10 things I wish I knew sooner

and dinner out of a hat

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As a housekeeping note, I am experimenting with the structure of paid vs. free content. I want to maximize what I am able to offer for free, while still respecting my own time and energy. I am going to start by leaving these recipe posts free until the next piece publishes, then putting them behind the paywall — hopefully this will allow many of you to benefit, but gives paid subscribers the option to use this site as an archive of resources. I will also be adding printable PDF recipes to the paywalled posts.

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I’ve been at this chronic illness thing for a bit now. And as always, hindsight tends to be 20/20, or at least clearer than when we’re staring into the blurry abyss in front of our faces. Here’s a few things that would have been helpful to know when I started:

1. Food is not the enemy. There are foods that work for you, and foods that don’t work for you. There is no arbitrary policeman walking around your house to tell you that you are bad for eating chocolate even if you are attempting an autoimmune protocol. I know what the Facebook groups say, but good food = food that makes you feel good.

2. Tending works better than fixing. I am borrowing this phrase from the latest episode of The Lazy Genius. She pinpoints an important truth. Your body would love for you to pay attention to it, but this doesn’t mean you have to treat it like a problem to be eradicated.

3. Changing your diet won’t work if you don’t deal with your life. Diet can help. It can help a lot actually! But what it can’t do is fix the effects of underlying stress, trauma or toxic relationships. Those can really drive the chronic illness bus.

4. Leave the beans in. Some people really may struggle with legumes, but knowing what I know now about gut health, the importance of fiber for feeding a diverse microbiome, the fact that FOOD IS EXPENSIVE and beans are cheap… Well, I would have left them in my diet, or tried to reintroduce them, or tried to eat them in small quantities. People fuss about the lectins, but there are traditional methods for preparation — soak, sprout, pressure cook — that mitigate a lot of these anti-nutrient issues.

5. Carbohydrates make (most) people happy. One of the main pitfalls women, especially women of childbearing age who are cycling, pregnant or breastfeeding, fall into, is to assume they need to eat low carb. Balancing blood sugar is important, but in general, eating too few carbohydrates is going to be perceived as stress by your HPA axis, which governs the cascade of hormones — stress and reproductive. If you have a limited diet it may take extra effort to get enough carbohydrates.

6. Fat is your friend. Fat keeps you full. It helps your brain. It provides a set of nutrients that are ONLY found and absorbed alongside fat (fat soluble nutrients are a thing). Olive oil, ghee, avocado oil, coconut oil, butter, good quality lard, tallow, duck fat — amazing!

7. Get a sharp knife. Bad kitchen tools are really annoying. If you are annoyed every time you try to chop something it makes cooking less enjoyable, and this adds up if you’re doing it every day. A sharp chef’s knife with a comfortable handle will be worth every penny you spend. I have something similar to this one — I really like the Santoku style. It was a present roughly 10+ years ago and is still my kitchen workhorse. My husband sharpens it regularly but it keeps its edge well, and I miss it anytime I’m working in someone else’s kitchen. I also suggest watching a few tutorials for things like dicing onions or mincing garlic if you’re not comfortable with those skills. Learning how to chop efficiently will speed up prep work so much.

8. No one cares about your diet. I mean this in the kindest way possible. We are so pre-occupied with what everyone else thinks, but the truth is that, to most people, what you eat or don’t eat is a small and boring detail of your life. This doesn’t mean they don’t care about you, it just means they don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what you’re eating for breakfast, unless they also deal with similar limitations. If you don’t get weird about it, most people will be kind and respectful, even if they don’t understand.

9. Healthy does not equal skinny. If you are attached to weight change in either direction as your primary measure of health, you’re probably going to be really frustrated. Choose some other, better markers to track. Things like sleep, energy, mood stability, libido… We’ve been fed this whole shtick that weight is about calories in and calories out¹. And man. That is just a whole load of crock. Hormones, inflammation, stress, cortisol… the list of things that are not really in our control can go on forever. Do your best to tend your body. Look for help if things don’t make sense.

10. Breakfast foods are an American construct. If you can’t eat eggs, or yogurt or toast, what DO you eat for breakfast? It turns out that many cultures around the world just see breakfast as another meal. Dinner leftovers, rice bowls, soup, curries etc… are all perfectly acceptable as breakfast options. They also keep your blood sugar much more stable. Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.

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This recipe works for dinner, but is also ideal to prep ahead of time for breakfast. The sweet potatoes and cinnamon give it a touch of sweetness that makes it a bit more palatable first thing in the morning. If you can eat eggs, you could always add a fried egg on top, or some avocado for extra healthy fats. I served this with GF raisin bread and a side of sliced apples for a quick-pivot Friday dinner² this week.

Turmeric Sweet Potato Hash

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Turmeric Sweet Potato Hash

Prep time: 45 minutes (start dinner at ~5 pm to eat at 6 pm)

Ingredients (this served our family of 7, with leftovers for a couple of breakfasts)

5 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
1 Tbsp cooking fat (I used tallow, you could also use olive oil, avocado oil, or ghee)
1 small red onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
2 lbs of ground beef (could also easily sub in venison, elk, or another dark meat) 
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp turmeric 

sheet pan
parchment paper
large skillet (mine is 12")
sharp knife

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel and dice sweet potatoes into small cubes - about 1/2 an inch. You want them to be the size of what you’d normally buy for frozen diced hash browns. Spread evenly on parchment lined pan and bake for about 30 minutes, until cooked through but not too mushy.

2. Dice onion and mince garlic, heat cooking fat in skillet and sauté onions and garlic until fragrant and translucent.

3. Add ground beef to the onion mixture, and cook until browned. If there is excess fat, you can drain some of it at this point.

4. Add salt, pepper, turmeric and cinnamon, combine well.

5. By this point the potatoes should be done. You can use the parchment paper to funnel them into the pan. Combine, taste and check for seasonings — adjust to taste if needed.

6. Enjoy!

you can do this part holding a baby, parchment paper saves dishes, not beautiful but tasty and effective.

1. The number of people, women specifically, who are most likely drastically UNDER eating for their body’s needs, is really high.

2. The real story: I planned hamburgers. I forgot to thaw the meat and my husband was going to be home too late to grill.