I am taking a short break from writing about living like a homesteader for a quick update on diet issues and things I've learned in living with my leaky gut diagnosis. The next blog post about living like a homesteader should be out later this week.
Last January, I was diagnosed by one of my doctors at the Cleveland Clinic with leaky gut, adding yet another diagnosis to my rather long list. Honestly, I'd been wondering if that were an issue, but none of my other doctors seemed to know or know what to recommend, not even the GI doctor I saw a few years back when I had six months of serious GI issues that turned out to be a serious intolerance to soy. My Cleveland Clinic doctor made it clear that he isn't sure exactly where the imbalance is, but he said that, in the end, the treatment is the same. He is convinced that my gut issues are adding to a too-high inflammation level, and when inflammation levels are high, autoimmune diseases go a bit haywire. So, his theory goes, if we can heal up my gut and lower that source of inflammation, it should help me with the rest of my health problems. Anyway, several of my diagnoses are autoimmune or likely to be autoimmune, and I've been getting worse for years, little by little. I've tried all the things my doctors have recommended, from giving up gluten to doing yoga, from physical therapy to CBT therapy, a pain management program, and so much more. I have odd genes, so I don't metabolize many medications right, and it's gotten to the point that I really can't take much for my chronic pain or other symptoms. So many of their treatment ideas didn't work or, in all honesty, made me worse. Finally, my pain specialist sent me to the Integrative Medicine clinic at the Cleveland Clinic, and my doctor there decided I likely have leaky gut of some kind and that it would be best to just treat it simply with supplements and a diet change since my body is so sensitive to everything. For the first time in ages and ages, I got a little bit better when following his treatment plan. Last week, I was bad and ate stuff he told me not to (in my defense, my pain was bad, so I wasn't cooking, and I just ended up eating takeout that I shouldn't have), and boy, have I been paying for that. Cramping and more, so very not fun at all. I saw him today, and he recommended adding a couple of things to my treatment plan to see if they help, and given that he's the first doctor in years to help me at all, I'm going to follow his advice. In March, I even let my specialists know that I'm taking a year off from their treatment plans that aren't working and just following this one to see how much I can improve. Oddly enough, in researching his treatment plan and all (like I do with everything my doctors tell me), I ran into the book Nourishing Traditions by Sarah Fallon Morell. I ended up getting it from the library and liked it so much that I bought a used copy off Amazon. Almost everything she recommends in the book is what my doctor told me to do, so I'm working my way through reading the book and getting ideas for what to add to my cooking and food prep routines. Basically, my treatment plan is the following:
So, I'm working on getting back on track with the diet part of the treatment plan, and the book Nourishing Traditions, though a bit political in some areas, is really helping. The goat's milk kefir that I made is amazing in the homemade ranch dressing I make, and I'm trying yogurt with it next. She has so many good-sounding recipes in this book, all of which are safe for me to try, and I can't help but think it's a good place to start for me. The Nourishing Traditions diet basically boils down to fermented food regularly, natural oils and fats with animal fats getting priority, good free-range protein sources, little sugar and refined carbs, and lots of fresh and raw fruits and vegetables. From what I read about SIBO and dysbiosis, all of that is right on track for helping my gut heal up and reduce my inflammation load. The author uses research from the early 1900s on different traditional diets and how people who followed them were healthier than people who'd moved from those villages to the cities and started eating a more processed diet, and the research, especially when combined with more recent research is quite compelling. It's hard for me not to think of this as simply a homestead diet. We grow and raise a good bit of our own food, and when I eat food we've put up, I do feel better (which I'd honestly just thought was placebo effect or something). In reading this book and talking with my doctor, I think it might be more than that. So, to this end, we're expanding our gardens a bit this year (if it ever warms up enough to plant!), raising more muscovy ducks for meat, and doing what we can to follow this diet. Fresh fruits and veggies, better quality meats, more fermented foods, and a lot less processed everything--if this helps, it's worth giving up the fast food and all. I'm so very tired of being tired and in such severe pain.
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**This is part of a series on the mindset and skills needed for living like a homesteader. Here is the link to the first blog post in the series.**
Much of what we do in homesteading revolves around food. If you think about it, much of what we do outside of our working hours revolves around food, regardless of whether we're living the homesteading lifestyle or not, from figuring out what to eat to going to the store to doing the dishes and dealing with leftovers to cleaning out fridges and freezers to repeating it all over again. Food is a primary need for humans, so a lot of what we do surrounds food. When it comes to living a more homestead-based lifestyle, food becomes an even bigger chore. Homesteaders try to grow and/or raise at least some of our food, and we try to find the rest on sale at local stores or get it from other local homesteaders and farmers. Sometimes, it feels like this is all we do and that it's the only important part of the lifestyle. Broadly, very generally speaking, most homesteaders do more cooking at home than we get takeout or eat in restaurants. Part of that is simply due to how much garden produce we have. It's hard to justify getting takeout when you have a whole basket of goodies picked just that day from your own garden. It's even harder when you have eggs and/or meat that you raised on your homestead in addition to fresh veggies and fruit. All that good, homegrown, fresh food is just going to spoil if not eaten or preserved quickly, so you might as well cook something up and make your own meal. So, how do you make your own meals from that food or foods you've purchased locally? There are a few key rules to always keep in the front of your mind:
Cooking like a homesteader, in the end, means thinking it through ahead of time and then cooking what's ready and available, planning it out as best you can, having the right ingredients and tools at the ready, and then having fun with it. For example, we raise our own ducks for eggs, meat, and pest control. After getting them back from the butcher, I usually can several of them up. That shelf-stable meat and bone broth can be made quickly, especially after adding in whatever else I have on hand, into a soup or stew. Throw in enough herbs and spices to make it sing and have some homemade sourdough bread on the side, and it's a nutritious meal we can eat for a couple of days. Once we get a little tired of that, then I take what's left, add in more broth or veggies if needed, and then thicken it up. Pour that into a casserole dish and top with drop biscuits, and I have a casserole that's just different enough that we can eat it for another day or two (or freeze those leftovers for nights no one feels like cooking). Or, I can thicken it up and make pot pie or add in another jar of meat and make pasties. Take spaghetti. Make a solid sauce, and that's a base that can be used to make spaghetti one night, American goulash the next, and then a baked pasta with zucchini after that (that can go in the freezer, always handy). The main ingredients for spaghetti grow in most gardens: tomatoes, onions, garlic, basil, oregano. Add in some shredded carrots and zucchini to make it a veggie marinara, and it's a very useful base for many meals. There's a reason so many homesteaders can up jar after jar of homemade spaghetti sauce. Same goes for many, many meal options. That roasted chicken can be turned into bone broth for soup, a chicken casserole, stir fry or fried rice, or the filling for a pot pie or pasty. That jar of salsa can be the cornerstone of so many dishes, from chilaquiles to enchiladas to tacos. Most dinners can be stretched by adding more vegetables, let alone adding more side dishes like our foremothers used to do, and then, anything left over is good for lunch the next day or dinner the next night. Remember: it takes time to change thinking and behavior patterns, so don't expect to be a perfect homesteader in the kitchen right away. I can't even say how much food waste I've pitched into our compost bin, having forgotten about it or finally admitted no one liked what I made. I mollify myself by remembering that the food waste of today is tomorrow's garden soil so I can grow more veggies to try again with next year. I'm still learning how to be more efficient in the kitchen and how to better use what we grow and raise. So, why not take that step into the kitchen, take a good look around to see what you have and what you need still, and then take a leap? |
CarinaI'm a 40s something disabled mom living the life on our small urban farm. Archives
April 2022
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