Thursday 16 April 2015

It's all about the Snacks

Ok, so I've been doing this "auto-immune paleo diet" thing for almost 2 months now.  How's it going?  I really am not sure.  There is this huge list of foods to avoid, and frankly, I'm really bad at it.  For the first month, I totally ditched dairy, grains of any kind, nuts, "most" legumes, eggs, "most" high-glycemic fruits, all alcohol... and a few others.  Exactly 1 month after I started was my birthday, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to have something special on my birthday!  The cupcakes I made had only a handful of ingredients: eggs (like, 10 of them), chocolate, cocoa powder, and honey... And they were CRAZY good.  So eggs have been back "in" since then.  But I didn't notice a difference with or without them.  I am, however, mostly using duck eggs, as they are structurally different than chicken eggs... but that's a different post.  And I came to realize I was "cheating" without realizing it.  I honestly missed my lattes.  I did switch to chai lattes instead of coffee, but I was ordering them with soy milk instead of milk-milk.  DUH.  Soy = soy beans = legume.  Silly me.  But then, thankfully, I rediscovered a local roastery that has Almond milk Chai Lattes.  Saved!  And thank goodness for my bank account, they're not open on weekends.

I'll tell you, for the first while, all I could think about was what I couldn't have.  It gets you down, let me tell you.  My hubby is a fantastic cook and baker -- makes this amazing bread with fermented grains and yumminess.  I couldn't touch it.  Breakfast for the first month was a nightmare -- no eggs!  No toast or cereal or oatmeal or yoghurt or granola!  Geez! So I bought coconut yoghurt (not cheap stuff, lemme tell you!), which has added sugar... not so good on a "clean" diet.  I tried making it myself and failed miserably.  I ate a lot of applesauce that first month.  And I was ALWAYS hungry.  I even woke up in the middle of the night once and had. to. eat. meat.  I raided the fridge in the middle of the night.  I NEVER do that!  I've only got a handle on the frequency of eating recently.  I eat basically all the time.  I always have snacks going.  The best one?  Coconut chips by Blue Monkey.  Cheap and they satisfy the sweet/salty/crunchie cravings.  I love 'em.

Along with the eggs, I've tried a bit of dairy, but my shoulders seem to bother me afterwards.  So I've cut out the dairy (again).  I'm trying nuts this week.  I figured, might as well, as I'm drinking those delightful almond chai lattes a couple times a week.  Still staying away from all the grains though.  Which has me experimenting.  A recent issue of Taproot Magazine had a recipe for gluten-free sourdough starter.  I am trying it using coconut flour.  It actually seems to be working!  It smells yeasty now, and I've been working on it for about 10 days.  Which is longer than the recipe says, but I expected that with the coconut flour.  What spurred me on was my friend discovered this amazing coconut bread "Cocolithic" made with just Organic coconut flour, whole coconut, sea salt, and water.  No grains, yeast, oils or sugar.  I can't wait to try a bread with my starter!  Mainly because I can only get this bread in our town once/week and only if I line up at 9AM.  Crazy. And it's like $8 for what seems like 1/2 a regular loaf of bread.  But it's SO good!

My ankles are still a major issue, but I seem to be more focussed, not so foggy now.  I think.  I will continue on the AIP diet for now.  I've read that the longer a person's been dealing with an issue, the longer it takes to go away.  I can remember my feet bothering me for YEARS.  Not all the time like now, but definitely for about the past 5 years or so.  That's not going to go away overnight.  So I'll keep at it and will post my frustrations and successes as I go.


2 comments:

  1. How did your coconut flour sourdough starter come out? I saw the cocolithic bread in a paleo group and I don't live anywhere near that bakery, so I'm trying to make something like it and assumed there is a sourdough type deal going on bc the bread doesn't look like it matches the ingredients list! Thanks!

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  2. Hi! No, it didn't work unfortunately. Another local bakery started making coconut bread, and although they use a rye sourdough starter, it doesn't seem to affect me negatively. Good luck on your journey!

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