Even before we had a baby I was interested in how ancestral nutrition influences fertility and fetal and child development.
It struck me as crazy that, in accordance with conventional “nutrition” advice and mainstream marketing, babies are often fed things like rice cereal, cheerios and little cookie biscuit things as their first foods. (It says “for baby” on the package so isn’t it good??)
And then we wonder why toddlers (and then kids and teens) are grumpy, tired, have dark circles under their eyes and behavior issues, just to mention a few…
So when our daughter Isla was around 4 months I started researching what we should feed her when she starts solid foods. This was especially of interest because I’d never really made enough breastmilk for her, and we had been relying on donor milk to help her grow.
I didn’t want to give her conventional formula considering I wouldn’t eat most of those ingredients myself. Luckily I found out about the Weston A. Price Foundation baby formula, which is designed to provide similar nutrition to breastmilk but with whole foods. We make the formula with high-quality milk that we get from a farm nearby.
The WAPF formula and pumped breastmilk make up the majority of her diet, and then I wanted to make sure we were introducing the right foods for her. I had heard of people feeding babies things like avocado, banana and sweet potato.
Although WAPF recommends root vegetables such as sweet potato, carrot and beet as first foods, other research indicates that root vegetables and leafy greens are higher in nitrates, which should be avoided until 6 months and should make up a smaller part of baby’s diet to start.
Best First Foods for a Primal Baby
soft-cooked egg yolk (from free-range eggs, with a pinch of real salt)
avocado
broth
pureed meat and liver
butternut or acorn squash with butter
banana
Foods That Should Wait Until Later (ie After 1-Year)
cooked leafy green vegetables
raw salad vegetables
citrus fruit
whole egg
grains
nuts and seeds
Should you do baby-led weaning?
I assumed baby-led weaning would be our approach, as it seemed to be what most crunchy parents do. Then I read this article by Sally Fallon from Weston A. Price and changed my approach a bit.
In a nutshell she says that the foods most people prepare for baby to eat by themselves are not actually the foods that baby needs most (ie little sticks of soft vegetables, most of which don’t actually end up in baby’s mouth anyway).
Since the most important nutrients for a baby to get from 4-6 months are iron and zinc, we need to ensure they actually consume some of these important foods.
I get the idea behind baby-led weaning, and definitely do want Isla to feel exploratory and independent in the way she interacts with food, but I also agree with the WAPF commentary linked above.
I learned that:
Food before One is NOT just for fun
As a result we do a mix of spoon-feeding (without ever forcing or even encouraging her to eat more than she’s interested in – I find it’s VERY obvious when she wants more, she opens her mouth and slaps her hands up and down) and also letting her explore food on her own.
Although at this point, she nearly 6 months and doesn’t actually put food in her mouth at all. I think it’s very important to do at least some spoon-feeding to ensure she’s getting that iron.
I believe with this approach we are setting her up to enjoy whole foods and have a nourished body for life.
[Newsflash: we’ve finally finished compiling all our vast knowledge of natural candida remedies into one ebook, to help you give your Candida overgrowth the boot once and for all.Click here to find out more!]
I’ve recently realized that I was a child of Candida. Literally the moment I entered the world, I was set up for an overgrowth of yeast and all the unfortunate symptoms that come along with that.
From there, the snowball keeps rolling. A poor immune system from the start, plus a “normal” North American diet of too much processed food, carbs and sugary things (but of course no FAT! who eats FAT! GASP!…. and cue ironic eye roll) adds up to repeated infections.
I grew up with constant strep and tonsilitis, plus various other weird things. Things like dry red rashes in my inner elbows, constant digestive distress, food intolerances, a swelly thing beside my nose for a while, a swelly thing in my earlobe for a while, a swelly thing in my groin for awhile, etc. All sorts of lovely things!
…Which I was inevitably prescribed antibiotics for. As we’re all hearing these days, antibiotics might save your life for now but they sure beat down the immune system even more in the long run.
Contributing factors to Candida overgrowth
Add to that 10 years of taking the pill from my late teens to late 20s, because I never knew any better and of course everyone takes the pill! Doctors literally shell ’em out like candy. Acne? here’s the pill! Painful periods? Take the pill. (here’s how the pill contributes to Candida overgrowth)
Turns out these are some of the classic causes for and symptoms of Candida albicans overgrowth. Who knew!
At some point a few years ago I started frantically researching holistic health and nutrition, because I had discovered the theory behind the paleo diet and I was super stoked to find something that didn’t seem like a fad and was actually based on human evolution. COOL! Along the way I found out about Candida overgrowth, and boy did I tick a lot of the boxes…
My frantic search for Candida albicans remedies
From that point I started a very long, stressful and expensive process of researching, buying and cycling through various candida remedies and protocols. Here are some that I tried:
bentonite clay with calendula
diatomaceous earth
ashwagandha
pau d’arco
turmeric, cayenne and ginger capsules (DIY)
garlic
eating only coconut oil for 3 days (I failed)
not eating basically any carbs except green vegetables (no fruit no starch)
oregano oil (health food store brand)
clove oil (health food store brand)
tea tree oil (health food store brand)
caprylic acid
goldenseal
drinking nasty herbal tinctures and taking heaps of capsules in a kit called Candigone (completed 2 kits, didn’t work)
Difluconazole from the doctor, twice
pharmacy yeast infection kits many times
So yeah, I spent a pile of cash, over a couple of years. I actually ingested health food store brands of essential oils, which I didn’t know at the time can be extremely dangerous and toxic. Dumb-dumb! And the thing is I was stressed and miserable! My symptoms were ok sometimes, but mostly came back every month at the end of my cycle, like clockwork. I was constantly researching and going out to buy the next thing, or ordering online. I was super anxious and literally HATED Candida with all my heart and constantly inwardly swore at it and cursed it.
I’m not saying none of the items in the above list work. Some of the other things I listed can definitely be helpful (which I’ll go into shortly). But in general my protocol was very typical of a Candida Diet, in that it was very violently focused on EAT NO SUGAR, CHOKE OUT THE CANDIDA, KILL IT WITH ANTI-FUNGALS.
I was about to lose my marbles and buy some like hundred-dollar capsule product that claimed it would somehow explode the candida, and was really quite sketchy with no solid evidence or backing, in a last-ditch attempt, after the eating-nothing-but-coconut-oil-for-3-days strategy failed at the end of the first day. Duh, I was starving an already adrenally-exhausted stressed-out immune-compromised body…
The problem with the typical approach to Candida
Thankfully I found this blog post from Lauren at Empowered Sustenance first.
She pokes holes in the typical Candida Diet approach, pointing out that it doesn’t affect the root causes of the Candida overgrowth, which are essentially:
leaky gut
poor digestion
and therefore a compromised immune system and systemic inflammation
Lauren also points out that
A Candida Diet impairs metabolism and hormone function. A sugar free diet will elevate stress hormones, which exhausts the adrenals, reduces thyroid hormones, and taxes the body.
I’ve learned about the effects of too-low-carb eating here as well. Taxing the body this way (especially when you are adrenally exhausted and immune-compromised) just exacerbates the 3 root causes of Candida listed above.
According to this article from the American Society of Microbiology,
When Candida albicans encounters stressful conditions, does it curl up and die? No! This crafty pathogen gets to work on its inventory of genes, slashing away until it finds a winning combination that can get it through the tough times.
It’s important to keep in mind that Candida is supposed to exist in a certain amount in a healthy human, and completely choking it out is (clearly a losing battle and) actually not healthy.
Healthy candida levels are vital for proper nutrient absorption and to protect the intestinal tract from other infections. (source)
It’s just a matter of keeping things in a nice healthy balance. And this is where the mind-shift happened.
A new approach to cure Candida overgrowth naturally
Thanks to Lauren’s article, I decided to shift away from the KILL CHOKE KILL approach, and toward a self-love, health-supporting mode of overcoming Candida overgrowth. The theory here is to support the immune system, metabolism and digestion so that the body can naturally re-balance the microbiome.
Here are the key ways that I’ve done this:
support digestion by drinking lemon juice and/or raw apple cider vinegar a few times a day (juice of 1/2 a fresh lemon, or 1 tsp ACV in a glass of water)
support metabolism with generous doses of pink salt on my food (always be sure to have some in the morning to support the adrenals), plenty of healthy traditional fats (such as grass-fed butter, coconut oil, red palm oil, avocados, oily fish, etc) and moderate amounts of sugars like raw honey, dark chocolate, fruits and starchy veg (max 3 small servings/day)
consuming fresh garlic, turmeric, cayenne, ginger in cooking whenever I can (yum!)
I’ve also found that making capsules of powdered turmeric, ginger and cayenne (TCG) helps (take 1-3 capsules of each, 1-3 times a day) I recommend using your own organic spices rather than buying extract supplements, because you never know what’s actually in those or how good-quality they are.
supporting immunity and healing in general by applying a transdermal magnesium oil supplement quite religiously (1/2 tsp to 1 tsp a day), making/cooking with/drinking bone broth as often as possible, and being sure to sleep enough (check out my post on 3 unexpected highly effective ways to improve sleep HERE)
I’ve linked above to the few products I would recommend on your journey (just these, and save the $hundreds$ on searching!). I still have jars and bottles of random shite I collected over the past couple of years collecting dust in my cupboards…save yourself that!
If committed to kicking Candida, we’ve spent a huge amount of time preparing perhaps the most comprehensive paleo-friendly book available on the net for beating Candida. It provides 76 pages of in-depth information on how you can fight your Candida overgrowth and restore a healthy balance in your body, and keep it that way. This book is unique in that it revolves around the core concept of USING your body to fight the overgrowth by restoring properly-functioning immune and digestive systems, and then incorporating potent natural compounds to supercharge your body’s fight against it. The upside is that your health in general will drastically improve, restoring you to a healthy weight and possibly even giving the boot to any autoimmune diseases afflicting you. The image link below takes you to the order page on PayPal – it’s a very small investment in your health but a huge return!
The Paleo Guide to Beating Candida Naturally is just $12.99.You’ll be hard pressed to find a more extensively-researched, in-depth Candida-fighting protocol anywhere on the net.
Are you going to try this approach to Candida?
What do you think? Has this changed your thinking? Does it make you feel relieved and less desperate to KILL KILL KILL? I definitely felt better and lighter when I decided to adopt this more loving approach. Share your experiences, methods and resources below, let’s all help a friend out!
Have you ever seen those oversized weird-looking bananas at the supermarket? They’re plantains!
A staple in traditional island diets, they’re a bit of a wildcard here in North America. They’re worth learning how to cook, because they have some great nutritional benefits. One of my favourite Paleo/Ancestral practitioners, Chris Kresser, talks about plantains a lot on his podcast. It sounds like has them for breakfast almost every day with his 1-year-old daughter.
Plantains are high in resistant starch, which produces a fatty acid called butyrate in the lower digestive tract. This provides food for beneficial bacteria, improves insulin sensitivity, and may also have anti-cancer properties!
And man are they DELICIOUS. This has become one of our favourite veggie sides that we look forward to.
Easy Healthy Plantains in a Pan
This recipe has lots of good traditional fats as well as anti-inflammatory properties from the spices. Make sure you grab the plantains from the supermarket when they’re still green or just barely yellow, since they start to get more sugary as they ripen and won’t be as beneficial for resistant starch.
Heat your pan on medium heat with the 2 tbsp coconut oil and 2 tbsp grass fed butter. Ensure it never gets so hot that the oil starts to brown or smoke.
Cut the ends off the plantain, and make a shallow cut along the length just through the skin. Then you'll be able to peel it.
Slice the plantain into rounds about 1/4" thick, and place them in a single layer in the pan.
Sprinkle all the spices and salt evenly over the plantain slices.
Let them cook on one side for a few minutes, checking them until you see they're getting just slightly browned.
Flip them one by one onto their other sides, then mush them gently with a fork, just to break the surface. THIS IS THE MAGIC. Now they will soak up all the delicious butter and coconut oil.
Let them sit until they have soaked up most or all of the oil. You can leave them on low heat until you are ready to eat them.
Have them right away (tastiest!) or they are also good as leftovers. Serving with some good quality sour cream is DIVINE.
You have got to try this pancake recipe!!! I whipped it up this morning and man are they tasty…the zucchini adds a little bit of nice moisture to the mix, as sometimes gluten free pancakes are sort of dry and sawdusty (especially with coconut flour because it absorbs so much moisture).
A great bonus is that they actually stay together and you can flip them nicely in the pan without them falling apart. They turned out beautiful!
I served them with a sauce made of frozen blueberries and fresh whole cranberries simmered in butter with a tablespoon of honey.
This recipe was created by Liivi Hess, ThrivePrimal.com
If you make this, let me know what you thought! How did they turn out for you? I think the temperature of the pan and the butter is pretty important for getting that nice crispy golden texture.
I’ll be posting instructions on how to get Upgraded (high quality toxin free Madagascar) vanilla and also how to get or make grass-fed organic raw whey at some point soon.
Ok people, this recipe is seriously delicious. Will and I whipped it up basically by accident last night to use up some leftover pork, and then re-heated it for dinner this evening. As it was warming up on the stove, I was seriously drooling even though I wasn’t even that hungry. It smells DIVINE. Like a platter of fried chicken and BBQ pork all smothered in tastiness.
And it is —SO—EASY—. 5 ingredients, that’s it! Heaps of veggies hidden in there, plus the super healing and immune-boosting nutritional punch of chicken broth. The one catch is you want to try and make your own good organic chicken broth if you can.
The easy way to have homemade bone broth in the fridge at all times…
We are in the routine of collecting all the bones from any good organic meat and fish that we buy. We put them in the freezer in containers sorted by type, and as they fill up, once or twice a week we just chuck one type in the slow cooker. Top it up with water and a splash of apple cider vinegar, and leave it on until the next evening.
We usually start it on High overnight, and the next morning turn it down to Low for the day. When we get home later, we scoop out the bones with a ladle or slotted spoon, and pour the broth into jars or containers. So easy, and you end up with lots of broth to keep in the fridge or freezer.
If you’re not up to making your own broth, just snag some good clean organic chicken broth from the store. “Clean” meaning no additives!
Real Food Recipe: Delicious 5-Ingredient Wintry Pea Soup
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
A quick real-food dinner to whip up on wintry evenings. It stores or freezes really well so make lots and store in containers for easy future meals.
Ingredients
3 big organic pork servings, or 3 big slices of ham (we used leftover pork shoulder from a Christmas dinner; you can use any type but just make sure you can chop it up into small-ish cubes)
2 cups homemade organic chicken stock
2 cups organic celery
2 cups organic carrots
1.5 cups dried split peas
2-3 cups water
pink himalayan salt to taste
Instructions
If your pork is not already cooked, cut into cubes and cook it a bit in the bottom of your pot with some butter.
Measure the peas into the pot and add 2 cups water, 2 cups chicken stock. You may need to add more water if it begins to look dry as it cooks.
Finely chop or food-process the carrots and celery and add to the pot.
Bring the whole thing to a boil, then down to a simmer and leave it for 30 minutes or so, until you can sample a pea and it's cooked soft.
Add salt to taste, and serve. Yum!
Notes
RECIPE TIP:
Add some chopped garlic, a bay leaf or some herbs such as marjoram, thyme or sage for even more savoury flavour.
KITCHEN TIP:
Prep this recipe really quick and then get other stuff done while it simmers! Pack breakfasts, lunches and snacks for work, get the dishes done, do some squats, clean the litterbox, etc! So it really only takes 15 minutes of "active" cooking time!
This recipe was created by Liivi Hess, ThrivePrimal.com
I do realize the picture doesn’t look that appetizing…but what picture of soup ever looks that good? It always just sort of looks like mystery mush. You’ll just have to trust me on this one!
A note on split peas and carbs
I’m not sure about the paleo or primal-ness of split peas; I’m guessing they fall fairly low on the list, or in a gray area. They’re sort of a vegetable, sort of a legume. But based on stuff I’ve heard from Daniel Vitalis and Arthur Haines, I feel that primal hunter-gatherer types at least in the Americas seemed to gather a lot of wild grain and legume type foods. And lately I’m making a point of not being afraid of carbs. Not going overboard either, but having a healthy serving of lower-GI carbs in the evening is just fine.
I’ll be the first one to put my hand up and say I feel like I’ve spent a lot of my life struggling against my body. Having a naturally stockier build, or ‘sausage body’ as I like to lovingly call it, I definitely went through a chubby phase in my tween years.
Struggling to lose weight & feel good
It’s a classic story a lot of people can probably relate to, men and women alike. Working through puberty, wanting to look good and feel attractive, all while being bombarded by all sorts of confusing, conflicting and media-hyped messages about fitness and nutrition. I remember always being told that if I exercised enough, I could eat whatever I want. However, being a bookish kid, I usually didn’t exercise much, but still wanted to eat tasty snacks. So I would feel guilty about food and always be trying to “eat less and exercise more”.
How guilt-inducing, frustrating and exhausting is the Eat Less & Exercise More approach?!
All too many people, myself included, find that that whole thing only ends with disappointment and hating your body even more. It’s high time for a better strategy.
Surprise: you’re an animal!
Here’s a thought: last time you went to the zoo and you were looking at those chimps and gorillas, did it strike you how similar they are to us? How despite all our fancy clothes and perfumed soap, we’re really just animals too?
Animals don’t sit around stressing about whether they ate too many bugs or leaves, they just know what’s right for them to eat, and how much, and they just go on enjoying life with a fit, muscular, healthy body. Shouldn’t we feel that way too? Wouldn’t that be incredibly liberating?
If we look at ourselves as the ‘humanimals’ that we are, living in our habitat, we can gain insight into what our genes are programmed to thrive on, and understand why we may seek out or crave certain foods. From that basis of simple knowledge, we can move forward eating and enjoying food care-free, while having that fit, healthy, happy body.
Understanding the ‘humanimal’ mind
You’re going to be so relieved after you read this. There is a solid scientific reason you crave, dream about, and feel drawn to all those tasty sugary naughty junky foods. Your brain is literally programmed to be able to pick them out of a crowd.
The reason is that we’ve evolved very little since we were hunter-gatherers, living off of the land and what we were lucky or clever enough to find/kill that day. Therefore if we were scanning the landscape and there is a calorie-rich food source visible (let’s say some nice sugary berries) our eyes snap right to it and we feel alarms in our brain like “FOOD! RIGHT THERE! OMG FOOD! EAT! EEEEEAT.” This is because in general the hunter-gatherer approach would be to eat more when food is available, since we don’t know if it will be available tomorrow.
Well, your brain has precious little, if anything, different from that hunting-gathering ancestor of yours. So you get precisely those same EATRIGHTNOW signals when you slap eyes on an ooey-gooey grilled cheese sandwich, or a picture of a chocolate cake. (I started drooling typing that, wow. There’s the animal brain for ya!)
Cravings are not a bad thing
We’ve been taught and guilted into feeling like whenever we crave a food, we are naughty naughty bad and we should just quell that down and control ourselves. If we give in to cravings we will just be fat and ugly forever.
Newsflash: those cravings are literally programmed into your DNA. They are your body telling you what it needs right now.
But, this message comes with a very important caveat. These days, our body’s signals can be a liiiiiittle bit confused, what with our modern flashy environment and unnatural foods and chemicals and distractions, etc. So, your body may be telling you that you “need to eat 2 burgers and an ice cream after yes definitely the ice cream”, however there is a lot at play there.
You also may crave more food after you’ve just eaten because the food may not have been very nourishing, or you may be needing water. Therefore your body sends signals to eat more because it is seeking more water or nutrients.
It doesn’t know how to tell you “I need vitamin C!” or “Feed me some omega 3’s!”, all it can say is “eat!” and hope that it can get some of what it needs from there.
Our ancient brains are overwhelmed in this modern world
Studies show that historically food would definitely not have been constantly available, and we would have been a lot more programmed to be able to survive off of fat stores. We would be easily able to switch to burning our body fat to get us through a few days of not finding much food.
The problem is nowadays we have food available constantly. Our monkey brains are programmed to pick out high-carb, sugary foods to be able to survive and get energy fast, but now we’re literally surrounded by those foods, at arm’s reach, ALL the time. And our monkey brains still want them just as bad.
Foods high in carbs and sugars convert to fat the fastest when we eat them. They are a quick easy source of energy and our bodies just love to store them away for later use. That includes a sweet potato or whole-grain cereal just as much as a cupcake or chocolate bar.
Because these foods burn the fastest, they often leave us in the lurch. We swing from “Mmm yummy i’m full that was delicious” to “OMG I am HANGRY, FEED ME NOW”, waaaay too fast.
The thing is, once you understand WHY you have cravings and get hungry way too often, it’s so easy to re-program your approach to work WITH your genes and that crazy monkey brain.
It doesn’t need to be complicated. The monkey brain is simple, and we can have it in our palm in no time. How to get there you ask? It’s all about breaking the sugar/carb addiction, and choosing more nourishing foods.
Eat good quality protein – Organically raised, happy, free-range animals and fish. Dairy and eggs from the same.
Get good sleep – Those hunger signals we were talking about before get just sooo much more confused when you are tired. The energy has to come from somewhere, and if you’re not rested, you’re going to be mighty tempted to get it from a chocolate chip muffin.
Use a proven plan – I love programs like the 21 Day Sugar Detox, which is wildly popular and gets rave reviews left right and center. It’s a fast and well-tested way to press the reset button and learn how to work WITH those genes instead of against them.
Lose the body shame! – Once you understand what you’re genetically programmed to want, you realize it’s not your fault. Using a simple program like the 21DSD teaches you to be confident in the right food choices, enjoy eating, and get on with living life! Enough said!
I hope you’ve enjoyed these guidelines on how to make your genes work for you.
If you want a well-engineered plan to take away all the mind-sweat and give you an excellent kickstart, more info on the 21 Day Sugar Detox can be found by clicking the image below! Cheers!
