DIY Food Adventure Menu: Breakfast, Bone Broth, and Gestational Diabetes

My Pregnancy Journey

Pregnancy has been going well for me--really well.  I feel great and am enjoying the experience SO much.  I haven't felt sick and haven't had problematic issues, so I am grateful and try to keep it that way with good exercise, sleep, and real food.

The little one is kicking up a storm as I near the end of my second trimester.  I can feel him all the time twisting and turning, poking and doing his daily WOD.  It is amazing to feel the softness of my belly in some spots and how it gets firm in others and know that he is right there.  And the cutest thing: he wakes up to my husband's alarm every morning!  I can be silent and still and once that alarm goes off, I get a symphony of movement inside.  So incredible!

I am really just amazed with the whole process and seeing biological principles I have studied my whole life actually happen to me.  It is a fascinating adventure :)


Eating Real Food for Two


Of course I am not actually eating double the portions, but I am eating with the little one in mind.  My body needs more and asks for it through hunger and satiation cues.  While I know to eat meals with protein, fat, and carbohydrate, my body also likes fruit more than it ever did before and definitely likes some meats more than others--cold chicken is not one of the likes.

It is a really neat experience to listen and fuel my body and my growing son with real food: food I am making myself from quality ingredients.  I can definitely tell we both thrive on home-cooked food and feel the not-so-pleasant aftermath of restaurant food: digestive not-fun-ness, sleepless nights for us both, congestions, and crankiness and moodiness for me the day following.  I have even done the impossible and turned down ice cream on occasion because I am starting to get it that sugar before bed is a no-no for me.

Since I am 27 weeks pregnant (out of 40--no it doesn't really make sense as a month--is it 6 or 7?--except that I guess I have 3 calendar months to go), the fun of gestational diabetes testing has arisen.

I have read on author of The Paleo Solution Robb Wolf's site (especially this great article: Gestational Diabetes--What constitutes low blood sugar?) that many who forgo starches and complex carbohydrates like grains fail the standard Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (dosing you with 50g of carbohydrate in a sugary drink and seeing what happens in an hour--you pass if your insulin rises to the challenge and gets your blood sugar under control).  They fail because that is a HUGE metabolic catastrophe on a system that is honed for dealing with smaller surges.  It doesn't instantly mean you have gestational diabetes--it just means that your body is like WTF and it takes longer to figure out the mess you've made for it.  So instead of subjecting my system to that metabolic nightmare and then having to jump through multiple hoops after failing the test (like an even bigger dose for a 3-hour test!) I decided to try the glucose monitoring alternative and get to play diabetic for a few days every other week, testing my blood sugar at least four times a day.

It is a fun experiment, actually, but I do respect the pain in the ass it is for actual diabetics.  Through one week and a halfway through another I have learned that my body usually runs on the lower side of the spectrum (which is normal for lower carbers) and that stress and skipping meals is pretty awful for me: I hit a 54 (their normal low side is 70) one day when I let myself go five hours between meals.  I also noticed that the low low correlated with extreme hunger to the point of wanting to just wolf down whatever was in sight, irritability, nervousness and gitters.  Go figure!  So cut someone a little slack when they get cranky before a meal--it's just their body going into instinctual "need food NOW" mode.

I also hit a 146 (normal high they told me is 130) after taking my reading less than an hour after I finished my meal.  Yikes!  Since you are supposed to take it an hour after starting, I thought that would be sufficient, but I lingered eating, so when I took my blood sugar it was maybe a half an hour after finishing--not enough time to get that dessert of sliced figs out of my system).

But on the whole, everything has been normal and the gestational diabetes professionals okayed my results so far.  I just have to keep monitoring periodically to keep an eye on things over the danger period of the third trimester.  To me, it is a really neat experiment and shows that what I am eating is fine--I just need to be sure I don't skip or prolong meals.


The Menu

So what I have I been eating?  Well, it is pretty simple to write because I have been partaking in a photo log of my meals for the DIY Food Adventure through my gym: CrossFit Santa Cruz.  Let's start with breakfast and for the brevity of this post, we'll put the others in future posts.

Breakfast

Breakfasts for me are usually Everett Farm eggs and McClelland's Dairy grass-fed butter with a bunch of grapes.  If carnitas is in the house, I'll scramble that in with my eggs. creating one of my favorite foods ever.  OMG delicious!   Just remember to crisp it up in butter before adding the eggs for that extra yum factor and wear an apron unless you don't mind getting splattered :)

Since I have been monitoring my blood sugar, I have also thrown in a pre-breakfast snack (First Breakfast) of a mug of roasted chicken bone broth using the recipe below with a banana or a tiny 1/4c of nectar of the gods Everett Farm apple juice.

Slow Cooker Chicken Bone Broth from the recipe: The Food Lover's Primal Palate: Bone Broth 
(which also provides a version for turkey bones and beef bones--check it out!)


Here's how I make our version:

Prep Time: 5 minutes or less
Cooking Time: 24-48+ hours in the slow cooker

Our Ingredients:

• 2-4 carcasses of roasted chickens (I use this recipe by Thomas Keller) [or as many as you can stuff in the pot] and these can be fresh or frozen (normally I freeze them until I have enough for a batch of broth) and can stick up out of the water, but you still need to be able to lid the slow cooker
• filtered water to fill the slow cooker to about an inch shy of the top
• 1T apple cider vinegar (find the one with the mother inside--the vinegar breaks down the bones to get their goodness and you'll notice they crumble once the broth is done)
• 1T kosher salt
• 15-20 grinds of black pepper
• any other seasonings you desire: we've tried garlic powder, cayenne, and herbs and spices--but actually, I like the plain jane broth best by itself 
• (and sure, you can add mirepoix and all sorts of fancy, but try the simple one first--it's delicious!)

Method:
Chicken carcasses go into the slow cooker pot.
Filtered water goes into the pot.
Apple cider vinegar goes into the pot.
Salt and pepper go into the pot...
"Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies..." sings the old fisherman from Jaws.

Now all you need to do is set that pot on LOW for its max time limit and just reset and reset and have some broth, add back in more water, reset and reset and basically you can have another family member for the better part of a week, bubbling away on your countertop and providing a feast to your senses.

The broth at first is thick and fatty deliciousness and thins as you take some out and replace with more water, diluting it.  Always stir it up before taking any out.  And you'll notice that you start to lose the consistency if you dilute it too much, so at that point: Turn off the pot.  Cool and strain your broth using cheesecloth or a nice wire strainer (or the recipe template uses a paint strainer--neat!).  Store in the refrigerator for the rest of the week or freeze for longer.  Heat again before enjoying.  Pretty nifty how easy and how delicious this simple recipe really is!  Thanks Food Lover's Primal Palate!

Serving Suggestions:
I love sipping this broth from a mug--it's as warm and comforting as a mug of hot tea or cocoa.  It is also a main dish when you add roasted chicken back in for the most amazing chicken soup ever.

Hope you enjoy it too and have fun with your own Do It Yourself Food Adventure!

Cut Carbs to Cure Diabetes

  Diabetes  

OMG.  I just read an amazing article and have to share (thank you CrossFit Fire of the Gods for the link!).  Before we jump in, let me get a CrossFit word in and express what an awesome time I had at the Coaches Prep this past weekend.  Meeting such amazing coaches (like Paul who writes the CrossFit Fire of the Gods blog) and working with HQ's finest really was an experience I'll never forget.  There is nothing like immersion in something you love.  CrossFit and nutrition are my passions.  So on to the latter:

Men's Health: The Cure for Diabetes

Important snippets:

"My first line of treatment is to have patients remove carbohydrates from their diets," explains Dr. Vernon, a petite, energetic mother of two who also serves as the president of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians. "This is often all it takes to reverse their symptoms, so that they no longer require medication."

and

"Which do you think people would find more practical?" asks Dr. Vernon. "Avoiding bread and sugar, or taking an insulin shot every day?" Before you answer, consider that the ADA, America's leading authority on diabetes, refuses even to pose this question to millions of diabetes sufferers, leaving them unaware that there may actually be an alternative to leading a medicated life.

"You might prefer to just take the insulin, and that's your choice," says Dr. Vernon. "But in my experience, patients are far healthier and happier without it." She pauses for a moment. "And isn't that the whole point?"

The simplicity is astounding: just cut starchy, sugary carbohydrates from your diet and CURE Type-2 Diabetes (what used to be known as "adult onset diabetes" but which now impacts children and adults alike).  NO insulin injections needed ever again?  Wow!  My own inner voice tells me to caution this one-size-fits-all approach, but the data is out there and, seriously, isn't it worth the try?

So for those of us who aren't diabetic, what can we get from this news?  Proactively, cut these carbohydrates to avoid ever developing diabetes.  If you could eliminate this threat to your health, a threat that attacks 23.6 million children and adults in the United States—7.8% of the population (back in 2007, and more today) why wouldn't you?

What are sugary, starchy carbohydrates?  Well, ALL sugars (yes, even those with deemed "healthy" or "natural" because they come from plants or bees) and grains and potatoes, which are starchy.  Good rule of thumb: stick to veggies primarily and limit high glycemic fruits (mostly tropical fruits) and high glycemic veggies (root veggies like beets, carrots, and sweet potatoes).  NOTE: this isn't a "no carb" approach.  Eat as many veggies as you want!  Seriously!  They have minimal carbohydrate that is going to elevate your blood sugar and also contain fiber, which is great for digestion and slowing down metabolism of carbohydrate into blood sugar.  The common misconception of "low carb" is "no carb," which by the size of my salads, kale chips by the pile, and cauliflower to fill my plate--I can attest is definitely NOT "no carb."

Why does cutting carbs help diabetics? 

Okay, more specifics on diabetes.  According to the article:

So what exactly is diabetes? In freshman-biology terms, it's a disease of the hormone insulin. Secreted by your pancreas, insulin moves glucose -- the form of sugar your body uses for energy -- from your bloodstream into your cells. Problems arise, however, when, often due to excessive weight gain, your cells start to become resistant to the effects of insulin. (It knocks, no one answers.) As a result, more insulin is required to dispose of the same amount of glucose. (The knock becomes a loud banging.) This condition, called insulin resistance, is the first stage of type-2 diabetes.

As insulin resistance worsens over time, your pancreas has to pump out enormous amounts of insulin to force glucose into your cells. (Hey, let's use a sledgehammer!) Eventually, your pancreas has trouble keeping up, leaving you with chronic high blood sugar, a.k.a. hyperglycemia -- the defining marker of diabetes and the root cause of the calamities that arise from it. Alas, it only gets worse from here: If the resistance continues to mount, some of the insulin-producing beta cells inside your pancreas can "burn out" and stop working altogether. (In type-1 diabetes, an autoimmune disorder destroys most or all of the beta cells.) Once beta cells burn out, you're looking at a lifetime of daily insulin injections.

So Type-2 diabetics, you are in luck.  There is a cure.  What about Type-1 diabetics?  Here is Robb Wolf's take after a comment from a recovering Type-1 diabetic who switched to paleo and is now off insulin:

It is well understood that Type 1 Diabetes is a failure of the beta cells of the pancreas to produce insulin. This is generally acknowledged to be the result of an autoimmune response, usually attributed to a viral infection or some kind of trauma. What is less known is the role of grain lectins in this process. Many people benefit not only from reducing the recommended American Diabetes Association 60% carb diet (higher even than the diet that causes most of the type 2 diabetes we see) because of a more fat fueled metabolism but also, occasionally, we  see a return of normal pancreatic function with the removal of the neo-lithic foods. The inflammation and immune response that has been beating down the beta cells cease, some repair occurs and things come back to normal. This is not the norm unfortunately, but it does happen. Even without the full return of pancreatic function, the reduced carb, higher fat paleo diet greatly mitigates the accelerated aging and systemic inflammation inherent in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Need another case study of similar results?  Here's a post of a mom updating Robb on her child recovering from Type-1 Diabetes and some of his conclusions:

This REVERSAL of a life-threatening autoimmune disease is being mediated by a focus on food quality (paleo).

For the folks for whom the paleo diet does not reverse their condition (due likely to the complete destruction of ALL pancreatic beta cells) it does confer the BEST blood sugar control and best insulin management strategy of anything they have tried. This is likely due to the effects grains have on insulin signaling via leptin.

The same mechanisms which underlie the reversal of Type 1 diabetes underlie ALL autoimmune disease. In the case of these other autoimmune conditions however, we do not see the confounding issue of pancreatic dysfunction. If we can just get folks to try a paleo diet for about a month they typically see a remarkable improvement in symptoms.

Why haven't we heard this before?

If cutting carbs (particularly ubiquitous grains) is such a viable solution for diabetics, why isn't it being promoted by the American Diabetes Association and the medical community?  Well, the Men's Health article tackles some reasons which I'll let you read, but here is my take:

The world is working against this simple solution because it challenges the dominant paradigm and attacks the very foundation of our agriculture-based society.  Medical and nutrition authorities like the USDA, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, and many others as well as Big Pharma and the agriculture lobby all oppose simple solutions that threaten their industry and control.  Grains provide the basis for our economy (try to find me an ingredient list or product made without a derivative of corn, just try).  Multi-million dollar pharmaceuticals provide the easiest solution: just pop a cure-all pill, albeit with horrifying side-effects, dependency, expense, and environmental impact.  It is a twisted web without our best interests in mind.  Read The Omnivores Dilemma for an enlightening experience about how deep we are entrenched in a cycle based on money, not health.  It is truly sad.

The real kicker: even that Mens Health article is from 2006 (I couldn't find the article date, but I saw a blog reviewing it from November 2006).  Four years ago.  What has changed?

YOU can make a difference!

Okay, back to the light.  YOU can use food to nourish, not harm.  Regardless of how hard it may seem, YOU can change.  And seriously, it isn't that hard.  Fighting fires is hard.  Life without a limb is hard.  Dealing with death is hard.  Living without bread, rice, and pasta is peanuts, or should I say almonds ;)  You can be happy and healthy eating very well paleo-style, as my recipes and those of the greater community can attest.  There really is more you can have than can't.  I will continue to provide supportive material and all of those bloggers and websites I recommend can help you too.  If you have a question, ask!  Bigger picture: Isn't a healthy, long life worth the effort?

Now YOU know what YOU can do to help you get healthy and stay healthy.  Knowledge is power, so what are YOU going to do about it?