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Health

How Illness Changed How I Viewed Food

October 2, 2019 by KimiHarris 3 Comments

The lights were low, the atmosphere quiet as diners enjoyed their meals and wine, and waiters weaved through the restaurant bringing platters of food. In front of us were decadent flourless chocolate cakes, topped with gently sweetened whipped cream and berries. My husband and I savored forkfuls of rich cake, and laughed and talked. 

And I remembered to be grateful. To be alive. To be healthy enough to enjoy such moments again. To be healthy enough for dates and cakes. 

In a way, nothing yet everything has changed how I view food and how I eat. 

Perhaps the most accurate way to describe it, would be everything I believed before – the benefits of eating well, the joy of food, and the joy of hospitality – is heightened now. 

Serious health issues changes your perspective on life in many ways, and makes you reexamine both the big issues in your life, but also the small ones. I don’t feel it would be honest to jump back into food blogging without sharing some of the ways the last few years have changed how I eat and feed my family. 

For those who have been around for a while, you know that the last couple of years have been a whirlwind of ill-health and a gradual recovery. I have a short list of diagnoses, but mold illness and Lyme Disease were both a significant reason I got seriously ill and even had to go to the emergency room several times with very scary symptoms. (You can read more of that story here: My Lyme Disease Story and How it Changed Me.)

I won’t go into all of the details, but suffice to say, I was very sick for a while, and at one point had a page and a half of symptoms I brought to my doctor. It was brutal, and hard, and scary. I am so thankful to have improved so much in health since those early days of illness. 

When you are that ill, you certainly don’t have the energy to make elaborate meals. My husband took over making dinners, and we kept them very simple. He also went out and bought snacky foods, especially for the kids, that I had long avoided. We were just grateful for modern conveniences! 

My situation (getting ill from mold in a house and a tick bite) also underlined a concept that I always believed in – eating well is a great habit, but it doesn’t ensure health. It can be part of the solution when rebuilding your health, but it’s just one part of the puzzle. We had to look at my health from a very holistic viewpoint, and well beyond simply food. 

I’m so glad that I had changed my subtitle to my blog to be “Beautiful food made simple” because seeing the beauty in the gift of food has long been my goal when writing about this topic. 

So yes, it’s true, I often have to eat healing diets with strict guidelines. But when I had what felt like near death experiences, I gained an even greater appreciation for life, and enjoying the everyday gifts it contains. And very little is as constant as the food we eat every day! 

Now that my health is oh-so-slowly improving, I am leaning into the gift of being able to enjoy sweet ice cream with my kids, and fudging on my “healing” diet on dates with my husband. Sometimes I decided not to “fudge” on certain foods again, after I felt it bothered me too much. But usually, it was well worth enjoying. 

The reason I started this food blog was because I wanted to celebrate the beauty and gift of food – even when I’ve had to eat a more restrictive diet to avoid both my food allergies and food intolerances. 

So none of this is exactly new. But I do feel that I have a heightened sense now of how grateful we should be for food, and how we should bless it not merely for being our fuel and offering us nutrients, but for the beautiful gift it is to us for enjoyment. Savor your food. Enjoy it. It’s good to be alive. Who wants to waste their life competing to be the best food “purist” ? 

So as I continue forward in my food blogging expect the following from me: 

  1. This is a food blog that embraces the beauty of food. Even for those of us, like myself, who has a fairly long list of foods she has to avoid. Let’s celebrate that beauty! 
  2. I continue to have a curiosity about how food, and daily habits we have interact with how we feel and our health. For that reason, I continue to read research and books on the topic, looking for what I can glean for myself. At some point, I imagine, I may share some of that research, or more of my story. 
  3. With everything on my plate, figuratively speaking, we often eat very practical and simple food. So some of my recipes will be practical and simple, because that’s how we really eat. 

Filed Under: Health

Roasted Frozen Broccoli

September 11, 2019 by KimiHarris 13 Comments

This is not only a simple recipe, but it's delicious and kid-friendly too. Yes! Even frozen vegetables can taste good!

We have a problem. If we don’t like how I prepare vegetables, they are pushed around on our plates and barely touched. This is no good, as I believe that vegetables are not only important for our health, but they can also be a delicious part of our daily diet as well. 

So when we made our big move to South Dakota, I faced a new problem. Back in Portland, Oregon, I had a large array of options for vegetables. Here? Not so much. Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of stores and some good options, but I found that I was eating less vegetables, they were costing a little more, and I wasn’t getting as good of a variety into our diets. Because of the climate here, we simply don’t have as many local options for produce. 

I needed to change my game plan, and that meant being willing to try more frozen vegetables. I have, admittedly, long eschewed frozen vegetables, and we mainly used them as a stop-gap. But I realized that there were many great frozen vegetables options here and I needed to figure out how to make them a little more delicious. I’m proud to say that we now eat them on a regular basis and all of us love them. Why? 

Can You Roast Frozen Vegetables?

Well, it turns out that you can roast them just like you do fresh vegetables! Why does roasting make fresh and frozen vegetables so much better? For a number of reasons: It helps crisp vegetables while they cook and if you leave them in long enough they will start to caramelize and give you a savory depth of flavor. 

Steamed frozen vegetables can sometimes have a mushy texture once cooked, or be very bland in flavor. I did find that the recipe I used for my cooking like a Roman day, using a spiced wine sauce with frozen broccoli, was really delightful. So you can absolutely have good steamed frozen vegetables. 

However, roasting them is a more fail-safe way for delicious vegetables that takes very little hands-on time. 

It’s also very versatile. We’ve done frozen Brussels sprouts, a carrots, broccoli and cauliflower mix, and both cauliflower and broccoli. The only thing we haven’t really been fans of is the frozen carrots. They were far better when roasted than steamed, but we found we preferred the other vegetables. 

Basic Method for Roasting Frozen Vegetables

Basic Method: Roasting vegetables is very easy. The basis concept is to toss frozen vegetables (don’t defrost) with oil, salt and pepper and roast in a hot oven until they are browned and crispy. I often don’t even set a timer. 

Additions: You can also toss them with dried herbs, fresh garlic before they go in the oven, or toss with a splash of balsamic vinegar and fresh herbs right after they come out of the oven. Or, roast with chopped bacon. This is the type of recipe where knowing the basic method is helpful, and then you can have fun trying a variety of vegetables and herbs and spices. 

But to get you started, here is a basic recipe for Roasted Frozen Broccoli

Roasted Frozen Broccoli

1 package of frozen broccoli (16 oz) 

2-3 tablespoons of oil or melted fat of your choice 

Salt and pepper 

  1. Preheat oven to 425F. I use parchment paper because I use sheet pans that are aluminum, but you can an unlined sheet pan as well. 
  2. Toss broccoli with oil/fat and salt and pepper. Place in oven and cook until browned to desired doneness. (between 15-35 minutes). 

Variation: My favorite variation is adding some sliced fresh onions to the broccoli before it cooks and then tossing with chopped fresh basil and a splash of balsamic vinegar once it’s out of the oven. Fabulous! 

Filed Under: $5 Dishes, 52 ways to save money on a healthy diet, AIP, Dairy Free, Egg Free, For the Kids, Gluten Free, Grain Free, Health, Sides, The Low Energy Guide to Healthy Cooking, Uncategorized, Vegan, Vegetarian

An Honest Review of “Detox” Baths

March 14, 2018 by KimiHarris 12 Comments

Does research support detox baths? Are they helpful? The answer may surprise you!

Detox baths are a popular recommendation. Is this a valid practice? Here I share my own experience, what research there is, and other possible reasons they are soothing and helpful regardless of whether they are pulling toxins out of your body.

In the past, I viewed detox baths as a way to have a relaxing moment. I wasn’t particularly concerned whether they were drawing toxins from my body. When I got sick from Lyme disease and mold exposure, I found that one of the few things that seemed to give me a boost, as we started my protocol, was taking magnesium, salt, or clay baths. They were wonderfully relaxing and one of the key practices for helping me through some painful weeks and months. In fact, I’ve had a daily warm bath for the last six months. If I skip it, I don’t feel as well and also get more achy and sore.

I’ve talked to other people with similar results.

After my positive experience, I questioned why exactly I had found them so helpful. Was the warm bath simply soothing? Was it because I also was using my bath time to practice mindfulness meditation (a topic for another post)? Or was there something particular about using the Epsom salts, salt, and clay that helped make them especially healing?

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of studies on baths and detox baths. An important aspect of research to remember is that most of our funding for research goes to developing new drugs. Over the 100 billion dollars spent annually on biomedical research, 60% of that is directly funded by pharmaceutical companies.Only a tiny amount goes to studying more natural, non-drug related options. It is therefore unsurprising that it can be hard to answer specific questions about common alternative recommendations – such as detox baths.

A lack of evidence doesn’t mean anything other than we just haven’t thoroughly studied it yet. That is one reason that I continue basic common sense practices – like eating a clean diet, taking time to relax, and yes, even bathing in soothing mineral baths if they seem to help me feel better. Yet, there are many recommendations made in the alternative world that are made on pretty shaky ground. I questioned whether they were truly “detoxing” me, or if there was another explanation for their helpful effects.

So I wondered what studies were out there, and whether they would be helpful. This is what I found.

Warm water is soothing

We should note from the first that warm water is soothing to achy bodies and sore muscles. I do believe that a big reason why I felt so refreshed after a hot bath was the bath water itself. In fact, there is a name for it – warm water therapy. Warm water without anything added to it can help reduce pain. The biggest hospital in my area now offers tubs for birthing mothers for this very reason. (I’ve tried them. It helps.)

Warm baths make you sweat (which could be detoxing)

People argue about how significant this research is, but I found it fascinating that there is research showing that we do detox through our sweat. Many traditional societies induced sweating on a regular basis, specifically for healthier bodies. Studies have found that sweating does excrete heavy metals and chemicals. While we have other pathways that are likely more important for detoxing (via the kidneys and liver and colon), opening up another detox pathway by sweating certainly doesn’t hurt. Here is some of the research: 1, 2, 3.

I do see changes in my sweating patterns when I’m ill or after I started getting treated for mold exposure, so this was something I especially wanted to research.

(Please note, before taking hot baths, or inducing sweating, you should make sure you don’t have any health conditions that could make this unsafe for you. Anyone who sweats a lot should also be replacing electrolytes and liquids.)

Clay – For beauty or health, or both?

Clay is often used in beauty baths, and have also become popular in detox baths. It may soften our skin, but does it provide any “detoxing support?” I think that one reason that clay is considered detoxing is because it’s a traditional remedy for dealing with bacterial and toxin exposure (you can read about that here). However, it’s far different to be consuming clay than pouring some into the bath. This study doesn’t answer our question directly but did study one healing aspect of external clay. They used French green clay packs to treat a Buruli ulcer (an infectious disease with is hard to treat with antibiotics) with very positive results.

I haven’t come across any studies so far about it pulling toxins through your skin, as is so often claimed. But I did find the Buruli ulcer study of interest, as it shows how it can treat bacterial infections of the skin. Buruli ulcers are in the same family as leprosy and very serious. That clay packs could help them heal it is pretty amazing! Read the whole study for why they think it worked.

Salt water Baths

Another traditional remedy is salt water bathing. Victorians used to “take the waters” for a variety of health complaints, and I’ve heard of it being helpful for certain skin conditions. One study carried out at the University of Manchester studied external applications of salt solutions. They found that it brought inflammation down. High inflammation levels bring up your risk for many diseases, and also increases body pain.

“The team also looked at the benefits of hypertonic solutions when used outside of the body. They soaked bandages in the solution before using them on the legs of mice. They also tested bathing the inflamed area in a hypertonic solution and in both cases the inflammation was reduced.
It appears the hypertonic solution produces an osmotic gradient through the skin, which explains why hot springs, which have a hypertonic make up, can ease the pain of conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis.
Vincent Compan worked with Dr Pelegrin on this research in the Faculty of Life Sciences. He says: “This research opens up exciting opportunities for the use of hypertonic solution as a treatment for inflammatory illnesses such as arthritis. What we’ve identified has the potential to be used to help so many patients.”

I found this pretty exciting! I don’t have arthritis, but I do have inflammation issues and Lyme related aches. This could help explain why salt baths were helpful for me. I did find that my symptoms likely caused by inflammation are reduced by salt or magnesium baths.

Magnesium

Similarly, Epsom salt is a form of magnesium used in baths and has long been used to soothe sore muscles. It certainly seems to help mine. I find baths with Epsom salts in them particularly soothing when I am sore. One question is whether we absorb magnesium well through the skin. There are small studies, such as this one, that suggest that we do, at least somewhat.  However, if you read this study that looks at most of the available research so far, it’s not clear that we do absorb significant amounts of magnesium through our skin.

While I find it helpful for pain relief and sore muscles, I wouldn’t use it instead of a magnesium supplement. If you have low blood pressure, take note that magnesium can lower it even more.

Conclusion:

My honest take on detox baths? I find them soothing, helpful for reducing pain, and they give me a big boost because of that. There is some promising research, but nothing that can prove that they detox you – at least in the way often claimed. I find it an excellent addition, but not a primary treatment in itself. But as a helpful piece of the puzzle? Absolutely.

Finally, it’s important to note that any activity that helps you rest, relax, and reduces stress is a vital part of a holistic plan for a healthy life. Stress reduction is key for a healthy life and not to be scoffed at. Warm baths can certainly be healthy and helpful simply on that fact alone.

What I use:

  • Clay
  • Epsom salt
  • Dead Sea Salt
  • Also consider something like this to filter out chlorine
  • I love using these activated charcoal coconut oil soaps.

Some links are affiliate.

Filed Under: Health

Lemon Apple or Raspberry Banana Green Monster Smoothie (and 5 Reasons to Drink Green Smoothies)

March 6, 2018 by KimiHarris 7 Comments

Why Green Smoothies are so healing, and how to enjoy them on a regular basis.

These healing smoothies are stuffed full of greens, and antioxidant-rich berries and lemons. They are especially for those bringing healing foods into their diet. I love them! Full fat coconut milk makes it creamy and delicious, but it also helps aid in the absorption of nutrition (Read: Fat and the absorption of vitamins). I personally love the flavor of lemon in the Lemon Apple smoothie, and it helps balance any bitterness from the greens. Plus, read about all of the health benefits of lemons here. Healing smoothies like these have been an important part of my diet since I got sick months ago, and I definitely felt the lack when I tried cutting them out.

I find that green smoothie drinking is somewhat frowned upon in the real food, slow food, Nourishing Traditions crowd. It’s true that smoothies weren’t available to our ancestors, but I have no problem using a blender if it will help me heal and energize me!

Here are five reasons that you might want to consider including them into your routine. Just remember that we are all unique, and you should add in what works best for you.

Green smoothies up your vegetable intake

I have long known that I feel significantly better when eating a lot of vegetables. The Wahls protocol has also inspired me to get a lot of produce into my daily diet. But I’m not going to lie – It can be hard to consume the amount that makes me feel best. This is especially true when you are healing or deal with chronic health issues. But it’s also true for those of us with busy lifestyles, work schedules, or kids! Consuming lots of greens in your smoothies is an easy way to enjoy the benefits of a high vegetable diet. 

Help you consume antioxidant rich berries

Blueberries, wild blueberries, and raspberries are easily accessible and offer a lot of antioxidant support. This is so important for fighting inflammation and it’s best to get antioxidants from food not supplements (read more why here PDF). They also add fiber and nutrition and are wonderful foods to keep in your diet on a regular basis. The lemon apple smoothie offers support through the lemon and apple too.

Green smoothies are FAST

I love the slow food movement, and I have a chicken slowly roasting over a bed of vegetables in my oven right now, but I love foods that are fast too. I recognize that I need fast things at least sometimes, and you probably do too.

Green smoothies are easy to digest

As many have experienced with Lyme disease, or mold exposure, and many other gut disturbances, digestion can be easily upset. Some find that they have to only consume well cooked vegetables. In my case, I also find smoothies are especially easy on my stomach. It’s been a huge blessing for me during months when everything I ate felt heavy in my stomach – with the exception of smoothies.

Green smoothies can be enjoyed on the go

And by the go, I don’t just mean taking them in the car. I like that I can be sipping on my smoothie slowly while helping a child with homework, or doing housework. I think we overall do need to slow down and eat slowly. But for someone like me, I’m thankful I can sip my way through my smoothie in my own time.

Tips for these recipes:

  • When you need a lot of extra nutrition, you can make a double portion, put most of it in a eight cup mason jar in the fridge, and enjoy it slowly throughout the day. Most days I fill my Vitamix container to the top with greens.
  • This is a STRONG green drink at the full amount of greens. Play around with what you personally tolerate.
  • Make it sweeter by using some apple juice, cut down on the greens if they are too strong for you, or try more mild greens like baby lettuce.
  • I do use a high powered blender (I recently switched to the Vitamix and love it!). You can also use a regular heavy duty blender, but you will likely have to adjust the recipe a bit (more liquid, less to blend, etc).
  • You can precook certain greens, as desired, and then freeze them in an ice cube tray instead of using raw. (You can read more about this issue here). I personally have decided not to worry about it too much and just rotate my greens.
  • For best taste, or if you are using nonorganic lemons, you can peel the lemon before slicing. Also, do this if you aren’t using a high powered blender.

Ingredients:

    • I love using this coconut milk or coconut cream.
    • Organic vanilla extract
    • For added protein, you can add this gelatin.

Lemon-Apple Green Monster Smoothie

PDF for printing

  • 2-4 cups of greens of choice (I rotate through baby spring mix, “power mixes” of greens, and spinach)
  • 1 large apple, cored, and cut into pieces.
  • 1 slice of lemon (seeded, and peeled, see notes above).
  • 1 cup of liquid + more as needed (I usually mix coconut cream or full fat coconut milk with water for this, or have used coconut water and/or kombucha, which also adds sweetness. Apple juice or part apple juice would make this a lot sweeter, but use in moderation. You can also add a half or whole banana, which does change the taste.)
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, optional
  • 2 handfuls of ice

Add all of the ingredients to a high powered blender, and blend until frothy and smoothie. Scrape down the sides and add more liquid as needed. Make sure that the texture is smooth!

Enjoy

Raspberry-Banana Green Monster Smoothie

  • 2-4 cups of greens of choice (I rotate through baby spring mix, “power mixes” of greens, and spinach).
  • ½ cup of frozen raspberries
  • ½ – 1 frozen banana (or fresh)
  • 1 cup of liquid + more as needed (I usually mix coconut cream or full fat coconut milk with water for this, or have used coconut water, which also adds sweetness. Apple juice or part apple juice would make this a lot sweeter, but use in moderation.)
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, optional
  • Small handful of ice

Add all of the ingredients to a high powered blender, and blend until frothy and smoothie. Scrape down the sides and add more liquid as needed. Make sure that the texture is smooth!

Enjoy

Disclosure: Some links are affiliate. 

Filed Under: AIP, Beverages, Dairy Free, Egg Free, Gluten Free, Grain Free, Health, The Low Energy Guide to Healthy Cooking, Vegan, Vegetarian

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The information you find here at The Nourishing Gourmet is meant to help you become a better cook! This site is primarily for sharing family friendly recipes. It's not meant to give medical advice or to make any health claims on the prevention or curing of diseases.This site is only for informational and educational purposes. Please discuss with your own, qualified health care provider before adding in supplements or making any changes in your diet. Also, any links to sponsors or affiliates (including Amazon) may give me a percentage of the sale or a pay per click. Thank you for supporting this site.

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