The post Decadent Turkey Burger with Sliced Apple and Blue Cheese appeared first on .

The post Grain-Free Sandwich Rolls appeared first on .

I made mine with grass fed ground meat but this could be made with any ground meat bison, chicken or turkey.  And buy some good bacon!  If you put turkey bacon on this….well I just don’t have any words…..by the way I smeared some barbecue sauce on it half way through cooking and served some on the side, thats optional but so yummy!  Look for one that has low sugar and no MSG.  I served with some spiralized sweet potatoes fried in olive oil and salt but mashed potatoes or faux cauliflower potatoes would also be a great side!

ps Don’t forget you can change the serving size below and it will automatically change the measurements for you if you want to make a larger batch.  This works on any of my recipes!Meatloaf its such a un-appetizing sounding word kind of like fruitcake or Spam, I don’t know why it reminds me of that but whatever.  It’s ridiculously easy to make its cheap and best of all everyone will like it!  You know why? If they don’t like meatloaf just slice it and serve it on a bun and you have a hamburger!  This one is extra special because it has bacon on it and anything with bacon is better, its a fact

I made mine with grass fed ground meat but this could be made with any ground meat bison, chicken or turkey.  And buy some good bacon!  If you put turkey bacon on this….well I just don’t have any words…..by the way I smeared some barbecue sauce on it half way through cooking and served some on the side, thats optional but so yummy!  Look for one that has low sugar and no MSG.  I served with some spiralized sweet potatoes fried in olive oil and salt but mashed potatoes or faux cauliflower potatoes would also be a great side!

ps Don’t forget you can change the serving size below and it will automatically change the measurements for you if you want to make a larger batch.  This works on any of my recipes!

The post Grain-Free Bacon Meatloaf appeared first on .

Start with the grater accessory for your food processor.  You can also use a hand held grater, but will take longer.

Chop your head of cauliflower into pieces that fit in the opening (if using the food processor). Feed through as little or much as you want.  I like to do the whole head and store in the refrigerator to use during the week.

It’s that simple.  Fry up with a little grass fed butter or olive oil and salt until its the consistency you want.  Can be softer or crunchy.  Use as a base for asian meals.  Make fried rice!  Make cilantro rice and use in Mexican food like they do at Chipotle!  Use in soup!  The possibilities are endless

The post How to make Cauliflower Rice appeared first on .

This is probably my favorite grain free treat that I make.  My son would agree!  It is similar to my banana muffins but has that little extra oomph on top that makes it more like a coffee cake.

I use Kerrygold grass-fed butter as the topping.  Grass-fed butter has a whole host of nutritional benefits that I wanted to share with you.  Given the choice I would pick grass-fed butter, ghee, coconut oil, olive oil or avocado oil any day over margarine, and vegetable/seed oils for baking and cooking.

Grass-Fed Butter:

According to Kris Gunnars from the website Authority Nutrition:

Butter is basically just milk fat, also known as butterfat.

Butterfat is highly complex. It contains about 400 different fatty acids, and a decent amount of fat-soluble vitamins.

Fatty acids are actually more than just energy sources, some of them have potent biological activity.

As it turns out, many of the fatty acids in butter can affect our physiology and biochemistry in some way, leading to major health benefits.

This includes the fatty acid CLA (conjugated linoleic acid). It is popular as a fat loss supplement, and studies show that it can have powerful effects on health.

Grass-fed butter contains 5 times more CLA than butter from grain-fed cows.

Butter from grass-fed cows is also much higher in Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin K2, compared to butter from grain-fed cows 

and p.s. don’t’ be afraid of the saturated fat, the link between heart disease and saturated fat has been debunked in my opinion.  I will be writing about that at a later date but if you want to read something on that, here is a link to a WSJ article.  Everyone has an opinion on this and there is scientific studies done by both sides.  This is the one I personally agree with based on my reading and studying and what has worked for me.

The topping also includes 2 Tbsp of coconut sugar.  You need the sugar to make the topping crunchy, stevia will not work.  Coconut sugar is still sugar but it is lower in fructose than sugar, has a lower glycemic load and does contain more nutrients.  For an occasional treat it is a decent sugar substitute.

This is probably my favorite grain free treat that I make.  My son would agree!  It is similar to my banana muffins but has that little extra oomph on top that makes it more like a coffee cake.

I use Kerrygold grass-fed butter as the topping.  Grass-fed butter has a whole host of nutritional benefits that I wanted to share with you.  Given the choice I would pick grass-fed butter, ghee, coconut oil, olive oil or avocado oil any day over margarine, and vegetable/seed oils for baking and cooking.

Grass-Fed Butter:

According to Kris Gunnars from the website Authority Nutrition:

Butter is basically just milk fat, also known as butterfat.

Butterfat is highly complex. It contains about 400 different fatty acids, and a decent amount of fat-soluble vitamins.

Fatty acids are actually more than just energy sources, some of them have potent biological activity.

As it turns out, many of the fatty acids in butter can affect our physiology and biochemistry in some way, leading to major health benefits.

This includes the fatty acid CLA (conjugated linoleic acid). It is popular as a fat loss supplement, and studies show that it can have powerful effects on health.

Grass-fed butter contains 5 times more CLA than butter from grain-fed cows.

Butter from grass-fed cows is also much higher in Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin K2, compared to butter from grain-fed cows 

and p.s. don’t’ be afraid of the saturated fat, the link between heart disease and saturated fat has been debunked in my opinion.  I will be writing about that at a later date but if you want to read something on that, here is a link to a WSJ article.  Everyone has an opinion on this and there is scientific studies done by both sides.  This is the one I personally agree with based on my reading and studying and what has worked for me.

The topping also includes 2 Tbsp of coconut sugar.  You need the sugar to make the topping crunchy, stevia will not work.  Coconut sugar is still sugar but it is lower in fructose than sugar, has a lower glycemic load and does contain more nutrients.  For an occasional treat it is a decent sugar substitute.

The post Grain Free Banana Coffee-Cake Bread appeared first on .

Honestly I think your body can take a lot when you are a teenager and 20-something.  When you enter your 30’s your body really starts to change.  Hormones start to change, testosterone decreases, the hydrochloric acid in our stomach lessens making it harder to digest foods, our metabolisms slow down, some of us have kids, we are at the peak of our careers, less time to exercise and sometimes its way too easy to let nutrition slide to the back burner.

When I got closer to 40.  My days of just eating “healthy” seemed to be numbered.  One day I woke up grumpy, bloated, achey and went to the kitchen to make my “heart healthy” bowl of oatmeal and I said enough is enough.  I had not been eating very much sugar for a long time but I ate brown rice, quinoa and eziekiel toast, rice pasta, oatmeal, skinny pop (1/2 a bag a day!) bread when I ate out, along with healthy meat’s and fruits and veges, cheese, 1/2 and 1/2 in my coffee.  All these things that I have been told all my life were good for me.  So what was wrong?  My energy was low, I felt depressed, tired in the afternoons.  I had eczema on my hands.  I would go to bed 5-7 lbs heavier looking like I was 5 months pregnant, and it hurt!  My gut was unhappy with me most of the time. When I exercised I was sore and achey the next day.  I looked healthy, but inside I knew something was wrong.

As we are all bio-individuals, have different genes, different digestive systems, different blood types….one plan for someone may not work for another, but there are certain symptoms that are similar and certain changes that can be made that can work for anyone.  I began studying more and more about different lifestyles, auto-immune diseases, inflammation in the body, fatigue and thyroid problems.

The solution was simple.  Eat whole real foods that have been around for millions of years and skip things that are artificially processed. Processed foods have things added or stripped that make them harder to digest, they lead to an unhealthy gut and cause inflammation in our bodies.  I began reading of miraculous transformations from energy levels to gut health to completely curing auto-immune diseases!  I decided to try.

I consumed the “Grain Brain” by Dr. Perlmutter, “Why we Get Fat” by Gary Taubes, and other grain-free, dairy-free, sugar-free cookbooks like Whole 30 with wonderful health explanations in the front.  I realized I would be eating mostly vegetables and fruit, nuts, seeds, healthy fats and good quality meats.  Yes bacon is allowed but this is a vegetable heavy diet!  Even coined as a “Pegan” diet by Dr. Mark Hyman.  As a runner I was nervous as it sounds like since you are not eating grains you would be eating very low-carb.  Some people do this and eat little or no carbs to put themselves in to a state of ketosis where you are burning fat as energy.  I think this is a great program for someone who needs to lose a lot of weight, but long-term it’s not necessary.  What drove me was the reduction in inflammation and the fact that I might feel better, my gut might be happy once again!  As someone who could eat whatever they wanted (albeit relatively healthy foods) for most of her life this new, being 40 and things don’t come easy anymore, thing was really getting to me!

I switched the 1/2 and 1/2 in my coffee over to coconut oil, here is the recipe for my morning coffee.  Immediatley the daily mucus that I dealt with subsided.  I cut out ALL grains, not just gluten. For carbs I eat sweet potatoes, white potatoes, squash, bananas and other starchy fruits and veges.  I cut out all sugar (except for my daily piece of 70%+ dark chocolate!) all cheese and milk, all soy, all vegetable oils (except when I eat out) all beans, (or legumes), this includes peanut butter (hardest thing I did!)  My day look’s like this:

Breakfast: My protein coffee, eggs with vegetables or leftover dinner (yes you can have dinner for breakfast!), banana with almond butter or home made Paleo muffins here. I also eat Quest bar’s occasionally.  They are the only protein bar that agrees with me and the whey in them does not seem to cause me mucus or stomach distress like other dairy products. (pick one that say’s no artificial sweeteners!)  I include healthy fats with each of my meals as protein and fat are what keep you full.  This includes coconut oil, ghee, olive oil, nuts or avocado.

Lunch: Salad with protein (meat, chicken, tuna, lunch meat) and home made dressing made with olive oil not vegetable or seed oils, or leftover dinner.

Dinner: A protein consisting of grass-fed red meat, organic chicken or wild caught fish a starchy vegetable and another vegetable or salad. I learned to make my vegetable noodles so I could enjoy pasta sauces.  A piece of dark chocolate and 1 glass of red wine.

snacks:  When you eat enough fat and protein, you are full all the time and honestly do not really feel the need to snack.  If I did it would be veges in guacamole, kale or seaweed chips, olive oil potato chips, one of my protein coffee’s, grain-free muffins, a piece of fruit or a handful of nuts and raisins.

I can see how this might sound daunting, but if you can stick with it for a few weeks (remember you may feel worse before you feel better as your body may need to detox from sugar and processed carbs) you might actually be able to see how good you were meant to feel!

The results:  After 3 months I can say that every symptom I had complained about before is gone.  Bloating is gone, my weight does not fluctuate during the day, I never have indigestion or gas, my stomach is flat all the time, my energy levels have sky-rocketed, when I get out of bed in the morning NOTHING aches not even after I work out hard, my concentration is better, I sleep more soundly, my mood is better, eczema is gone, bumps on my face are gone.  I am the leanest I have ever been.  I feel like a new person.  Any struggle I had with giving up foods I thought I needed is gone.  I feel so good that I don’t believe I could ever go back to feeling like I did.  I have found substitutes for favorite foods.  I bake with stevia and coconut flour and nut flour/butters. So many yummy options. I use vegetable noodles for pasta, I even have grain-free options for wraps and bread if you miss having a sandwich.

If you are having any of these symptoms, why not give it a try for a few weeks?  I caution against just going gluten free.  Most gluten-free products are made with very hard to digest flours.   People with compromised digestion and/or an auto-immune disease will find sometimes these products are even harder on your gut then gluten.  Giving up the sugar and grains are key.  If after you try it and are feeling great, you can try adding back in some white rice (easiest grain to digest).  I have white rice on occasion.  It’s not for everyone and it doesn’t have to be done forever.  If you feel like your gut is happy, then keep up the good work!  But having a healthy gut is key to good health.  When your gut is inflamed and leaky you cannot absorb the nutrients in your food properly.  Avoiding grains can heal the lining and get you back on track.

There are many books with eating plans in my store.  All the recipes on my blog follow a grain-free, sugar-free, mostly dairy-free protocol.  If you decide to try and have any questions, let me know!  I’d love to hear any success stories!  Comment below or send me a message

At the age of 42 my gut is the happiest (and flattest) it’s ever been!!

The post Adjusting the Way We Eat After 40 appeared first on .

Did you know there is a box below in the recipe card where you can adjust the serving size and it will recalculate the measurements for you?  You know, just in case you wanted to make a double batch!

The post Grain-Free Pumpkin Spice Muffins appeared first on .