I have had Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) since March 2002. Both of my sons also got ME/CFS at ages 6 and 10. Our younger son fully recovered after 10 years of mild illness. Our older son still has ME/CFS and also has Lyme disease plus two other tick infections. This blog is about how our family lives with chronic illness, with a focus on improving our conditions and enjoying our lives in spite of these challenges.
I finally edited and uploaded my video on the three diets most often recommended for ME/CFS, long-COVID, and other immune disorders: paleo, keto, and carnivore diets.
The video describes each of these three different diet options in detail, including what each entails, how they can benefit someone with chronic illness, and lots of ideas on what kinds of foods to eat, with plenty of suggestions for meals, snacks, and recipes. All three of these diets are often recommended for a wide variety of medical conditions, including immune disorders like ME/CFS and long-COVID, autoimmune disease, and any health problem that involves inflammation. They are all low in inflammatory foods, low in foods likely to exacerbate food allergies or intolerances (which are very common in ME/CFS and long-COVID), and good for those with yeast overgrowth (also very common in ME/CFS due to our specific kind of immune dysfunction). Surprisingly, these diets are also very tasty, with a wide variety of flavors, and are easier and less work than a traditional diet.
We have tried all three and have seen benefits in reduced symptoms, increased energy, and better control of yeast overgrowth. We ate paleo for about a decade or so, and I wrote a detailed blog post about the paleo diet, if you prefer to read about it. However, as I explained in the video, I now know it was a mistake to make exceptions to it, so ignore the modifications I talk about in the post! When I have more energy, I'll update that. It worked well for us for a long time and might have continued to work for me, if I'd been stricter with it. At the start of 2024, I ate mostly carnivore for three months, which helped to get my yeast overgrowth under control. And since April, I have been eating more of a keto diet. My husband has also been eating keto, all year. We both lost weight (though that was not my intention), and my cholesterol and triglycerides are the lowest they have ever been, by a lot!
These diets have definitely helped my son and I over the years. In fact, discovering my son was severely gluten-intolerant in 2020 and getting him on a gluten-free diet (which all of these are) was a key to his current excellent condition. Eliminating gluten and following a paleo/keto/carnivore-ish diet (he eats sort of a mash-up of the three these days) helped to not only improve his gastrointestinal symptoms but also significantly improved all of his symptoms. Since June, he has been working a fairly rigorous, physical job in the field he studied full-time! It still feels like a miracle to us, but he says it's the best he's felt in as long as he can remember (he's 30 now and has been sick since age 10).
We are still learning, so I would love to hear about your experiences (or your questions).
Have dietary changes helped you?
Have you tried any of these diets?
Please share your experiences with diet or your comments and questions.
Lots of people have been asking me about the new carnivore diet I began on January 2 (with a gradual move toward it in the two weeks before that). This has helped me to finally get chronic yeast/candida overgrowth (often a part of ME/CFS) under control, which has resulted in huge improvements for me. My immune symptoms (flu-like aches and exhaustion) cleared up and my energy has been really good for most of the past month (with a few rundown days this past week but today was better).
As I explain in the video, I am not a medical professional and am not recommending other people do this. I'm just trying to share my experiences and what I've learned so far, so you and your doctor can make informed decisions, based on your own medical needs.
In this video, I explain what a carnivore diet is & why
I'm trying it, why it's supposed to be helpful for those with immune disorders, what we eat, and my results so far (spoiler: great!), with explanation of alternatives like Paleo & Keto. You can watch the video on YouTube or here:
If you watch it here, I will include the list of notes & links (that I mention in the video) that are below the video on YouTube:
A good place to start on improving diet and helping yeast overgrowth is a Paleo diet. This post explains what it is, the modified Paleo diet we
were eating, and how it helped us (note that if I'd stuck to strict
Paleo, without the modifications, I might not have gotten as bad as I
did!).
After months of a very bad relapse of my ME/CFS, I had a wonderful week! I felt really good, had good energy, and was active and productive. In this video, you can see me out and about, coming back to life after months on the couch, and I explain how I figured out what was behind my bad crash (in short, still yeast overgrowth!), and the radical diet change I made that resulted in such a stunning turn-around.
You can watch the video on YouTube (there are additional notes below the video - click on "...more") or here:
You will see a very big change from my last chronic illness vlog, a few weeks ago, which was almost entirely from a horizontal position on my couch.
That's all I have time for today - a quick update. My husband and I are going out of town for a few days - just a quick trip to a town about an hour away. They have a wonderful independent bookstore that is hosting a book event for me and my book! I'll have a chance to tell my chronic illness story, read a bit of the book, meet people, and sign books. This has been scheduled for months, so I am very relieved to be feeling well enough to manage it!
Now that life is settling back into "normal" for us after July's craziness, I was able to put together another vlog. A vlog is a series of live-filmed video clips (versus a video where I sit and talk about a planned topic). This one covers one week of my life (last week), showing an honest picture of what my week was like.
For me, thanks to many treatments for ME/CFS, Lyme disease, and Orthostatic Intolerance, that means a week of alternating mild activity and periods of rest/recovery. In this vlog, you also see glimpses of my daily routine, including meals and meds/supplements. Our weather finally cooled down a bit, so there are also plenty of nature video clips here!
As usual, you can watch the video on YouTube at this link or I will include the video here:
I would love to hear your thoughts on this kind of vlog-format video!
Do you enjoy these? Do you find them useful or informative?
Please let me know what YOU would like to see here on the blog and in my videos!
Did you miss me? For once, it wasn't my ME/CFS or Lyme that kept me from posting on my blog or making new videos!
We had to take an unexpected cross-country trip. My father-in-law passed away at 97 years old the first week of July. He had severe dementia and had lived a long life, so it was time. He wanted to be buried next to his wife, where he'd lived most of his life, in Oklahoma. So, my husband and I headed out on a long road trip. There was no way I was going to fly on a packed airplane with no one wearing masks and delays and cancellations rampant!
We drove four days to get there, staying in hotels along the way because it was much too hot to bring our camper (105 in Oklahoma!). The funeral service was lovely, with friends and family coming from near and far and lots of personal stories and memories. And then, we drove (well, my husband drove) another four days back. Other than some back pain from sitting in one position for too long, I do well on long car rides--it keeps me off my feet and forces me to do nothing! But we were both very glad to get back to our own bed and the couch and recliners!
No time for sightseeing but we passed by the Gateway Arch!
ME/CFS, GI Problems, and Dietary Changes
Since my ME/CFS first started in 2002, GI problems had not been a big issue for me. The mild digestive symptoms I did have were completely eradicated when I discovered I'd become intolerant to dairy and began avoiding it. A full 30% of those with ME/CFS are dairy intolerant, according to one study, so definitely test that out if you have any GI symptoms.
But in September 2021, for no discernible reason, I suddenly developed chronic diarrhea. With the help of both my Lyme specialist and a functional medicine specialist, things have improved in recent months, mostly thanks to loads of probiotics--very specific ones, based on stool testing to show what I had too much of and not enough of (note that the testing did not show any pathogens). But I am still reliant on very high dose probiotics and still don't have an answer as to why these problems suddenly began last fall.
Food Sensitivity Testing
Before we left, at the end of June, I received the results of Food Sensitivity Testing (from Alletess). This is IgG testing, measuring the immune response to various foods. My Lyme specialist recommended it, and I didn't expect to learn anything surprising. After all, I already knew I was intolerant to dairy, and nothing else seemed to upset my stomach.
So, what a surprise it was to look at my results and see more than a dozen food ingredients show up as mild to moderate sensitivity, including:
Moderate
Cashews
Pistachios
Sesame
Mild
Macadamia nuts
Poppy seeds
Grapes
Pineapple
Watermelon
Black-eyed peas
Chickpeas
Green peas
Peanut
Soybean
Casein
Whey
Cow's Milk (no surprise)
Egg white
Oregano
Peppermint
Rosemary
There are a few others, but these are the main ones that I eat most often. I was eating eggs every day, drinking peppermint tea every evening, and even taking capsules of oregano and rosemary every single day ... for years! We often cook Asian-style meals with plenty of soy sauce and sesame oil. I used whey powder in my daily smoothies for lunch. And guess which nuts I most often eat, as part of my mostly-Paleo diet? Yup, cashews, pistachios, macadamias, and peanuts (not a nut, I know). In fact, since I knew I couldn't have dairy, I was eating dairy substitutes like cashew milk, cashew sour cream, and cashew feta cheese (all excellent, by the way), plus eating plain cashews and cashew butter daily!
I discussed the results with my Lyme specialist while in the car on the way to Oklahoma, and she explained some things. She said eating a food constantly (like eggs, peppermint, or cashews) could make me more sensitive to it. Also, since most of my test results showed only mild sensitivity, I could probably tolerate them once in a while, if I avoided them most of the time. She said the key was lots of variety and not eating the same thing every day ... which I had been doing!
Dietary Changes
So, I took her advice and eliminated everything on my sensitivity list from my regular diet, though I do splurge once in a while. I really love my smoothies and know the whey powder is a glutathione precurser, so I have a smoothie once a week (and am searching for a protein powder with no whey, peas, chickpeas, or soy - probably won't find one!).
sigh ... no more daily Paleo smoothies!
I avoid eggs all week and use only the yolks if we have hard-boiled eggs in a salad, but I have eggs on the weekends when my husband and I have breakfast together. I struggled with how to have a high-protein breakfast with no eggs, but I am finding some combinations that work, like oatmeal made with chia seeds and walnuts or high-protein, high-fiber cereal with pecans and chia seeds (both with plenty of fresh fruit on top and almond or oat milk). I even tried a vegan egg substitute, Just Egg, that was OK. I may have that once a week as a scramble with veggies.
Much as I hate restricting my diet so much, I did have a pretty good week GI-wise, with few problems (except for today when I ate the whey powder!). And, on the plus side, most of my sensitivities are mild, and nothing at all showed up under meats & poultry, grains & starches, beverages, or vegetables (and very little under fruits and herbs/spices).
Luckily, I can still eat all veggies!
I definitely recommend this kind of food sensitivity testing because I was completely unaware of most of these (and it was inexpensive, about $150).
For my son, discovering--through testing--that he was severely gluten-intolerant was a huge factor in his recent improvements, allowing him to work full-time now! It's really been amazing what a difference eliminating gluten made for him, in all aspects of his illnesses. He was quite resistant to the idea before, since many of his favorite foods have gluten, but now that he's seen the results, he's strictly gluten-free by choice.
I also did a video update before my trip, an update on my relapse recovery, long-COVID recovery, and how I track my illness.
What We're Watching and Reading
Summer for me means Big Book Summer! This is a fun, low-key reading challenge I host every year, and this is its 10th anniversary! A Big Book is just any book with 400 or more pages, and any kind of book counts: middle-grade, audio, graphic novel, etc. And it's low-key because you set your own goals, whether that's reading one Big Book between May and September or two or setting aside a stack like I do, to choose from all summer long. It's still only July, so there's plenty of time left to sign up--all the details are at the link above.
Here's my June reading wrap-up, of the four Big Books (two in print and two on audio) I finished last month - all were very good!
My husband and I haven't been watching many movies lately, but as usual, we are enjoying a bunch of TV shows, even while on the road (the advantage of hotels over camping--WiFi!).
The Flight Attendant, based on the novel by Chris Bohjalian, on HBO is a fun, darkly humorous thriller starring Kaley Cuoco as a flight attendant whose life is a total mess. She's a party girl who drinks too much, and one night in Bangkok, she sleeps with a guy she really likes, who is dead in a bed filled with blood when she wakes up beside him the next morning! What follows is a fast-paced, deadly race to find the killer and save herself. Read my full review and watch the wonderful trailer at the link.
The other thriller (slightly less frantic) that we are enjoying is The Old Man, starring Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow. Bridges plays a former CIA agent who has been hiding out, living a quiet life for decades, when suddenly someone finds him and tries to kill him. He's prepared for this, but wasn't expecting it right now, so he goes on the run, reluctant to break ties with his adult daughter, though he knows that's how to keep her safe. This is a very twisty story, filled with old secrets, past histories, and plenty of action and suspense.
How about you? How are you doing this summer?
And what have you been reading and watching? I'm always looking for recommendations!
It's Mardi Gras weekend! We used to live in New Orleans, so this is a
major holiday at out house, as you may have heard in my recent video, Celebrate Everything, Big and Small. We usually celebrate on Saturday and again on Tuesday. Before the
pandemic, we had an annual party with a few friends
(many of whom also lived in New Orleans when we did) on Saturday.
Tonight it will be a smaller Zoom gathering, but I have a pot of
jambalaya cooking on the stove, a fresh King Cake from a local
bakery on the counter, plus we'll pick up some steamed shrimp and trade some jambalaya for bread pudding with some friends! Tuesday, Mardi Gras day, we will finish off the
season with our annual tradition of
Popeye's at a friend's house (yes, Popeye's is authentic Louisiana
food!).
Want to join the fun? Here is a collection of ways to celebrate
Mardi Gras, New Orleans, and Louisiana today...including food, recipes,
travel tips, movies & TV shows, and, of course, some great books! You can also check out my column in Shelf Awareness that features books about and set in New Orleans, Armchair Travel: Destination New Orleans.
Great Adult Books Set In/About Louisiana (additional titles in my article linked above):
The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells, author of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
- I listened to Calla Lily's story on audio and laughed out loud &
bawled my eyes out! It takes place in southern Louisiana, with plenty of
local color.
Middle-Grade and Teen/YA Books Set In/About Louisiana:
Ruined by Paula Morris - a teen/YA mystery/ghost story set in New Orleans (the perfect setting for a ghost story!)
The Freedom Maze
by Delia Sherman - a compelling middle-grade historical fiction
adventure (with a touch of time travel), where a girl from 1960 travels
back to 1860 Louisiana
Zane and the Hurricane by Rodman Philbrick - a middle-grade novel about Hurricane Katrina - powerful and gripping
Chef-
a wonderful, uplifting movie about a family food truck that travels
from Miami to LA, with a stop in New Orleans, of course! My favorite
movie of the year in 2015.
NCIS: New Orleans-
though it's a crime show, it includes many scenes of New Orleans,
mention of local restaurants and landmarks, and other local tidbits,
plus some great local music.
They usually do a Mardi Gras episode once a season, for extra fun. It's
streaming on Paramount Plus (which used to be CBS All Access).
Treme
- we LOVED this HBO show, which we were somehow able to watch on cable
at one point. You can see it now streaming on HBO Max or Hulu.
Or tune in to watch parades and
other scenes in New Orleans streaming live (or if you missed the
parades, some great video clips) at www.mardigras.com.
One of the locals in Louisiana
Travel All this talk of Louisiana making you want to visit? I have written articles about visiting New Orleans and Exploring Cajun Country - check them out and start planning your trip (plenty of food recommendations in both!). I'm certainly ready to go back!
Crawfish!
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry! Notice that many of the books and
movies about Louisiana are focused on FOOD? Yes, Louisiana - and
especially New Orleans - is known for its amazing, unique food. This blog post on how to celebrate Mardi Gras
includes my own recipes for some classic Louisiana dishes, plus food
you can grab locally today and webcams where you can vicariously
experience Mardi Gras - there are plenty of suggestions in this post
that you can still manage to do between now and Tuesday. Or save it for later if you
like - we eat this food all year round.
NOTE that Zapp's potato chips - which
you absolutely MUST try) have been bought out by PA-chip maker Utz, so
you don't have to get them by mail-order anymore. We can now
find them in local stores like Wawa here in Delaware....though we still
ordered a carton of assorted flavors for Mardi Gras! (Cajun Crawtator
and Cajun Dill are the best.)
Float in a parade on Canal Street - Mardi Gras, New Orleans, 1988
Today is Mardi Gras day - we used to live in New Orleans, so this is a
major holiday at out house! We had our annual party with a few friends
(many of whom also lived in New Orleans when we did) on Saturday, and
today, we will finish off the season with our annual tradition of
Popeye's at a friend's house (yes, Popeye's is authentic Louisiana food!).
Want to join the fun today? Here is a collection of ways to celebrate
Mardi Gras, New Orleans, and Louisiana today...including food, recipes,
travel tips, movies & TV shows, and, of course, some great books! You can also check out my column in Shelf Awareness from last year that features books about and set in New Orleans, Armchair Travel: Destination New Orleans.
Great Adult Books Set In/About Louisiana (additional titles in my article linked above):
The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells, author of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
- I listened to Calla Lily's story on audio and laughed out loud &
bawled my eyes out! It takes place in southern Louisiana, with plenty of
local color.
Middle-Grade and Teen/YA Books Set In/About Louisiana:
Ruined by Paula Morris - a teen/YA mystery/ghost story set in New Orleans (the perfect setting for a ghost story!)
The Freedom Maze
by Delia Sherman - a compelling middle-grade historical fiction
adventure (with a touch of time travel), where a girl from 1960 travels
back to 1860 Louisiana
Zane and the Hurricane by Rodman Philbrick - a middle-grade novel about Hurricane Katrina - powerful and gripping
Chef-
a wonderful, uplifting movie about a family food truck that travels
from Miami to LA, with a stop in New Orleans, of course! My favorite
movie of the year in 2015.
NCIS: New Orleans-
though it's a crime show, it includes many scenes of New Orleans,
mention of local restaurants and landmarks, and other local tidbits.
They usually do a Mardi Gras episode around this time of year, so check
your cable On Demand.
Or tune in to watch parades and
other scenes in New Orleans streaming live (or if you missed the
parades, some great video clips) at www.mardigras.com.
One of the locals in Louisiana
Travel All this talk of Louisiana making you want to visit? I have written articles about visiting New Orleans and Exploring Cajun Country - check them out and start planning your trip (plenty of food recommendations in both!). I'm certainly ready to go back!
Crawfish!
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry! Notice that many of the books and
movies about Louisiana are focused on FOOD? Yes, Louisiana - and
especially New Orleans - is known for its amazing, unique food. This blog post on how to celebrate Mardi Gras
includes my own recipes for some classic Louisiana dishes, plus food
you can grab locally today and webcams where you can vicariously
experience Mardi Gras - there are plenty of suggestions in this post
that you can still manage to do TODAY! Or save it for tomorrow if you
like - we eat this food all year round.
NOTE that Zapp's potato chips - which
you absolutely MUST try) have been bought out by PA-chip maker Utz, so
you don't have to get them by mail-order anymore. We can now
find them in local stores like Wawa here in Delaware....though we still
ordered a carton of assorted flavors for Mardi Gras! (Cajun Crawtator
and Cajun Dill are the best.)
For this week's Throwback Thursday, I am pulling together some of my past posts about diet, food, and food intolerances & allergies. This topic is important for anyone with a chronic illness but especially important for anyone with ME/CFS and tick infections, as we have in our house. We learned just how important only gradually, but in recent years, diet has played a big role in helping my son and I to feel better and be able to do more.
Food Intolerances
ME/CFS is an immune disorder, and the particular type of immune dysfunction in ME/CFS causes our immune systems to over-react to the presence of allergens. This means that it is very, very common for ME/CFS patients to suddenly develop food intolerances and allergies to foods they have never had trouble with before. In fact, food intolerances are often behind the gastointestinal symptoms that are an integral part of ME/CFS, and eliminating the problem foods can dramatically improve GI symptoms.
That's what happened with me. Before ME/CFS, I drank about a quart of milk a day and loved cheese, ice cream, and other dairy products. I was skeptical when Dr. Bell, one of the first ME/CFS experts who is now retired, suggested I give up dairy, I didn't think it would help, but I tried it for 2 weeks. I didn't see much difference, so I added dairy back into my diet - Wow! Instant cramping, gas, and other GI problems. I gave up dairy...and my GI symptoms went away completely. A recent study done by Dr. Peter Rowe (another top ME/CFS expert) showed that a full 30% of the young people with ME/CFS in the study were dairy intolerant - and the number is likely the same in adults, thanks to our immune dysfunction. The study also showed a dramatic improvement in quality of life when those kids who were dairy intolerant gave up dairy.
Note that if you are lactose-intolerant (for me, it is both lactose and casein, the protein in milk), lactose is a common ingredient in many medications. The blog post at that link explains how to manage lactose intolerance generally and lists medications that contain lactose.
There have not been studies done on other common allergens, like gluten, soy, eggs, etc. in ME/CFS, but again, our immune dysfunction makes us prone to food intolerance and allergies, so it's a good idea to check with elimination diets.
Eating Paleo
In the last few years, my son and I have switched to a Paleo diet (with our own modifications), and it has definitely helped with ME/CFS, Lyme and other tick infections, and yeast overgrowth. Paleo basically means no grains, no dairy, no sugar. This blog post describes our approach to eating Paleo for immune disorders, with an explanation of why it's a good diet for patients with these diseases/conditions, how we manage it, and lots and lots of recipes and resources to help make it easier (and delicious!).
In addition to diet being essential in managing yeast overgrowth, diet is also very important in improving methylation, a critical step in improving both ME/CFS and tick infections. Several dietary components, including dairy, gluten, and gliadin, block one of the methylation pathways.
I've been promising this post for a long time, as readers frequently ask about our diet. As background, my son and I (we both have ME/CFS and Lyme disease, plus he has two other tick infections) work with a Registered Dietician who also has an MS in Biochemistry. In short, she is brilliant and understands how all of our complicated health problems fit together and affect us and how diet fits into the puzzle. In addition to ME/CFS and tick infections, we both struggle with chronic yeast overgrowth (aka candida), due in part to long-term antibiotics and in part to the immune dysfunction of ME/CFS. To be clear, my intent with this post is to share what we have learned from our dietician and additional research about how diet affects us and our medical problems and how we eat to try to address some of those problems. Our approach is not necessarily right for everyone (for instance, I know some patients with a sensitivity to FODMAPs, which requires a different diet).
What Is the Paleo Diet?
You may have heard of the Paleo diet before - it has been in the news for decades. Paleo is short for Paleolithic, and the basis for the diet is supposed to be what early man ate, before McDonalds, refined sugar, and other health hazards came along. Many people think that Paleo is a high-protein, meat-based diet, but that isn't really accurate. I wouldn't even call Paleo low-carb: rather, it is substituting healthy, high-quality, low-inflammation carbs (i.e fruits and vegetables) for less healthy ones like starches, refined grains, and sugars.
What is Paleo then? Basically, the Paleo diet means:
No dairy
No grains
No refined sugars
No legumes
No refined oils
No soy
No alcohol
So what do you eat on a Paleo diet?
Lots of vegetables
Some fruit
Lean meat (preferably grass-fed) and poultry
Fish and seafood
Eggs
Nuts & Seeds
Plenty of healthy fats, like coconut, olive oil, fish oil, and avocado
When I began eating Paleo, I did not start eating more meat/protein than before - I mostly shifted my carbs from grains to additional vegetables. So, this is not the Atkins diet!
Why Is Paleo Good for Immune Disorders, Like ME/CFS?
This kind of diet often works well for those with ME/CFS and other immune disorders for several reasons:
It eliminates many (though not all) inflammatory foods. Gluten and other proteins in grains, dairy, and sugar are all highly inflammatory in the body when consumed. We already have high levels of inflammation that make our illness worse. The right diet can help to reduce inflammation.
It eliminates refined grains, dairy, and sugars, which contribute to yeast overgrowth, a common occurrence in ME/CFS and other immune disorders.
Gluten, gliadin (a similar protein in oats), and casein (a protein in milk) all block one of the methylation pathways. Eliminating these can help to improve methylation, which is very important in ME/CFS. In the words of our dietician: "Dairy inhibits the uptake of cysteine by neurons which impairs the
neuronal production of glutathione. Considering the brain and its
neurons is the most aerobic organ and glutathione the most important
antioxidant, the brain becomes subject to severe oxidative stress.
Casein also blocks the reduced folate receptor and the transport of
reduced folate into neurons." (I told you she was brilliant).
Some immune-specific Paleo diets also eliminate nightshades, like tomatoes, eggplant, and bell peppers because they are inflammatory. We haven't gone that far.
How Is Our Diet Different Than Typical Paleo?
As I said, our dietician laid out our diet plan, starting with the basics of Paleo and then adding or subtracting from there, based on our own needs which I outlined above. So, some differences between a typical Paleo diet and how we eat:
Almost no sugar. Regular Paleo includes small amounts of natural sugars, like honey, maple syrup, and agave. Because of our chronic yeast overgrowth, we have to limit even those (and fruits, too). I sometimes use a little bit of honey (which has an antifungal effect and doesn't encourage yeast like other sweeteners), and we often use stevia, a natural sweetener that does not encourage yeast (and might help with Lyme disease, too).
Limited beans and other legumes. Though strict Paleo includes no legumes, we used to eat a LOT of beans, so our dietician said we could have them 1-2 times a week.We probably only eat them about once a week now. My poor son was so miserable with his dietary restrictions that our dietician told him he could have his peanut butter back! He's happy now.
Limited red potatoes. Again, strict Paleo is no potatoes, but our dietician said we could have red potatoes (less starchy than the other types) once a week.
I use a little butter. Ghee (clarified butter with no casein or lactose) is allowed on Paleo, but since there is almost no lactose in butter, I use it as is--sparingly--especially in baking (yes, you can bake with Paleo!)
Limited fruit, again due to the yeast overgrowth. Pears are fine every day--they don't encourage yeast. Apples, melon, mango, and blueberries are also good choices in limited amounts if you have yeast problems.
Note that our son was on a super-strict anti-yeast diet for his first month or two because he was in such terrible shape; his mitochondria was trashed from too many years of antibiotics (for tick infections) and he had severe yeast overgrowth. He was almost completely incapacitated and desperate to feel better. It worked and got him "unstuck" and then he gradually added things back in to get to the diet I describe here.
So, as you can see, you can make adjustments to suit your own needs. It's really not important to me whether I eat exactly like Paleolithic man or not! I am just trying to do what's best for my health, in a way that is sustainable for us.
But What Do You Eat For...?
People often ask me "what kind of snacks do you eat?" or "what can I eat for breakfast?" Here are some quick ideas from our own kitchen. This is by no means a complete list - just to give you some ideas to start with:
Fried Eggs with Veggie Hash for Breakfast
Breakfast
Most days I eat veggies and eggs for breakfast, in many different varieties. You can make an omelet, but I usually make a scramble just because it's easier. I saute onions and veggies then add in eggs and scramble it all together. My son likes ham or bacon (nitrate-free) with onions, zucchini, and roasted red peppers. My favorite is a combination I first had at a favorite diner: onions, zucchini, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, and kalamata olives (yum!). Our whole family enjoys Mexican eggs made with chorizo, onions, bell peppers, mild green chiles, and a bit of salsa with avocado on top. See? Not boring at all! With all those fiber-rich veggies, you won't even miss the toast.
When I'm in the mood for fried eggs (which I love), I make a veggie hash on the side, with roughly chopped onion, pepper, zucchini, and one red potato (or sometimes, turnips or sweet potatoes, in season). For a treat, my husband and I sometimes have a different version of Mexican eggs, like Huevos Rancheros, with mashed beans covered with two fried eggs and homemade salsa made with tomato, avocado, cilantro, and lime juice.
Paleo Waffles - when the kids are here, we bust out the waffle iron! Against All Grain (just search for waffle) has a bunch of delicious waffle recipes - we have served these to guests (even picky kids!) who never knew they were grain-free.
Our favorite Chocolate Banana Smoothie (recipe at the link) - this is a bit high in sugar (fruit) for me to eat often, but it's a favorite at our house.
I do cheat about once every two weeks and treat myself to a bowl of oatmeal, which I love. I use whole oats and make them as Paleo-ish as possible by adding coconut oil, unsweetened coconut, flax seeds, walnuts, and blueberries or raspberries. I sweeten it with stevia and flavor it with cinnamon and a teaspoon of alcohol-free vanilla.
Our Fave Paleo Smoothie with Veggie Chips
Lunch
I often eat a deconstructed sandwich without the bread - turkey slices (or canned tuna or salmon) with lettuce, tomato, avocado, or whatever other veggies I have on hand.
Our favorite Chocolate Banana Smoothie - it works for breakfast, but we eat it more often for lunch. When my son comes home from college for lunch, I make a double-smoothie for us to share! I sometimes have veggie chips (like Terra brand) on the side for a bit of crunchy and salty (though they are not strictly Paleo due to the oils used).
Homemade soup - most store-bought soups contain rice or pasta or cream, but in the winter, I make a big pot of soup at the beginning of the week (some sort of meat with loads of veggies and broth) and have it for lunches.
Left-overs from dinner the night before. When it's just me at home for lunch, this is my usual go-to. I continue to cook for three, even though our youngest is now in college, and save the extra serving for lunch the next day.
Salads - the sky's the limit! Start with greens and pile on all the veggies you want, plus some protein and a vinaigrette made with olive oil. Some of my favorites include Cobb Salad (turkey, hard-boiled egg, bacon, tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocados) or Nicoise Salad (tuna, hard-boiled egg, lightly steamed green beans, tomato - I usually leave out the red potato).
Cobb Salad for Lunch or Dinner
Dinner
We often go simple and just sub a second vegetable for the starch in a typical dinner. So, grilled (or broiled or baked or...) meat or fish with two vegetables on the side (or a cooked vegetable and a salad).
Dinner Salads - we do this a lot in the summer, when we have lovely fresh lettuce and veggies from our local farm. See my favorites under lunch, but we eat lots of different salads. Our favorite dinner salad is a bed of lettuce with tomato, cucumber, carmelized onions, a small bit of blue cheese (yes, a cheat but it has almost no lactose in it), and sliced steak on top.
Homemade soup in the fall and winter.
Modified recipes: I still use some of my old favorite recipes, with slight modifications. We eat stir-fries and curries, just without the rice underneath (or with cauliflower "rice" instead). I might leave out breadcrumbs or cheese or other non-Paleo ingredients and add in extra veggies. I find that sources of healthy recipes, like Cooking Lightmagazine or Curtis Stone's cookbooks (both favorites of mine) are often naturally Paleo or can be easily modified.
Find Paleo substitutes for your favorites, like cauliflower rice for rice (recipes in the Paleo cookbooks below) or zucchini noodles made with a spiralizer instead of pasta.
Paleo recipes. See below for suggestions and links.
Ground Beef and Cabbage Soup for Dinner with Left-overs for Lunch
Snacks
Nuts and seeds - lots of protein and portable, though they should be limited if you are trying to reduce inflammation or avoid oxalates. Pistachios and macadamia nuts are lowest in oxalates. Be sure to get salted nuts to help with OI!
KIND bars with 5g of sugar - they make several varieties now that are low in sugar. Our favorite is the Dark Chocolate Sea Salt. Still a bit too much sugar for me, but they come in handy when traveling. They are mostly made with nuts, so the same comments above apply. There are other brands of Paleo snack bars available now--just read the labels to make sure you aren;t allergic or sensitive to any of the ingredients.
Coconut yogurt (unsweetened) with fresh fruit. I just discovered yogurt made from coconut milk, and I was thrilled! So Delicious brand makes several unsweetened varieties. I cook with the plain and have the vanilla flavor for snacks. The downside is that it doesn't have the high protein that yogurt made from milk does.
Apple or pear and sunflower butter or nut butter. One of my favorite snacks this time of year especially: I cut up an apple and dip it in a tablespoon of sunflower butter - yum!
Jerky - there are lots of different varieties, including turkey and salmon. Trader Joe's has a great selection. Look for a brand with no nitrates and low or no sugar.
Veggie chips, like Terra brand, can satisfy the desire for crunchy, salty snacks (I found that Target has the best prices, though Amazon is a close second).
Although legumes are not strictly Paleo, I occasionally have a bit of hummus with raw veggies.
A friend suggested toasted nori (seaweed) - I need to try that.
Extra-dark chocolate (86% cacao or higher) - yes, you can eat chocolate! Use raw cacao powder in baking and smoothies. I sometimes use unsweetened baking chocolate in recipes or to make a simple chocolate sauce (with stevia). And I eat a square of dark chocolate every night with my herbal tea - just choose 86% or higher cacao (there is less than a gram of sugar per square in it). My favorite is Ghiradelli Intense Dark 86%. Bonus: Dark Chocolate is one of the best anti-inflammatories in the world! It also contains iron, magnesium, and zinc, so as long as it's dark (i.e. less sugar and more cacao content), then it's actually very nutritious!
My evening treat: herbal tea and extra-dark chocolate
Paleo Recipe Resources
Two of my favorite Paleo cookbooks are Everyday Paleo and Against All Grain (links are to my own reviews for details). These cookbooks include many Paleo versions of favorite foods, including breads and desserts (see my reviews for lists). I also love Everyday Paleo: Thai Cuisine and use it almost every week (but I haven't reviewed it yet). I have also found lots of recipes that are naturally Paleo or easily modified in Curtis Stone's What's for Dinner?
Two Favorite Cookbooks: One Regular and One Paleo
There are LOTS and LOTS of blogs and websites devoted to a Paleo diet with loads of recipes. One I use is Against All Grain, but there are many others, too. Whatever recipe you are looking for, just type it into your search engine with Paleo, and you will probably get lots of results.
Eating this way has helped both my son and I quite a bit. It has helped us to get our yeast overgrowth under control (along with other approaches), helped to improve methylation, and reduced GI symptoms (eliminating dairy 12 years ago completely eliminated my GI problems!). Many people also find they lose weight on a Paleo diet, due to getting rid of refined carbs, flour, and most sugar and eating more vegetables.
I hope that will answer some of your questions and get you started on your own healthy eating plan. This was a long post, but I'm sure there are things I've forgotten, so please leave any questions or comments in the Comments below, and I will be happy to answer.
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Each weekend, Beth Fish Reads hosts Weekend Cooking. I often participate on my book blog, with links to recipes we've enjoyed that week. Sometimes - like this week - I post my own recipes. Since this week's post was a recipe that is gluten-free, dairy-free, and Paleo, I thought I'd also post it here. If you are interested in my past Weekend Cooking posts, you can see them at the link. And if you have any interest in food, head over to the Beth Fish Reads blog, where you'll find lots of links to blog posts about food (not all are about cooking - some are book or movie reviews, etc.).
My college son got mono last weekend, so we had to cancel our plans to
travel to spend Thanksgiving with family. By Wednesday, my husband was
also sick with a bad respiratory virus. So, we had a very quiet
Thanksgiving at home, with just my father-in-law as a guest. I cooked
all the traditional foods (thank goodness I have been feeling good this week!), but the smallest turkey I could find was 11
pounds...for 5 of us!
We enjoyed the feast, as well as a dinner of leftovers on Friday, but
by then my family was getting sick of the same old stuff, so I used our
leftover turkey to make a nourishing soup for my sick family. I based
it on the way my mother used to make homemade chicken noodle soup when I
was a kid (I still have the basic instructions scribbled down in a
strange short-hand in the back of an old recipe book!). Since we are
eating a Paleo diet for medical reasons, I subbed wild rice (which is
actually a grass, not a grain) for noodles, which turned out delicious.
Here's the recipe...in case you were wondering what to do with all that
left-over turkey (for those outside the U.S. who didn't have lots of turkey leftover this week, you can also make the soup with fresh or leftover chicken).
Turkey & Wild Rice Soup
(Serves 8)
This is a great way
to use left-over turkey after the holidays when you tire of basic left-overs!
Remove skin from turkey
pieces and put in a large stockpot. Add the celery tops and quartered
onion to the pot. Add cold water to cover the meat. Bring to a boil, then
reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.
Drain contents of pot
through a colander over a large bowl. Set broth aside and allow the meat in
the colander to cool.
When cool (it will be just
right if you chop your veggies while waiting), sort through the meat in
the colander. Discard bones, cartilage, and any other inedible pieces, as
well as celery and onion. Chop the turkey meat.
Bring to a boil, reduce
heat, and simmer covered for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
NOTES:
* The amount of turkey we had left over included 2 wings,
back, 1 leg, plus a few slices of white and dark meat. I removed the skin to
reduce fat.
** Because I started with already-cooked turkey, my broth
was a bit light on flavor, so I added the additional carton of store-bought
chicken broth. If you start with uncooked turkey and cook the stock for a bit
longer, then you probably won’t need the extra broth.
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