrigerator they have the consistency of a crayon. On the up side they are easy to pick off and probably have some potential as a minor weapon. On the other hand, they are a waste of food with a flavor that is rarely worth the calories. I have posted the frosting recipe with the brownies but wanted to also post it as its own...

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Is Gluten Sensitivity Real?

Recently there has been misleading press coverage of a small study out of Monash University in Australia. This study of 37 people who did not have celiac disease was not, as is popularly reported, evidence that there is no such thing as non-celiac gluten sensitivity (or NCGS). What it did show is something that most celiacs could have told you. The most common symptoms of gluten sensitivity are not in the stomach, they are in the brain. The digestive problems may indicated gluten sensitivity, but it may also indicate an entirely different problem. Oh and the EXACT SAME researchers know this. They also published this article linking gluten and depression http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24689456 However this time, the researchers were interested in a different food sensitivity. FODMAPs and fructans are found in many high carbohydrate foods such as fruit, many grains (including wheat) dairy, and other foods. What the study showed that people who had neither celiac disease nor medically verifiable NCGS were reacting to additional foods. Exclusion of gluten was not sufficient because they were actually reacting to other foods, quite possibly FODMAPS and not gluten. This is the actual abstract that they published http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24740495 So actually instead of showing that gluten sensitivity is not real, it actually showed that there is a third reason to avoid wheat products…and that it is not sufficient to avoid gluten. The study was actually...

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Soy-Free Low-Salicylate Mango Ginger Pork Tenderloin

This is a fast weeknight dinner for four. It doubles easily. It takes ten minutes of total hands on time, and it is ready in about half an hour. Depending on the veggies you use, (I usually use microwaved rice and salad) you may only have one baking dish to scrub afterwards. It works well with peas and cole slaw. Fresh ginger tastes great and will work well. but you have to peel them and they are time consuming to grate and you will spend a lot of time peeling the ginger and then grating it on a rasp...

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Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Corn-Free Egg-Free Chicken Fingers or Nuggets

Chicken fingers are on kids menus everywhere. When the school cafeteria serves them kids try to come back for thirds. Yet there are currently no commercially available gluten-free, corn-free, soy-free and egg-free varieties. I have another recipe that uses egg, but after doing further research I learned that while now we see a lot of egg in tempura and fried chicken, it is neither necessary nor particularly traditional. This recipe uses only a few ingredients, baking powder, garlic powder, salt, rice based flour blend, and of course, chicken. Frying is kind of messy. So in the interest of efficiency...

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Allergies, Sensitivities and Chemical Sensitivities

Did you know that something can be made almost entirely from wheat or barley and still be gluten-Free? If you have ever been confused about the difference between a chemical sensitivity and an allergy or food sensitivity this post is here to set the record straight. While there are always other possibilities, most bad reactions to food fall into two major categories, autoimmune reactions and chemical sensitivities. They are different. Autoimmune Reactions – Both food allergies (like nut allergy) and food sensitivities (like celiac disease) are in the category of autoimmune reactions. The way an autoimmune reaction works is...

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Low Allergen Low Salicylate FailSafe Cookbook

Although this site has many recipes on it, you should be aware of another, ready made source of recipes. There is a cookbook put out by the Royal Prince Albert Hospital’s Allergy Unit which specifically addresses the need for a low allergen low salicylate diet. This is the diet that has been shown in multiple well-designed studies to eliminate ADD and ADHD in children most of the time. Not to mention the impact on rashes which is actually what they were studying in 1988 when they stumbled upon the fact that not only did the rash vanish, but the...

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Dairy-Free Corn-Free Soy-Free Nut-Free Low-Salicylate Caramel

This is for all the dairy allergic kids who have never had caramel. Caramel that is normally made with heavy cream and corn syrup gets a remake with coconut cream and either agave or maple syrup. Now I do not make caramel with the intention of making it into actual caramel candies. I make it to put into candies or cookies. I believe if you cook it longer it will get stiffer and can actually be made into separate candies, but since my only goal is to make other desserts out of it, I prefer it a little soft....

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Soy-Free Egg-Free Low Salicylate Vegan Cole Slaw

Green cabbage is one vegetable with negligible levels of salicylates. It is also a nutritional powerhouse. As a result I often find myself trying to work it into meals. One of the easiest ways to do this is with cole slaw. My child will eat cole slaw. As I learned from America’s Test Kitchen, The key to a good pre-made slaw, one that isn’t runny or slimy, is sweating all the excess water out of the cabbage before you add the mayonnaise. This is very simple to do but it does take a fair amount of elapsed time so...

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