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.
Bone broth has recently taken the paleo, primal, and ancestral dieting worlds by storm, and thats no coincidence. Not only is bone broth an excellent way to make use of all those leftover bones and carcasses you’d otherwise throw out post-roast, it’s also one of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet.
Bone broth benefits
If you’ve arrived at this article looking for a quick, easy recipe: you’ve come to the right place! So if you’re keen to just get stuck in and make some fine-ass broth, scroll down to the next section. But if you’d like to amp yourself up with some fun facts about why bone broth is just so darn good, lets dive right in.
As we explained in yet another ultra-informative Thrive Primal article, bone broth is a must-eat for just about anyone. It’s loaded with a wide range of essential minerals, many of which the typical Western diet is seriously lacking in. These include calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and potassium. Our friend bone broth, also known in certain circles as stock, is chocka block with glycine and proline, two amino acids which are just the bees knees for your overall health and, well…your knees!
Bone broth also contains plenty of collagen, condroitin and glucosamine, all of which you need to maintain a healthy, fully-functioning body. Put together, all of these minerals and nutrients mean bone broth is an excellent way to improve your bone and tissue healing rates, keep your skin looking young and firm, revitalize your hair and nails, keep your joints supple, heal your gut lining, and improve detoxification.
Excited yet? You should be. Well, without further ado, let’s get broth making!
How to make bone broth the paleo way
There’s two ways you can make bone broth: the slow way, and the fast way. Because the fast way requires a pressure cooker, and we haven’t yet invested in one of those, we stick to the slow way. It’s no less effective, but it just take a few hours longer.
Equipment:
Slow cooker or crock pot (they’re essentially the same thing)
large glass jar or multiple smaller jars
Instructions:
Whenever you cook up a roast, lamb chops, or any meat with bones, set the bones aside and store them in a container in your freezer.
Once the pones have piled up to about two thirds the size of your slow cooker (less is fine, too!), you’re ready to go.
Throw the bones in your slow cooker, completely cover with cold water, and set the temperature to a low heat. The mixture should remain at a simmer the whole time, and should never boil over.
Add one to two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar or white vinegar to the bone and water mixture. This helps to draw the nutrients out of the bones.
Leave the bones to do their thing, topping up water as necessary to ensure they remain submerged the whole time. We leave beef and lamb bones simmering for 18 to 24 hours to ensure all the nutrients are extracted into the water, and chicken bones for around 12 to 16 hours. The longer you cook them, the more nutrient-dense your broth will be.
After the allotted time, remove from heat, cover, and leave to cool down. Before the mixture cools completely, remove the bones from the bottom of the mixture and pour the rest into a large glass jar and keep in the fridge. It will keep for around 1 to 2 weeks – if you don’t think you’ll use it all within this timeframe, just place some of it in an appropriate container and freeze it!
Note that if you don’t have a slow-cooker or crockpot, you can also just use a large stock pot. Just make sure it’s big enough, and that it’s ok to leave simmering unattended for a long period of time.
Paleo bone broth recipe using pressure cooker
As we explained earlier, there’s a much faster way to fulfill your bone broth needs: the pressure cooker! If you’ve got one of these bad boys, you can whip out a decent batch of bone broth in 2-3 hours. Impressive!
Large glass jar or collection of smaller widemouth jars
Instructions:
Place your bones in the bottom of your pressure cooker. Make sure the bones don’t reach past the two thirds mark of the cooker, otherwise you’ll be dealing with a pressure cooker overload!
Cover with water, and add in 1-2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar or distilled white vinegar. Any old vinegar will do, really.
Set your cooker to high pressure and leave for three hours. After this time, turn off the heat and leave to depressurize naturally.
Allow the mixture to cool to just above room temperature, then strain the liquid from the bones. Store in glass mason jars in the fridge, or place in the freezer for longer term storage.
That’s it! Pretty easy, right? You can also get snazzy by doing things like roasting the bones first (to give your broth a darker, more intense flavor) or adding in vegetables like leaks and carrots. But I like to keep things nice and simple, and knock back half a cup or so of broth each day to reap the health rewards. Enjoy!
And p.s. if you’re worried about lead toxicity issues, don’t be: according to Chris Kresser, the lead found in bone broth is nothing to be worried about.
The topic of this post is a controversial one, and is bound to get a few of our more “plant-inclined” readers a little riled up. But here at Thrive Primal, we strive to provide our audience with useful, possibly life-changing nutritional information, regardless of how indigestible (excuse the pun) that information might be.
Humans evolved by increasing uptake of animal products
Meat and animal products. I hear a collective gasp from our vegetarian friends, but the fact is that we need these food sources to function at our best. Today, humans are arguably at the top of the food chain because of our dietary switch to animal-based nutrition millions of years ago. We evolved from our early plant-eating hominid ancestors when we began supplementing plants and vegetables with meat and animal-derived products, which resulted in marked increases in brain size.
The downside to this was a reduction in the size of the early-human gut system. This is due to the dramatic energy requirements of both brains and guts – development of one is inversely proportional to the other, thus as our brains grew and began to demand more energy, our guts shrunk. This essentially had a feedback effect on our evolving diets, as early hominids turned to the most nutrient-dense foods available – you guessed it, meat and animal products! – to support our brain development and make up for the loss in digestive capacity from our shrinking stomachs.
As such, humans have been evolving with the aid of nutrient-dense meats, organs and animal-derived products for millions of years.
Why modern diets have failed us
In recent decades, food consumption has changed dramatically from fresh, locally grown, whole foods to mass-produced, GMO, non-organic, semi-synthetic foods which have seen a dramatic increase in health problems, most notably in the US. Here, obesity rates have gone through the roof in the last 30 years, with one in five deaths associated with obesity, primarily as a result of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and liver disease, all of which are correlated with misaligned metabolic function (i.e. an unhealthy diet!).
Subsequently, many people have turned to vegetarianism and/or veganism as a means of avoiding consumption of so-called “dangerous” saturated fats, which the US government seems to have a personal vendetta against. The issue here is that, contrary to mainstream nutritional teachings, well-sourced saturated fats are necessary for healthy metabolic functioning in humans. They are vital in the absorption of important vitamins and minerals, such as vitamins A, D and E, and actually help to support optimal heart and organ function. As a general rule of thumb, vegetarian diets are very low in saturated fats, with the exception of the odd fat-savvy veggo who consumes suitable levels of coconut oil and avocado, and so many vegetarians are severely lacking in this important dietary component.
Many vegetarians might read this and argue that they feel just fine eating only plant-based foods, and that a switch to vegetarianism has improved their health. And it’s true that many people experience marked improvements in their health and well-being with a switch from a modern, processed foods-based diet to a vegetarian one. This is because vegetarian diets do, in fact, have many benefits, particularly in that they bring people back around to eating organic, fresh, whole foods which help to replace many of the nutrients they lost while relying on processed foods. The problem is that, in the long term, our bodies cannot remain at their best on a vegetarian diet, as our digestive system is simply not designed to obtain all the required vitamins and nutrients from plants alone. This is why many vegetarians experience an initial improvement in health but then dramatic declines in health in the long term. This may manifest within as little as a few months, or take a number of years to become apparent.
Eating high-quality meat and animal products is essential
The fact of the matter is, we need animal products in order to thrive. But, and we cannot stress this enough, your meat and animal products MUST be from quality sources. In a nutshell, this means products from animals which are happy, healthy, and thriving in their optimum environment. It makes sense that food sources which make us thrive should also thrive themselves, right?
So, what are the key elements determining high-quality animal products, such as meat, organs, eggs, and dairy? The first one is a no-brainer, and one which you’ll probably roll your eyes at: it must be organic. This means free from pesticides, insecticides, herbicides (anything with the word “cide” in it, really!), artificial hormones and antibiotics. Do not automatically assume, however, that “organic” implies “non-GMO“. In many instances it does, such as in the case of USDA Organic, but not always.
Second, the animal from which your food comes from needs to be either grass-fed or pastured. “Grass-fed” applies primarily to cows and sheep, while “pastured” applies primarily to poultry and pigs. “Grass-fed” is not always synonymous with “100% grass-fed”, however, and many labels will claim that your beef or lamb is grass-fed, when in fact it may have been raised on grass and then “finished”, in the weeks leading up to slaughter, with grains in order to fatten it up. This is a nutritional no-no, and many of the benefits which can be gained from eating grass-fed products (see more on this here) are lost if the animal is grain finished. Therefore, do your homework – avoid, if possible, anything which says “grain finished” (or even “grass finished”), and consider researching your particular brand online before you buy. Sometimes this is the only way to really be sure.
“Pastured” essentially means a “free-range” diet, i.e. one which allows the animal to roam over a comparatively large area and choose foods at-will. This means that the animal chooses to eat only those foods which are best for its own nutrition, and as such the meat is of a much higher quality. This term applies a little more loosely than “grass-fed”, as pigs and poultry have a far more varied natural diet than cows and sheep, which subsist primarily on grass.
Finally, the meat or animal product should have been produced in a humane way. Typically, the previous requirements of organic and grass-fed/pastured would ensure that this is automatically the case, but not always. Therefore, always look for the “certified humane” sticker on your product before you buy it, as this will ensure that the animal was treated with compassion, kindness and not put under undue stress during slaughter.
If you follow the above principles while buying meat and animal products at the store, you’re helping to drive a market which supports sustainable, humane farming practices. This means that farmers have an actual economic incentive to raise their animals in the best possible way, ensuring those animals are given happy, healthy lives. Boycotting the meat industry altogether through vegetarianism is not the answer, as meat producers will continue to supply low-quality, factory raised, inhumanely slaughtered animals to the majority of the population who only cares how the meat tastes in their greasy McDonald’s burger.
The health benefits of eating meat and butter
Provided your meat or animal product is sourced based on the above criteria, it will be some of the healthiest food you could ever eat. Grass-fed beef, for example, contains the perfect composition of fatty acids (think more Omega-3, less Omega-6!), super high levels of Vitamins A and E, and bucketloads of important micronutrients like potassium, zinc, iron and phosphorus. Furthermore, grass-fed butter is loaded with saturated fat, which can improve your blood lipid profile, raising levels of HDL (aka “good”) cholesterol and providing large amounts of Vitamin K2, a nutrient virtually absent from most other foods and which helps to de-calcify your arteries.
The bottom line
Meat and animal products are the bee’s knees. Our bodies have evolved over millions of years to extract optimum nutrition from animal sources, and we function at our best when we obtain the right amounts of these on a daily basis. Make sure, however, that you only buy organic, grass-fed/pastured, humanely-raised meats and animal products.
Hi all! This just a quick update to share that I’ve become a Nutrition & Natural Remedies Writer with The Alternative Daily! This is a great source for friendly, bite-sized information on holistic living.
You can check out my article on common issues tied to low stomach acid, and how to improve stomach acid production by clicking HERE.
I’ll be writing several articles a week, including one personal blog-style post which will be featured on the site.
Hey Team! This article is meant to meet you wherever you’re at right now. Maybe you’re eating run of the mill takeaway from the cafeteria at work every day, or maybe you’ve just surgically removed gluten from your diet. Maybe you’ve been doing ‘paleo’ for a while now, eating lots of veggies, clean protein, nuts and seeds, and a little fruit.
Whatever you’re up to, perhaps you’ve heard of the term ‘nutrient density’. I think I heard about this early on in my ancestral nutrition journey but it just sort of breezed through my ears. It sounded sort of appealing but I wasn’t quite sure what it meant.
Nutrient dense foods are the next step for health and healing
At some point I started seeking more in-depth healing, like helping my leaky gut, curing joint pain and reversing tooth cavities. This is where nutrient-dense foods really come into play.
If you’ve been playing around with a clean diet but aren’t quite seeing results, or you’re ready to up your game, here are 5 foods you’ll want to incorporate into your weekly regimen to really up the nutrient density. Once you work in these nutritional heavy-hitters, you’ll start to see lasting health, slowed aging and a truly resilient immune system.
These are foods which are often kind of on the fringe of our modern diets, if not completely forgotten. They were commonly consumed in every traditional ancestral diet but have been pushed aside by large-scale agricultural food. However it’s important for us to reincorporate these foods, since they offer up a powerhouse of vitamins, minerals, enzymes and probiotics which you might be missing in a basic ‘paleo’ or real-food regime.
If you’re not familiar I would highly recommend checking out the invaluable work of the Weston A. Price Foundation and the book Nourishing Traditions. This is basically the go-to goldmine on nutrient dense ancestral foods and how to make & consume them.
5 Foods to Increase the Nutrient Density of Your Diet
Organ Meats:
Consume the liver, heart, kidneys, thymus gland (sweetbreads), brain of any pasture-raised or wild-caught unmedicated animals. My go-tos are:
Organ meats were a go-to for our ancestors and even up until recently when our dads still ate liver & onions. The nutrient and fat-dense organ meats were prized and muscle meats were generally left for the dogs.
Some nutritional highlights:
In general, organ meats are between 10 and 100 times higher in nutrients than corresponding muscle meats. (source)
Liver contains many important nutrients (vitamins A, B, C, D, E, K, B12 and folic acid, and minerals such as copper and iron) and is higher in all of these nutrients than produce such as carrots and apples (source)
Upon analysis and comparison of the nutrient value of foods eaten by traditional versus modern cultures, studies show that a traditional diet provides at least four times the water-soluble vitamins, calcium and other minerals, and at least 10 times the fat-soluble vitamins, such as A and D. These fat-soluble vitamins are present only in animal fats—butter, lard, egg yolks, fish oils, and foods with fat-rich cellular membranes such as liver and other organ meats. (source)
Broth:
You may have heard bone broth mentioned in various paleo literature. This is called just ‘stock’ or ‘broth’ by normal people. To my knowledge these are exactly the same thing.
Collect any bones that come with the healthy meats that you purchase. We keep them in ice cream containers in the freezer. All too often I’ll be looking for some of our homemade raw milk ice cream and come upon a frozen chicken carcass instead…yuk!
…but the point is don’t throw out those bones!
THE EASIEST WAY TO MAKE BONE BROTH & ALWAYS HAVE SOME ON HAND:
Keep each type separate (or mix red meat ones if you like) and when a container gets full dump the bones into your crock pot, add a splash of apple cider vinegar, top up with water so the bones are just covered, and simmer for 24 hours. It’s that easy! Then you can keep the broth in smaller containers in the freezer to be popped into your soups or stir fries or whatever you’re cooking up. You can also just put a cup or two in a mason jar, add some water and pink salt, and heat it up anytime for a nourishing hot drink/snack.
Find out where to grab properly-raised meat in your area with farmmatch.com or eatwild.com. I know there’s also US Wellness Meats in the states, but haven’t found a good online supplier in Canada. Let me know if you know of one! Also, you’ll be needing a crock pot! (aka slow cooker). Do yourself a favour and get this pretty one, which won’t be such an unsightly beast in your kitchen ;)
Why you should eat broth:
Bone broth is a source of minerals, like calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and potassium, in forms that your body can easily absorb. It’s also rich in glycine and proline, amino acids not found in significant amounts in muscle meat (the vast majority of the meat we consume). It also contains chondroitin sulfate and glucosamine, the compounds sold as supplements to reduce inflammation, arthritis, and joint pain. Finally, “soup bones” include collagen, a protein found in connective tissue of vertebrate animals, which is abundant in bone, marrow, cartilage, tendons, and ligaments. The breakdown of collagen in bone broths is what produces gelatin. (source)
bone broth assists in tissue and bone healing, keeping the skin elastic, nourishing hair and nails, keeping joints working smoothly, healing the gut lining, improving detoxification and providing vital minerals for body processes (read more here)
Fermented Foods:
Fermentation is really easy to do at home with a simple book and some kefir culture or kombucha culture. All you need is milk for kefir and tea & sugar for kombucha. You can even make sauerkraut in a few days with just cabbage and salt (see instructions HERE).
The benefits of fermented foods:
fermentation increases vitamin, mineral, enzyme and probiotic content of food. For example, Kombucha provides beneficial detoxifying B-vitamins, Kefir packs a heavy probiotic punch, and Sauerkraut contains 10x more vitamin C than the original cabbage. (source)
the probiotics in fermented foods can assist in curing many conditions such as allergies, food intolerances and digestive disorders (source)
Raw Dairy:
I wrote an extensive post on raw dairy HERE. This will help you find a local source for unpasteurized whole intact organic grass-fed milk. We buy raw milk, kefir, cheese, sour cream and butter weekly. It really doesn’t compare to what you get in the store!! It’s beyond delicious, filling and nourishing.
If you’re looking for a source for grass-fed butter, which is highly prized and recommended in the paleo community, check out my recommendations here for connecting with a local source.
Why would you want to consume raw dairy?
The fats are intact. Homogenization of commercial dairy means the milk is pushed through tiny holes which corrupts and/or removes the fat and makes the milk less filling & more difficult to digest.
The nutrients are present and bioavailable. Pasteurization (high-temperature sterilization) of commercial milk means that many of the vitamins, proteins and nutrients are denatured and destroyed.
It is easier to digest. Natural milk contains enzymes such as lactase which actually negate all or most of the difficulties people have with digesting dairy. This leaves a highly digestible nutritious whole food. Bonus digestive points if you consume cultured dairy such as kefir, which is bursting with probiotics and has hardly any lactose remaining. (source)
Raw dairy has been shown to heal conditions such as allergies, chronic fatigue and tooth decay (source)
Seafood:
Seafood is one of the most dense sources of healthy anti-inflammatory fats and body-healing minerals.
Vital Choice is an excellent place to buy high quality wild-caught seafood online (USA) or Daily Catch (Canada). If you’re located elsewhere or are curious about what seafood is the healthiest, check out this primal guide to grocery store seafood.
Some great nutrient-dense seafood choices:
wild salmon roe – nourishes the brain and provides a rare food source of vitamin D (more here)
wild-caught sardines – a great source of omega 3s, protein and calcium too – if you eat the soft bones (source)
oysters – farmed or wild are both fine.
Just four medium sized Pacific oysters supply a smattering of B-vitamins (including over 1000% of daily B12), 1200 IU of vitamin A, a third of daily folate, almost 7 mg of vitamin E, 3 mg copper, 280% of daily selenium, and 33 mg zinc. That comes with 18 g protein, 4 g fat, 1.5 g omega-3, 0.1 g omega-6, and 9 grams of carbohydrates. (source)
Are you inspired to up your nutrient density?
Hopefully this quick guide has given you some juicy tips on how to really fire up your nutrition for long-term health and healing. What are some of your go-to foods, or maybe you have a great source to recommend? Please share with everyone below in the comments, or on the Thrive Primal Facebook page!
Do you ever feel a little off-kilter, like anything your colleague/partner/kid says might hit you the wrong way? Maybe you feel fragile, like things affect you more than they should and you can’t quite bounce back. Or like you’re on a roller-coaster throughout the day, sometimes in a great mood and then suddenly hit a low?
Depressive disorders are now the leading cause of disability worldwide. (source) Let’s talk about the food-mood connection, and how to fix up some nutritional mistakes you could be making that are causing you to act like a crazy biatch.
These mood patterns could be so ingrained from eating your regular diet for ages that you won’t even know you’re being thrown off. Maybe you even just think it’s “your personality”, or “it must be menopause”, or “life is just too much and I get stressed”.
Try these techniques and you might just find a new balance.
How are nutrition and mood connected?
The human body basically contains 2 brains, one in the head, and one in the gut. These are formed from the same tissue during fetal development. Even when you’re all grown they’re still connected by the vagus nerve which travels up the abdomen. This nerve is how the bacteria in your microbiome communicate with the brain. (source)
A rapidly emerging field of research suggests that the microbiome-gut-brain axis is of substantial relevance to mood and behaviour. Similarly, unhealthy diet has recently emerged as a significant correlate of and risk factor for depression. […] Although in its early stages, the emerging field of research focused on the human microbiome suggests an important role for the gut microbiota in influencing brain development, behaviour and mood in humans. (source)
If your gut is healthy and balanced, the same will go for your brain and your moods. It’s vital to foster a healthy microbiome for many, many reasons, and stable positive mood is one of them. As explained here, “What we eat affects everything from our production of neurotransmitters and hormones to our energy levels and the quality of our synaptic connections – all of which can determine how well we respond to the stresses and demands of daily living.”
First a little good-mood-food inspiration…
Here are a number of testimonials from people who transitioned to real food / paleo nutrition:
I’m a little over 3 months Paleo but I cut the grains and sugar very gradually. I used to get depressed and angry, especially when I was tired or going through a stressful situation. In the last month or so, I’ve noticed that I haven’t gotten angry or depressed even though nothing has changed but my diet and overall health. Maybe it’s being healthier and my husband is also a lot happier (he’s Paleo, too) and healthier that’s made the difference. (source)
I have been eating a Paleo diet for about 6 weeks. Not only is my arthritis pain gone but I’m finding that I sometimes forget to take my meds for anxiety. […] My moods are better in that I’m handling things well without that overwhelming feeling that I can’t cope. […] I plan on keeping tabs on my moods and slowly reducing meds. (source)
I have struggled with depression for most of my life. I have now been eating paleo for about a year: meats, veggies, little fruit, little dairy, lots of fats, no coffee, some chocolate, little sugar. […] I have no real objective measurement, but I do feel that my memory is better, there is less fogginess in thinking and awareness, and I just feel that I’m on an even keel emotionally. Things that may have formerly upset me may still bother me, but bother me less. (source)
I inadvertently fell into a paleo diet while trying to cure my 4+ year long struggle with moderate depression (dysthymia) and the addiction to carbs and sugar that came along with it. In terms of ‘normal mood’ changes that I noticed, I find myself enjoying nature and wanting to be outside to get fresh air, if something stressful/upsetting occurs i’m able to deal with it properly and resume to a level/stable mood and I have motivation to complete goals and actually do things. If I have to cry, its therapeutic and I accept is as being a normal human emotion to release whatever i’m feeling as opposed to the deep/hopeless/painful crying that often accompanies depression. I no longer consider myself to be depressed and it is literally all thanks to the food i’m now feeding my body. (source)
Foods to avoid for better & more stable mood
GLUTEN
Gluten intolerance is linked to autoimmune thyroid conditions (the body begins to attack the thyroid). The thyroid plays a huge role in regulating the metabolism and thereby keeping mood stable. Not only does gluten encourage autoimmune disease but it also damages mood-regulating functions in the gut:
A number of studies indicate that wheat can have a detrimental effect on mood, promoting depression and even more serious mental health problems such as schizophrenia. One mechanism that can help explain the mysterious connection between wheat and mental health problems is the fact that wheat inhibits production of serotonin.
Neurotransmitters like serotonin can be found not just in your brain, but also in your gut. In fact, the greatest concentration of serotonin, which is involved in mood control, depression and aggression, is found in your intestines, not your brain! (source)
This indicates that when you eat wheat the serotonin that should be produced in the gut is inhibited, and your mood suffers. Basically, wheat = sad and angry.
SOLUTION: Try entirely eliminating gluten for 2 weeks. If this sounds hard, try Real Plans for ready-made meal plans and shopping lists.
SUGAR
Sugary foods have a toxic effect on your mood and mental health, not only through the direct effect of “sugar high –> sugar low” but also via at least 3 different mechanisms where it damages hormone signaling, neuron health and impairs the immune system. (source) If this is a topic that interests you, the book Sugar Blues comes highly recommended.
This would include obviously any processed sugary foods containing refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup etc, but also excess amounts of natural sugars (anything beyond, in my opinion, 3 servings per day). Why? It’s a completely unnatural amount of sugar to be consuming on any regular basis. A hunter-gatherer would have probably feasted on fruit a couple of times a year at most when it was in season and they found a good source, but this would definitely not be the norm on a daily basis. Our biochemistry is not designed to deal with this amount of sugar, natural or no.
SOLUTION: Break that sugar addiction! Need help? Go here!
CHEMICAL-LADEN FOODS
I know we’re getting a bit broad here, but I’m talking about anything containing:
pesticides and herbicides – this would be non-organic produce, especially the Dirty Dozen. Pesticides are claimed to not directly harm humans, but they DO harm our gut bacteria, which by now we understand has huge effects on our health and well-being.
artificial colours and sweeteners – Aspartame in particular, since “both depression and panic attacks are known potential side effects of aspartame consumption.” (source)
genetically-modified organisms – these alter the gut bacteria for the worse – avoid foods containing non-organic corn, canola, soy and sugarbeet like the plague.
Foods to eat for better & more stable mood
In general, a traditional, whole-foods diet devoid of processed foods and focusing on healthy animal proteins, organic vegetables, good fats and fermented foods is what we’re aiming for here. (Want meal plans? This is what I recommend!)
This article in Psychology Today sums up how a typical Western Diet faces off against a traditional diet for gut and mood health.
A sicker microbiota (meaning in general less diversity and species and more pathologic species) is associated with a “leaky gut” wherein more inflammatory particles and bacterial cell parts pass through the gut lining, leading to systemic inflammation and problems, fatigue, and depressive behavior (avoidance, lack of energy and motivation).
Traditional diets tend to have more fiber and vegetable matter than the Western diet, which tends to have more highly refined carbohydrates. These fibers feed the microbiota in a healthy way, whereas lots of sugar and/or low carbohydrate Western diets have been associated with more pathogenic species of bacteria in the microbiome.
Nutrients to support good mood
Specifically we can focus on consuming more foods that are rich in fiber, minerals and nutrients such as iodine, selenium, Omega 3s, natural saturated fats, copper and iron. These help support the endocrine system and feed a healthy gut microbiome. Here are some foods to include in your next grocery shop! (source)
Try keeping a journal for a couple of days, especially when you’re feeling particularly happy or notably anxious/sad/negative. I definitely notice a connection with wheat, sugar and coffee. If I have these things in the morning, I’ll be super lethargic in the afternoon, and then a sad sack in the evening (several hours later). If I stick with green tea and a clean eating regime I’m a lot more stable!
Share below or on Facebook, I want to know what helps or hinders your mood!
I’m so tired of hearing people say “I have a quinoa salad for lunch!” with wide eyes looking expectantly for an impressed reaction along the lines of “ooh, you made that? so fancy and healthy!” or something like that. It’s my firm belief that people go crazy for it because
a) they believe it’s healthier than rice or pasta and
b) it sounds cool and exotic because no one can pronounce it.
Well, today I’m going to break down the actual real deal about quinoa’s nutrition profile, including inflammation factor, digestive effects, blood sugar / glycemic effects, nutrient absorption, and enzyme effects.
A lot of basic facts are out there about quinoa, which at face value make it look like a healthy, high-protein, gluten-free wonderfood. I’m going to try to look a little deeper, and you can make up your own mind!
Inflammatory factor
Truth: Quinoa is technically a seed. All grains and seeds naturally contain substances that keep them from being digested by animals that may eat them, before the plant is able to reproduce. They have protective layers that make them indigestible (by animals, like us!) so that they can be pooped out in a relatively whole state, and therefore still grow little baby plants afterwards. These substances are inflammatory to our system, to keep the grain or seed safe.
quinoa’s inflammation factor is -126 (moderately inflammatory). (source)
gluten and wheat are demonized, yet the inflammation factor of whole wheat flour is -89 (only mildly inflammatory). (source)
Saponins, specifically, are the inflammatory substance that protects the quinoa from digestion. A PubMed study showed that saponins
readily increase the permeability of the small intestinal mucosal cells, thereby inhibiting active nutrient transport, and facilitating the uptake of materials to which the gut would normally be impermeable. (source)
As explained by Celebrity Health Coach Sam F. Grant,
Saponins are soapy like molecules that literally “punch holes” in the gastric mucosal lining. Then you get “leaky gut” (contents of the gut leak into the blood stream) and this causes an autoimmune response and systemic inflammation. Systemic inflammation manifests in numerous ways: headaches, skin rashes, achy joints, stomach pain, weight gain, fatigue ,etc. (source)
You can see how these invisible inflamers can cause some major issues, especially when quinoa becomes a new go-to everyday staple.
SUMMARY: Quinoa is more inflammatory than wheat and contributes to leaky gut, which in turn contributes to a myriad of inflammatory and autoimmune health issues.
Blood sugar
We all know we shouldn’t be eating “white foods” like white flour and sugar, because they cause blood sugar spikes that make us ‘wired then tired’, throw off our hormones, and pre-dispose us to diabetes by creating insulin resistance. So therefore we go for “healthier” foods like quinoa. I can just HEAR the over-achieving (well-intentioned) mom being all like “oh no my kids don’t eat rice, I only feed them QUINOA”.
Well, according to Dr. William Davis, the author of Wheat Belly, quinoa isn’t exactly a low-glycemic angel:
Oats, for instance, with a glycemic index of 55 compared to table sugar’s 59, still sends blood sugar through the roof. Likewise, quinoa with a glycemic index of 53, will send blood sugar to, say, 150 mg/dl compared to 158 mg/dl for table sugar–yeah, sure, it’s better, but it still stinks. And that’s in non-diabetics. It’s worse in diabetics. (source)
SUMMARY: Quinoa (like all grains) has a high glycemic index and load which may contribute to blood sugar disregulation.
Quinoa & Ancestral Nutrition
According to Ultimate Paleo Guide, quinoa often brings confusion to those trying to follow a paleo approach, because it’s not technically a grain, so it seems ok. The general consensus is that quinoa “does offer some of the same potentially harmful properties as grains”.
[according to a Paleo approach, grains] are avoided because they contain gluten, saponins, and lectins, among other anti-nutrients, which have been shown to be harmful to the lining of a person’s digestive system as well as their immune system. Many people don’t process quinoa effectively and, because of that, they should avoid it. (source)
But doesn’t it contain lots of vitamins and minerals?
It’s true that upon basic chemical analysis quinoa contains a good amount of some vitamins and minerals, including magnesium, phosphorus and manganese.
However it’s vital to point out that the phytic acid content of quinoa may lagely block the absorption of these nutrients.
Phytic acid is the principal storage form of phosphorus in many plant tissues, especially the bran portion of grains and other seeds. It contains the mineral phosphorus tightly bound in a snowflake-like molecule. In humans and animals with one stomach, the phosphorus is not readily bioavailable. In addition to blocking phosphorus availability, the “arms” of the phytic acid molecule readily bind with other minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc, making them unavailable as well. In this form, the compound is referred to as phytate.
Phytic acid not only grabs on to or chelates important minerals, but also inhibits enzymes that we need to digest our food, including pepsin, needed for the breakdown of proteins in the stomach, and amylase,needed for the breakdown of starch into sugar. Trypsin, needed for protein digestion in the small intestine, is also inhibited by phytates.
[…] the powerful anti-nutritional effects of a diet high in phytate-rich grains [and seeds] may cause many health problems as a result, including tooth decay, nutrient deficiencies, lack of appetite and digestive problems. (source)
In order to reduce the phytate content of quinoa, extensive traditional methods of preparation are required, such as soaking, fermenting and sprouting. The table below shows the reduction in phytates after different processing methods, according to the Weston A. Price Foundation.
You can see that quite a hefty amount of effort is required to reduce those phytates significantly and make all those vitamins and minerals in the quinoa be absorbable by the body. There is no point consuming nutrients if you can’t absorb them, thus the evolution of the saying “you are what you eat” to “you are what you ABSORB“.
SUMMARY: Quinoa contains good minerals and vitamins but they are encased in phytic acid which stops the absorption of these minerals, and takes a lot of traditional processing to reduce.
Protein content of quinoa
Many people use the “high protein content” of quinoa as an attracting factor for making it a daily staple. It’s true that “quinoa is what’s called a complete protein, meaning it contains all nine of the essential amino acids, which cannot be made by the body and therefore must come from food.” (source)
However, there’s only 8 grams of protein in a 185 gram serving, while 70% of the nutritional content is carbs. (source) This just doesn’t even come CLOSE to the nutritional powerhouses that are vegetables and animal protein sources.
As the Ultimate Paleo Guide puts it:
Even if you don’t have issues processing quinoa, quinoa still contains quite a few carbs. If your goal is to become a fat burner rather than a carb-burner, you’ll want to avoid quinoa as it’s a 53 on the Glycemic Index – quite high for a food that you don’t have to be eating. (source)
Check out this image comparing the macronutrient breakdown of quinoa vs rice vs pasta. Just because quinoa contains marginally more protein and fat than rice or pasta do, does not make it a “good source of protein”.
SUMMARY: Quinoa is primarily a source of carbohydrates, and it not significantly higher in proteins or fats than rice or pasta.
Concluding thoughts: is quinoa healthy?
I hope this has helped you get some clarity on quinoa, and why it may not be the perfect ideal health food to base all your meals around on a daily basis (or anything close to that!). Personally I find that quinoa gives me a super-fast heartrate a few minutes after consuming it. I assume this is the inflammatory factor kicking up an immune allergy-like reaction.
My advice? Certainly focus VASTLY on the organic veggies, good quality animal proteins, and fermented/cultured foods as 90-95% of your diet. If you MUST eat quinoa, try soaking it in an acid for awhile first, and rinse it well before cooking and consuming.
I think the flocking of the masses toward quinoa is really just filling a cultural need to eat everything “on something”. There must always be some sort of grain-like vehicle, like bread pasta rice cracker waffle pancake bagel etc. But these are all just low-nutrient carb-heavy vehicles for the good stuff, which is the colourful veggies, flavourful meat or protein, delicious sauce and herbs and seasonings. Here’s a thought: cut out the vehicle (which usually just gets stored as fat anyway, unless you’re highly active) and go straight for the good stuff.
What are your thoughts on quinoa?
Has this article given you any insights or changed your thinking? Is quinoa part of your daily diet? Have you observed any positive or negative health & wellness effects from quinoa? Share below or on Facebook!
Eczema, psoriasis, acne, cysts, blackheads, whiteheads, milia, keratosis, dandruff, ingrown hairs. If you experience any of these skin issues, I feel your pain.
Having unattractive skin can be really difficult. Your skin is how the world perceives you, and if it’s riddled with any of the above, it isn’t easy to feel attractive, or even presentable.
Over $175 BILLION is spent every year on skincare and makeup, yet more and more people experience these problems and turn to spending yet more cash on medicating themselves, in the desperate search for balance and beauty.
Why it’s all a dirty money-grabbing trick
Here’s some news for you friends:
1. Applying washes, scrubs, creams, serums and other potions to the surface of your skin will do very little to actually improve your skin quality.
2. Your skin has a natural oil balance, and products only serve to strip off that oil (rendering your skin effectively a dry desert) and then force us to replenish that moisture balance artificially with yet more products.
3. Cosmetics are not legally considered food, and therefore have very few regulations applied, despite the fact that something you apply to your skin can enter your blood stream in less than 30 seconds. When you apply all those lotions and potions, you might as well be EATING all those toxic yuckies. Would you eat your sudsy body wash? Your perfumey moisturizer? Well surprise, you ARE.
According to this article by save-the-planet guru David Suzuki:
Some of the ingredients in beauty products aren’t that pretty. U.S. researchers report that one in eight of the 82,000 ingredients used in personal care products are industrial chemicals, including carcinogens, pesticides, reproductive toxins, and hormone disruptors. Many products include plasticizers (chemicals that keep concrete soft), degreasers (used to get grime off auto parts), and surfactants (they reduce surface tension in water, like in paint and inks). Imagine what that does to your skin, and to the environment.
We surveyed Canadians to see how many of the Dirty Dozen ingredients below appeared in their cosmetics, and our findings show that 80 per cent of entered products contained at least one of these toxic chemicals.
Your skin comes from the inside out. It’s a mirror of what’s going on inside your body. Literally your skin is a reflection of your digestive system; if your intestines are seething with crap food and gas and bacterial overgrowth, it’s likely your skin will look similarly junky. Whereas if your guts are glowing with wholesome real food and probiotics, your skin will glow and thrive in response.
You can’t out-product a bad diet
Have you ever heard the saying that you can’t out-exercise a bad diet? Well, you can’t out-skincare-product one either.
I can personally attest to this one. A few years ago, actually when I got my first full-time job after university, I was trying to figure out why I was getting sore lumps of cystic acne on my back. I tried all sorts of treatments, and even resorted to spending lots of my hard-earned moolah on special medicated bodywashes to try to fix the painful lumps. I also used extra-strength acne-fighting wipes, which gave me huge patches of super painful eczema, which I then had to go get a prescription cream from the doctor for. Talk about backward, pointless, multi-level bandaid solutions!
I’ve since made the connection that it’s totally linked with diet and stress. Now that I live a clean lifestyle, I can see the effect very explicitly: Every time I’ve gone on holiday this year, if I’ve let things get a little lax in the diet and sleep department, I notice very soon after that I start getting a little cystic acne on my back.
There is no point in spending all that time in the aisle of the store reading bottles figuring out which product to spend another $20 on, and then doing some 5-stage regime every morning and evening to fix your skin. This is exactly what the marketers want you to do.
You can ride the merry-go-round of potions and drugs for years, or you can get a much more affordable, more permanent, and more body-loving solution by fixing the problem from the inside out.
When your car isn’t running right, do you give it a coat of wax and touch up the paint? Or do you open the hood and actually get the engine repaired? We should treat our bodies the same way, seeking out and addressing the root cause of these issues instead of just slapping on the commercial, slickly marketed, bandaid solution that comes in the shiny bottle.
Step 1: Support your Liver
Another word for supporting your liver is ‘detoxing’. It’s a pretty flashy marketing term these days that is surrounded with all sorts of products and programs, but it basically just means supporting the liver with clean foods and smart supplements.
Your liver is responsible for trucking out all those nasty toxins that can come from food, the environment, plastics, products etc. If it can’t truck ’em out properly in your poop, your body tries to seep them out in other ways, such as through your skin. Hello acne!
These same detox foods will also help get rid of extra estrogen (in men and women both), which can be a contributing factor to acne and skin issues.
It can be really overwhelming to try and find good supplements that are worth your hard-earned dollars. My partner and I spend a lot of time researching this stuff, and here are the best we’ve found for B vitamins and a superfood greens powder that contains algae.
Garden of Life Vitamin Code Raw B-Complex – a highly absorbable real food-based B vitamin complex. There is no point taking cheap low-quality supplements that your body can’t absorb, therefore real food-based supplements are a lot more worthwhile.
Mighty Maca Greens Superfood Powder – a tasty mixture of South American maca (awesome health-promoting herb in like one million ways) and super greens, which you can get in little single-serve packets to bring along to work etc. I really like it mixed with a little lemon juice and then shaken in a big bottle of water to sip throughout the day.
Step 2: Supplement Wisely
Once you’ve taken care of the detox pathway, you can add in nutrient-dense foods and supplements which will literally help your body build better skin. These are some of the building blocks of healthy skin which are often missing from our modern diets.
Zinc: Personally I’ve found that if I eat pumpkin seeds or take a zinc supplement, the dry skin under my feet goes away (so key for summer!). I’ve heard it also helps hair grow thicker; I’m currently experimenting with that! Go for whole foods, or here is a great source for a supplement: Garden Of Life Vitamin Code Raw Zinc
Magnesium supports hundreds of important things going on in your body, and due to industrial agriculture our diet has become very magnesium-depleted. I prefer using Natural Calm Magnesium Liquid and either just mixing with some coconut oil and smearing it on, or making a simple DIY moisturizer that I use once or twice a day. You can find local stores to buy from, or here’s a place to buy online: Liquid Magnesium. You can also use their naturally flavoured tasty magnesium drink, although I find it a little sweet (depends on your taste).
Another option for magnesium is a simple epsom salt bath, which is also very effective. Dissolve 2 cups of salt into a bath and you only need 7-12 minutes for it to absorb. Grab some epsom salt here.
Collagen and gelatin are so key for soft, youthful, healthy skin. Make bone broth with organic bones at home, or take a good quality supplement like Great Lakes: Collagen Hydrolysate
Vitamin A: The animal form of Vitamin A is crucial for healthy skin. Keratosis pilaris is the official name for the little bumps that can form on the backs of your arms and elsewhere. These are easily treated with Vitamin A. Here is where to get the best cod liver oil supplement with highly bio-available Vitamin A: Blue Ice Fermented Cod Liver Oil
Step 3: Stop Abusing Your Skin
This step is a little counter-intuitive. Marketing would have us believe that if our skin is oily and acne-ridden, we just have to cleanse it more often and with stronger stuff. We are also told to use several different steps of skin care products at different times of day.
In reality, your skin maintains its own balance quite nicely,when it’s not constantly interfered with. It maintains a healthy pH and moisture level, as well as exfoliates itself consistently. People weren’t ugly ragged beasts in the days before they had 6-stage facial care product systems. We don’t need these things to survive and in fact our skin can be much more balanced and beautiful without them.
The skin has a delicate layer called the ‘acid mantle’ which gets destroyed by commercial cleansers and exfoliators. Basically the skin turns into a dry desert, and then we have to use serums and lotions and creams to artificially re-hydrate what we just removed. Totally pointless, and way confusing for the skin. That’s why we often find we get super oily too fast, because the skin is freaking out trying to re-hydrate itself after being stripped dry.
The other thing we hear often is to drink “lots and lots (and lots)” of water if we want nice skin. It’s true the average person probably doesn’t drink enough water. However it’s easy for this advice to go too far.
When you drink too much, the vital minerals in your blood become too diluted and you pee out too much valuable nutrition. Your kidneys can only process an absolute maximum of 1 L per hour at their highest capacity.
You should only be drinking around 2 to 3 L of water per day (depending on your size and activity level) – enough that your urine is not clear, but rather still pale yellow (perhaps a lemonade-like colour). Your skin will certainly benefit from being properly hydrated, but it’s a delicate balance.
Another great tip would be to purchase a filter for your shower head. This will remove much of the chlorine and prevent your skin from drying out so much.
This is the one we currently have and I’ve found it to be perfectly effective. It was pretty affordable, very easy to install and should fit any wall-mounted shower head. Sprite High Output HO2 with matching Chrome Showerhead
If I were buying one now, I would probably order this one online: Culligan Level 2 Wall-Mount Showerhead. It has really good reviews, plus massage settings :)
Step 4: Care for Your Skin Gently
There are so many wonderful ways you can nurture and care for your skin gently, rather than abusing it with chemical cleansers and smothering it with petrochemical-laden potions.
Exfoliating: Use a soft natural-bristle dry brush or natural sea sponge to gently disengage old skin. This helps circulation and lymph fluid flow as well.
Clean and Nourish: Apply coconut oil to the skin before washing or showering. Coconut oil is gently antibacterial and very nourishing, plus it is slightly acidic which matches the skin’s natural pH. Then, use filtered warm water (not too hot – it scalds and strips the skin). When you get out, you’ll find the perfect amount of moisture is left and the skin feels heavenly!
Balance: If you feel the need to tone or tighten the skin, a 1:10 mixture of raw apple cider vinegar to filtered water is a gentle, natural way to do that. If your tap water is very mineral-rich (and has a strongly basic pH, you’ll know if you get white build-up on your kettle) then the vinegar rinse may be a good idea.
Detox and Repair: Sweating every day is so important – it’s the skin’s natural cleansing system and it’s so easy. Just google “quick interval workout” or similar on youtube, and you’ll find any number of ways to get a quick sweat on in less than 10 minutes. No excuses!
The other absolute vital factor is sleep. This is when your skin repairs itself and becomes its naturally gorgeous glowing youthful self. Your hormones (your body’s messengers and signalers) also need sleep to stay balanced and effective. You’ll know how shitty and haggard your face looks after an all-nighter or a long flight or what have you. Sleep is sooo important. Sleeeeeep.
The Skintervention Guide
This is a good overall good-skin approach, however if you have a particular condition or concern, and want a detailed protocol (aka user-friendly, hand-holding, day-by-day action plan) to fix your skin, I have a GREAT recommendation.
Instead of spending another $10, $30, $50 plus dollars on another hit-or-miss product that is advertised by air-brushed models, I would highly recommend checking out Liz Wolfe’s Purely Primal Skintervention Guide.
This guide is a deep dive into what exactly is going on underneath each specific skin condition. What imbalances might be happening or what might be setting it off, and exactly what to avoid, what to eat, and what to adjust in your lifestyle to bring things back to normal. In fact not only to normal, but even better than your skin has ever been.
The author, Liz Wolfe, is an absolute POWERHOUSE of awesome actionable info. Her style is friendly and practical so it’s easy to read. Useful and empowering, not boring or overwhelming.
Don’t smear on another cream and hope for the best – rebuild healthy skin from the inside out instead, using a proven system from an established expert. The image below will take you straight there for more info…
Do you have any tips or success stories to share on how you’ve overcome skin concerns? Or any good books, supplements, protocols to recommend? Share & help others below!
