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You’re listening to the Balanced Bites podcast episode 248.
Welcome to the Balanced Bites podcast with Diane Sanfilippo and Liz Wolfe. Diane is a certified nutrition consultant, and the New York Times bestselling author of Practical Paleo, The 21-Day Sugar Detox, and co-author of Mediterranean Paleo Cooking. Liz is a nutritional therapy practitioner, and the best-selling author of Eat the Yolks and The Purely Primal Skincare Guide. Together, Diane and Liz answer your questions, interview leading health and wellness experts, and share their take on modern paleo living with their friendly and balanced approach. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content within this podcast are intended as general information only, and are not to be considered a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Liz Wolfe: Hey everyone. We are back! {singing} We’re back! We are back, we are getting Doug back!
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {singing} And we’re the three best friends that anyone could have!
Diane Sanfilippo: I was going to say, {singing} I’m back, dun-nu-nu-nu-nu-nuh! {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Oh wow.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: How about we hear from one of our sponsors before we take this too far off the rails.
Diane Sanfilippo: Let’s, let’s.
Liz Wolfe: Our podcast sponsorship today comes from Vital Choice, an online purveyor of the world’s best wild seafood delivered right to your door; because juggling a busy life shouldn’t mean you have to forgo healthy meals. At www.vitalchoice.com, you’ll find wild Alaskan salmon, halibut, tuna, sable fish, and cod, as well as prawns, crab, and scallops. You’ll also find grass-fed organic Wagyu beef, free range heritage chicken, fresh frozen organic berries, and dark organic chocolates. Make a vital choice by eating the highest quality food you can. Vital Choice; come home to real food. Use code BALANCEDBITES to save on your first order at www.vitalchoice.com.
1. News and updates from Diane & Liz [2:03]
Liz Wolfe: Alrighty. So, Diane. You’ve had a big couple of weeks. What are your updates?
Diane Sanfilippo: I have. So, updates before we get into all the updates of the two weeks. Let’s see; I think this episode is going to air on Tuesday, which from when we’re recording this will be tomorrow, June 21st. So mark your calendars for Thursday; obviously we will also have a Balanced Bites podcast going live again; special treat for you guys, two episodes. But I will also be doing a Facebook live video. Scott and I are going to hop on Facebook at 4 p.m. Pacific, 7 p.m. Eastern. That will be live, talking about healthy travel tips, answering your questions, all about our trip. There were so many questions that came in, especially through Instagram since I did post a lot more to Instagram than to Facebook. I also posted a ton to Snapchat, so if you guys are not following me there and you want to see something kind of at your own leisure, it’s kind of a fun little behind the scenes peek, and you can check that out too.
Of course, if you don’t make it live it will be available on Facebook after for a replay. But this is something I'm going to be doing a lot more of because Facebook video has really kind of upped the ante with the way they’re working things, with how quickly your comments will show, with your ability to do a little thumbs up kind of thing or a heart so that as I’m doing the live video we can interact a lot more. And don’t worry, you will not be on video, only I will. But it’s a fun way to come and interact and ask questions and hear from me. So we’d love to see you guys there; so make sure you kind of set a little alarm on your phone.
Or, there’s a much easier way to do things. If you head over to http://blog.balancedbites.com and check out the recent blog post; just click on the blog link. You’ll see a post there from today, which is Monday, all about how to make sure you get updates for my Facebook live videos. Of course, if you are getting my updates on Facebook very regularly, then you don’t have to worry too much about it. But I’m doing something where you can just check a box if you’re on my emailing list and we’ll just send you a note like an hour before the video goes up before I go live so you can make sure that you hop on there. Because I know, it’s kind of like watching a TV show. Most of us don’t remember; most people do a TIVO thing, but if you want to interact, you’ve got to be on there live. So there’s that.
And, another just super quick update. If you’re interested in doing the July 21-Day Sugar Detox, if you haven’t noticed on your calendar the first Monday of July is July 4th, and while it would not be too difficult to do a July 4th 21DSD, we probably don’t want to do that. {laughs} I think we’re kind of shooting all of our own selves in the foot if we just say, oh I’m going to start it on July 4th. Because y’all want to be at your barbecues; and even you want to eat some strawberries, and strawberries are not on the detox. Which I know it seems crazy but it does work to help reset your palate to get those sweet foods out. So Tuesday July 5th is the official start of the July 21-Day Sugar Detox. So there’s that. What’s up with you? It’s been so long my friend, I’ve missed you.
Liz Wolfe: It has been long. I feel like a lot has happened; most of it I don’t remember.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Because too many penguins, not enough iceberg for me. But I have a funny story, can I tell it?
Diane Sanfilippo: Of course.
Liz Wolfe: Ok. So, everybody knows. Well, not everybody. But you know, people. Some people. Certain people. Three or four people in my life know that I absolutely hate ticks, more than anything, right? But the one thing I actually hate more than ticks is brown recluse spiders. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything much more terrifying than getting bit by a brown recluse.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, all of it sounds terribly scary to me.
Liz Wolfe: It’s awful. It’s one of those things where you look it up on the internet; right, if you look up tick bite, all you see is the worst of the worst; Lyme stories and all that.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Well if you look up brown recluse bite, you get the worst of the worst of like full body necrosis.
Diane Sanfilippo: No.
Liz Wolfe: Like, limbs falling off, go directly to the emergency room, do not pass go. So, I mean, they’re everywhere. We’re in just a part of the country where they are here, there’s nothing you can do about it. And they don’t seek people out, but if you have a shoe that you haven’t worn in a while, and a brown recluse takes up residence there and you stick your foot in it, and you freak him out, they will bite you.
So of course, since I’m a mom, I don’t just wait and see on anything anymore. Well, there’s this balance of; I don’t take care of myself at all, and I wait and see on everything, but if it’s maybe going to involve necrosis of my major limbs, I will take care of it immediately. So there’s a continuum there.
So here’s what happened. Obviously, a lot of you know, since I’ve talked about this on the podcast that we were out of our house for a while. Which means there were a lot of things that were available to brown recluse spiders to crawl into and take up residence and hide. So we’ve never actually had an issue, we don’t find them a lot, but we find them on the glue boards. I refuse to spread any poisons out because it’s just so ridiculously toxic. And really, you can’t actually get rid of brown recluses; you can just kind of send them into hiding for a while. So that’s just not worth it to me. So we put glue boards everywhere, and it’s just a whole production. But generally, they don’t bother us. But now that we’re back, and we’re taking away all their hiding places and cleaning up, they’re kind of ruffled, and they’re on the move.
Now, the other day {laughs}, well a couple of weeks ago I guess, I was outside. I had just put on this pair of pants that I hadn’t worn in a really long time, and I felt something pinch my knee. And I was like, “Ah!” You know. I kind of itched it a couple of times, no big deal, forgot about it and moved on. Well by the next day, it had started swelling up a little bit.
Diane Sanfilippo: No!
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: And it wasn’t just a pair of underwear stuck in the pants. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughing} That’s right up there with the charcuterie facial.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh god.
Liz Wolfe: It’s probably one of the top stories I’ve told on the podcast.
Diane Sanfilippo: Best.
Liz Wolfe: When a thong fell out of my pants at Whole Foods.
Diane Sanfilippo: Amazing.
Liz Wolfe: I just; I’ve never really had my stuff together, but now that I’m a parent, I really don’t have my stuff together. {laughs} You know, it takes me 3 days sometimes to return a text. Other times I’m like; I have two hands, I’m in the bathroom, the kid is napping.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: All the texts, all the texts! Anyway. So of course, I start freaking out that it’s a brown recluse. I cannot prove that it’s a brown recluse in this moment, I’m just thinking it must be. So of course, just like I did when the kid was first born where absolutely everything that happened; a burp, or a weird noise, or a gurgle, or a rash, I would go on Dr. Google and start scaring the pants off of myself. So of course, you Google “brown recluse bites”, “the truth about brown recluses”, “emergency room brown recluse”, “brown recluse anti-venom”, which of course there is not one, and just completely freaking out.
So I decide I’m just going to put some pascalite clay on there, hopefully draw out whatever it is, and just chill out. And then I tell my mom {laughs} that I got a spider bite, and she kind of starts to be worried, so then I start to be worried. It’s swelling a little bit more, so I decide that I’m going to call poison control, because that’s what the internet told me to do.
So I called poison control, and the guy was actually, not so much reassuring as he was dismissive. He was kind of like, “yeah, even if it is a brown recluse, there’s nothing you can do about it. I mean, if you’re skin is going to fall off, it’s going to fall off. You know. But most of the time that doesn’t happen.” And I was like, oh, ok, so basically just want and see if my limb is going to expire and I’m going to whatever.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Very comforting.
Liz Wolfe: So, I don’t know, that made me feel kind of better, kind of not. Very comforting. But, it was the first person that I actually said what I kind of knew, which was; there’s not much you can do about it unless it gets really bad, then of course you have to go in and get on antibiotics and all this stuff to keep from going septic or whatever. And of course, then I start to fret a little bit more, Dr. Google is freaking me out a little bit more, it’s getting late, I’m getting tired and a little bit less rational. So I call the nurse’s line; the nurse’s hotline. Which, god bless them; love nurses, love the idea of a nurse’s hotline, but I do think sometimes those things are more in place to actually funnel people into the emergency rooms than to keep them out {laughs}. Because I called ,and she’s like; are you achy, do you have a fever, is there a red line on your skin, are you nauseous, are you lightheaded, all these things. And you know, no, no, no, no, no, no, no; basically I’m fine except for the fact that I’m freaking out. And then she goes; is there a little white blister in the middle of it. And I said, yes!
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} She’s like, it’s an ingrown hair Liz, stop freaking out! {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: No, no. she goes, so if there’s a white blister and I’m going to go ahead and advise you to go into the emergency room. Then she started asking me if I’d had my tetanus shot; there’s always a question about whether or not you’ve had a shot. I just feel like; it was just kind of a silly conversation that we had. I was like, what does that have to do with this? {laughs} It was just a funny conversation. Of course, I think we annoy a lot of our health care professions on a fairly frequent basis, but I was asking about which antibiotic was the standard to use, and why they would come in and put me on prophylactic antibiotics if there was no infection, and if there was an anti-venom and all this. So of course I’m driving her nuts, but she said; “I’m going to go ahead and advise you to go in.”
Ok. So I went to the emergency room {laughing}.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh my goodness! No!
Liz Wolfe: {laughing} Keep in mind, this thing is barely swollen. It’s like, maybe the size of a quarter.
Diane Sanfilippo: It basically looks like a pimple. You’ve described a pimple, by the way.
Liz Wolfe: Basically, it was like a large mosquito. {laughs} Something. But I mean, something had gotten; something bit me. And so I went into the emergency room, and luckily there was no wait, it was late at night. Thank you OPR emergency room. And I get in, all checked in an everything, sitting down, all of the check in stuff. And the doctor comes in and literally looks at it from across the room, and he’s like; “that’s not a brown recluse bite.” And walks out. I was like; “Thanks but wait!” I was like, “Wait! Doc, doctor come back! Can I just tell you that the only reason I’m here is that the nurse line made me come.” {laughing} I wouldn’t have come in if the nurse line wasn’t; ugh.
And the sad thing was I had actually just switched my insurance from one where I have to go on base for every single referral to one where I have to pay a little bit for every single thing I do, but I have a little bit more choice in practitioners. So I’m going to see an emergency room bill.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: Why they just couldn’t have sent somebody out to tell me it wasn’t a brown recluse bite.
Diane Sanfilippo: You’re like; we could have done this over Skype, couldn’t we?
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh, that’s the thing. On the nurse’s like, I was like; can I just text you a picture?
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: She’s like, we can’t do that.
Diane Sanfilippo: I wish.
Liz Wolfe: I was like; what?! Are you hardwired?
Diane Sanfilippo: I wish.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. So anyway it was all fine. And also, of course when I thought I maybe had a brown recluse bite, I went on Amazon and bought like 16 different drawing salves, which didn’t even arrive for three days.
Diane Sanfilippo: That sounds about right. That sounds about the approach.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: I remember when I was worried that I had bedbugs years ago here in San Francisco.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: I mean, it’s pretty much a monster freak out the same way.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: I had a bunch of bites, and it turns out it was because my cat had been to the vet and probably brought home a couple of fleas. But a friend had had bedbugs, and it’s such a nightmare. It’s like, you know, kind of like the tick situation but you’re living with these vampire bugs, and you have to try and get rid of them for a long time.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: Anyway, yeah. And it turned out to just be flea bites, and it was nothing. But, I did freak out and had a couple of sleepless nights there, yeah.
Liz Wolfe: I ordered everything from Amazon.
Diane Sanfilippo: I enclosed my mattress in some kind of case.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: And now check every hotel bed like crazy. Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Diatomaceous earth everywhere. When we first found the ticks, I literally took a dust atomizer, which is like a powder spreader that you can literally spread powders on fields in the wind.
Diane Sanfilippo: Wow.
Liz Wolfe: You just kind of crank this thing and it dusts everywhere.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Crop dusting your house. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: You can get that on Amazon too! Yeah, I literally crop dusted my house. And you know, my daughter had a diaper rash at one point and I have 8; if anybody needs any kind of diaper cream, from the very crunchy to the very not crunchy, I have all of them. And I haven’t used any of them. {laughing} It’s ridiculous. Something about buying stuff on Amazon to treat my problems make me feel better.
Diane Sanfilippo: Liz is an overbuyer. That would be the overbuyer, for sure.
Liz Wolfe: I am, yes.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m an overbuyer, though. I would do the same.
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh, it’s terrible. Anyway, so that’s my story.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Love it.
Liz Wolfe: It’s all better now. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: I mean, don’t love it, but it’s so classic Liz that I love it.
Liz Wolfe: Classic Liz.
Diane Sanfilippo: Classic Liz.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
2. Today’s episode: Special Diane’s Europe Vacation recap [15:00]
Diane Sanfilippo: Speaking of classic Liz, our episode today is all about travel and what you guys may not know is that back when Liz and I used to travel to teach seminars, we traveled by air. We also traveled by car quite a bit, which was kind of hilarious, because as much as you guys might think of me as being in the “driver’s seat” for a lot of things, Liz was our driver. Which, I don’t know how that happened, but I think because somehow we decided I was going to be the navigator; why did we decide that? We had just hilarious travel stories, and so much fun and kind of a lot of random mishaps in figuring out how to eat on the road and all that good stuff that we almost wrote a book about it together {laughs}.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: It was going to like a Thelma and Louise style paleo travel road trip eating book, right? Wasn’t it?
Liz Wolfe: I’m having trouble remembering the exact details, but I’m sure there’s a Google doc somewhere.
Diane Sanfilippo: Because we kind of quickly shut it down. We were like; mmm, I don’t know about this.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing} I feel like I’m getting really busy. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} I feel like I’ve got a lot going on. Yeah, so, today we’re going to talk about travel stuff and I guess I’m going to talk about my trip, yeah?
Liz Wolfe: Yes. I think that’s what folks are waiting for. We want to hear about your European trip. And a long time ago, I wrote an email when I used to email my subscribers regularly.
Diane Sanfilippo: You wrote an email!
Liz Wolfe: I wrote an email, and it was about staying healthy while you travel, and it was inspired by a friend who reached out to me and basically went to France and didn’t enjoy it because she didn’t feel like she couldn’t eat anything.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mmm.
Liz Wolfe: Because it wasn’t on her “diet”.
Diane Sanfilippo: Right.
Liz Wolfe: And that just devastated me. Because truly, travel and experiencing world cultures. If you’re healed up enough to do so, sticking to arbitrary rules just because you adopted them for some reason or another; that just sucks. No soft cheese? No wine? Really?
Diane Sanfilippo: I can chime in on that first before I even talk about the specifics of this trip. I’m totally with you 100% on that. I think there are the folks for whom sticking to paleo, sticking 100% to gluten free, that can be your priority and a prerequisite for the trip. To that end, I am going to be doing a bunch more about the trip on the video that we do live, but also on some blog posts coming up because I want to point out some of the places that I remember it being a little bit maybe easier than others to eat either squeaky clean paleo or eat gluten free with some modifications and things like that, because there are people who need to do that.
But my take is, 100%, depending on where you’re traveling to. So for example, if I’m traveling to Mexico; eating bread in Mexico is not on my list of priorities. Eating brie cheese in Mexico; not one of my priorities. You know what I mean? So because my body, I actually don’t react that badly to either wheat or dairy when I’m abroad. It’s something I learned when I traveled to; well, when Scott and I went to Greece about, I guess it was 2 summers ago now. And the one thing I noticed eating bread there; which I didn’t eat a ton of it the first week. I don’t think I ate any maybe the first week, and by the second week, I did have some and I had some almost every day. And honestly, this happened again on this trip; I just got kind of bloated and lethargic, and just felt a little too full. But I didn’t have any digestive distress, especially on this trip. My digestion was amazing.
I actually think there’s maybe some benefit to traveling to this end where you’re exposed to a lot of different bacteria, and I think that could be really helpful. Because obviously we know some people travel and come back with bugs and don’t do well, but I think the flip side of that is that traveling to other countries might expose your gut and your whole body to different bacteria and obviously different foods that you weren’t eating at home.
So for someone like me who has discovered that I really don’t react badly; if I’m in Italy, and France, and Spain, and I want to experience these foods and try them, for me eating is like probably outside of the visual aspect of traveling and just absorbing the culture visually; the food is what traveling is all about for me. That is it. And a lot of what we choose in where we go and what we do for the day revolves around food. And I think that’s true for most people regardless of how much of a foodie you are; you really do have to arrange where are we eating? Perhaps people who don’t care at all about food don’t have to do that. They just kind of, wherever they are when they’re hungry, they eat. They don’t make it a destination or any of that. But this trip really was; lunch was specifically chosen, it was the destination, it was the whole event, etc.
Anyway, I’m with you on that. I was not going to Italy, France, and Spain, and not eating some pasta; not eating some amazing cheese, or enjoying that. I have no guilty feelings around it. If I had started to feel sick from it, I probably would have put the brakes on, or felt it out a little bit more for different foods. If the cheese was doing one thing, or the gluten was doing something. But for a lot of different reasons, I think these foods affect us differently when we travel. So if you don’t know that you’re celiac, or you don’t know for sure that you have a reaction when you’re not in this country, I do think it’s worthwhile to try things.
As a side note there, Scott is much more sensitive to gluten when we’re in the states, and he did try a couple of things when we were away and at one point had a little bit of his typical eczema breakout on his elbows, which is one of his signs, but he also would typically get some GI distress as well, which he didn’t on this trip. So he kind of, by the end of the trip, was like ok I’m going to have this pizza today and just go for it, because it didn’t seem to bother me the couple of times I was exposed to it or tried a bite before, so I’m not going to pass up this pizza in Italy. So yeah, I’m with you on that. And I think if that’s part of the experience for you, there’s not a reason to unnecessarily create super stringent rules and just tough through it. I think that’s really sad, actually.
Liz Wolfe: Must agree. So how was pizza in Italy?
Diane Sanfilippo: Pizza in Italy was pretty amazing. {laughs} We actually did find a gluten free pizzeria in Rome that I Snapchatted. I think I posted on Instagram about it as well. And was 100% worth it gluten free. I did not feel at all like we were missing out; so for the people who need that, this place, I will post about it, I forget the specific name. I can look back on my Instagram, but we’ll post a link to it for sure in the recap that I do for Rome, and maybe all of Italy will be in one post. But they had too separate kitchens; I think somebody in the family who owns the place must have celiac disease, or it must just be a really common request, because you can walk into one side and place the order, but if your pizza is being made “senza glutine”, which is how they say it, they have a 100% gluten free; basically it’s a mirror image of the shop you just walked into right next door, and it says 100% gluten free. So that entire kitchen, that entire location is gluten free. Which is very cool; they take it very seriously.
23. Introductory quick run through [22:53]
So yeah. So do you want me to just kind of do a little run through here, or?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, I’m at the edge of my seat.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Riveted.
Diane Sanfilippo: We went to Italy, France, and Spain, and I guess Monaco is a separate country in there, and we did have a stop in Monaco. In Italy, we were in Rome first for a few days. If you’ve never been on a cruise that leaves from an international destination, it’s highly recommended that you arrive a minimum of two full days ahead of when your cruise leaves, because if your bags don’t arrive the day that you do and you just took a flight with a connection, you will be really out of luck {laughs} if your bags didn’t arrive and you got on the ship the next day and you're left with what you’re wearing.
So we arrived a couple of days ahead of time, and we spent a few days in Rome. We met up with Jen Sinkler and her husband David, which was hilarious. We toured around with them for a day in Rome; saw the Sistine Chapel together. It was just super fun. That was just a really kind of fortunate coincidence that we were traveling there at the same time. So we went to Rome, and then stops in Livorno, Tuscany, Portofino, and that Portofino stop and then Cinque Terre, which is, I don’t know, 5 lands or 5 cities {laughs} I don’t know what the direct translation is, it’s like 5 little fishing villages on the water.
So Monaco, we had a stop in Monte Carlo, got to see that. Did not get to go into the casino; actually Scott was sick for a couple of days and that night we were all just really tired {laughs} so we actually didn’t end up going into the casino, which is kind of the one thing we all wanted to see. But you know, we’ll go back at some point.
In France we had a stop in San Tropez, and how do I say it; Marseilles?
Liz Wolfe: Marseilles.
Diane Sanfilippo: Marseilles. I don’t speak French.
Liz Wolfe: “Marcie-eyely”?
Diane Sanfilippo: Exactly. And the city we actually went to was Aix-en-Provence I think that’s how you pronounce it.
Liz Wolfe: Did you have a translator with you, or?
Diane Sanfilippo: We had a tour guide. And then in Spain we were just in Barcelona. And then we actually circled back to, what’s it called? Shoot, why am I totally blanking on where we just finished our tour? That was the Amalfi coast, sorry. So the Amalfi coast was the last stop. So this was a cruise we took on a line called Oceania; and I think the cruise itself was called fabulous Riviera or something like that. Something silly like that. And so our stop in Rome was independent, that was on our own, but the cruise did leave from the Rome port. So that’s really how we got to see a lot of cities in one trip without hauling ourselves around.
I often call this type of trip basically the opposite of backpacking, because if anybody has heard me talk about this before I’m not really that outdoorsy. I’m kind of indoorsy. {laughs} I’m good for a day trip, and a little bit of hiking, but I don’t want to carry my stuff around. I don’t want to stay in a hostel. I think it’s cool if you do; there’s absolutely no judgment. I just know myself, and I like creature comforts, and I like to be able to put my stuff down in one room, and then just go to sleep and wake up somewhere new.
And I think that’s the cool part about cruising; and I think it’s, I don’t know, I guess as Americans, we know “certain things” about cruises. Like, things we know. But when you take a cruise that’s an international start, it’s really different from a Caribbean cruise that leaves from someplace like Houston or Miami, and I’ve been on those cruises, there’s nothing against them. They’re just very, very different. It’s not the same huge number of people on the ship, it’s not the same kind of population who maybe doesn’t care as much about the quality of their food as those of you guys who are listening to this show; obviously we care about food quality a lot, and this trip that we went on, Oceania is actually a line that’s known for high quality food, it’s known for a culinary experience. So while being a resident of San Francisco definitely makes the food experience a little bit different, because we have amazing high quality food here all the time.
So comparing it to high end restaurant in San Francisco doesn’t really help things out, but comparing it to other cruise ships, we definitely had a great experience. You guys have seen some of the pictures, probably over on Instagram, of things that we ate. But yeah, so I liked it. We would definitely cruise on that line again. And our friends ,Mira and Jayson who we’ve traveled with now; I’ve traveled with them 5 times and Scott and I have been on trips independently with them just a couple of times now. We have a great time together. Mira and Jayson Calton, who I’ve interviewed here a couple of times. We all just love to eat so much, so it was really fun. So there’s that. {laughs}
Snacking on vacation [27:47]
I don’t know; we have some questions on here that my team put together but I don’t know if you have stuff that’s kind of in between or if you want me to just plow through or what?
Liz Wolfe: Do you want me to stay on topic?
Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know.
Liz Wolfe: Of food.
Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know. What do you think; what do our listeners want to know?
Liz Wolfe: I want to hear about what you did for snacking. I remember when we were in Greece for our honeymoon, the meals would be amazing, and we brought a ton of paleo kits, but I remember thinking there were a lot of just kind of junk snack food around, and we would get so ravenously hungry in between because we were out and about so much. So what did you do there?
Diane Sanfilippo: We actually; I don’t remember snacking a ton. So, I’ll tell you what we ate for our meals and maybe that would change things. We weren’t walking around that much. Ok, wait, scratch that. The couple of days we walked around more I’m pretty sure our snacks were mostly made up of gelato.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} I was going to ask, but I didn’t want to put you on blast.
Diane Sanfilippo: #gelatoeveryday and I think if you tolerate dairy; and even if you don’t, we did find one place. I Snapchatted it so I’ll get it in the blog post about Rome. I found one place in Rome that was actually a new location; I think they have others as well, and I can’t remember the name of it, but it won’t matter anyway. Because if you hear it now it’s not going to matter, you’re going to want to see it in a blog post to refer back to. So we’ll put it in there. But they had a non-dairy gelato; which, again, if you can eat the dairy. Even if you can eat it and suffer very minimally, it’s worth it {laughs} you know. And I think it’s worth trying it even if you think you don’t tolerate dairy, I think it’s worth trying it in another country.
But they had a rice milk based option, which I thought was really cool, because I actually tried their sorbet, which I found to be very overly sweet and I didn’t care for it. But their gelato was delicious and they used a lot more strong real food flavors at this place, and Scott had a coffee gelato that was really, really good. But I didn’t even notice they had a rice milk based one until later. I just was so full I didn’t really feel like eating; I didn’t feel like having gelato at that point. Which is crazy, but this was right after we ate the gluten free pizza, so I was pretty full.
Anyway, so yeah. {laughs} I think mostly gelato. And the other days; here’s what we actually did. So on the ship; I did post a picture of this breakfast that after the first two days of trying to forage through the buffet on the ship, which typically; look, there’s a lot of food on cruise ships, but it’s not always all the best. So the sit down restaurant is typically the best option on a cruise ship, but sometimes it’s not open early enough. And in our case, when we needed to get off the ship at 8 a.m. for different tours, this restaurant only opened at 7:30 so it was cutting it a little bit close.
But once we figured out what we were doing the other days, we did make it so that we could eat there. And we were able to order gluten free toast; some days we didn’t have it, some days we just had this hashbrown thing that was called burner roasty; I’d never heard of it. It’s basically hashbrowns with bacon cooked into it; two poached eggs, lamb chops, which they gave you two lamb chops in the order, goat cheese, I asked for chives. And all of this was included with the cruise; so it’s not like, oh, we’re going to go spend $50 bucks each for dinner; I mean for breakfast. This is part of the all inclusive experience on a cruise ship. They don’t say; no you can’t have that much {laughs} you just order whatever you want. And we had a half a grapefruit each with that, as well.
So we had a really big breakfast, and then we would eat that around 8 or 9 a.m. the latest. We wouldn’t eat lunch until like 1 or 2, but we’d be fine in between there. That would really last us. It was a pretty dense breakfast. And then most of the lunches we did were pretty big. Because those were kind of our experiences out with either a tour guide or something that we had arranged or that Mira had arranged for us, because she really does a great job of planning things, and picking what are the best restaurants to eat at. Sometimes it was a hotel that has amazing food, and we got to experience that. Sometimes it was a different type of stop. So we had some really big lunches.
So that really held us until dinner, which would be much later. I think sometimes we had a snack in the room; maybe we used the room service. Which again, is free on the cruise, so you just order whatever you want. Or I think Scott may have brought some of the Primal Kitchen bars, which I can’t eat because there are almonds, at least in the flavor that’s out now. And maybe I had some dark chocolate, stuff like that. But yeah, that was a lot of information for what kind of snacks we had. But we really didn’t snack a ton on the trip other than gelato {laughs}. But that counts, right?
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Absolutely.
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5. The worst thing Diane ate [33:48]
Liz Wolfe: What was the worst thing you ate while you were there?
Diane Sanfilippo: Probably breakfast the first day on the ship. I don’t think there was anything that was the worst that was at one of our stops, but probably breakfast the first day which I definitely recommend, again if you’re on a cruise ship, the buffet is tough. And often there’s an omelette station, and you can ask them; and I posted this on Instagram too, and people really like this tip. And this is the same of a lot of places that will have an omelette bar. If you ask them to wipe the oil out of the pan and hand them a pat of butter, because there will be butter somewhere on the buffet, and ask them to just crack actual eggs into the pan, they can fry a couple of eggs for you which is what I had them do the first couple of days I had eggs fried in butter. And that was ok. It was just a really sad {laughs} it was a really sad breakfast.
And I think that the one sorbet that I had at that first; I mean, it was a gelato shop, what was I doing getting sorbet? Hello. But it was just too sweet. And that was probably one of my other least favorite things. But as far as meals went, I don’t think any of the others were not good.
6. Places Diane would like to revisit [35:01]
Liz Wolfe: Alright, so next time you go back, where will you stay longer and where will you be less interested in going?
Diane Sanfilippo: I think Barcelona is definitely a city where we would like to fly into and kind of stay for maybe a week. I think; I don’t think I would go back to San Tropez. I don’t think there was much for us there. We really just went to the beach that day; same thing with Ibiza. I actually forgot to write that down, that was the other stop in Spain was Ibiza. We had a…
Liz Wolfe: Isn’t it “Ibitha”.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ibiza.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, I know I’ve seen at least one episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians and I’m pretty sure it’s “Ibitha”.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s like a th- sounds. I think that might be the Catalan way to say it; I don’t speak any of these languages fluently. I don’t claim to know the correct pronunciation. I’m also 9 hours jetlagged, so.
Liz Wolfe: Right. So at this point, it’s all just…
Diane Sanfilippo: I get a pass. It’s actually 1 in the morning to me right now. Yeah, we had a great time there. I posted a lot of food pictures. We went to the Blue Marlin beach club, whatever it’s called. {laughs} and amazing food, but eh. For a beach day, I wouldn’t probably go back to either of those places. Aix-en-Provence, I think I would like to go back there at some point and spend a little bit more time.
The best meal that we had was on that same stop, and I have no idea how to pronounce where this place is. {laughs} But the name of the restaurant, I don’t know how to pronounce this either, but La Cabro d'Or, something like the golden goat it translates to. Yeah, I think it’s golden goat. But the chef who; the restaurant they have at this venue, this venue reminded me of a winery in Napa or Sonoma. It was just very beautiful, greenery, fountains on the grounds, and they apparently have a multiple Michelin star restaurant. What we went to was kind of the slightly more casual version of the restaurant, and we had an amazing beautiful lunch just sitting outside, enjoying some peace and quiet surrounded by greenery and fountains and things like that.
I posted I think 3 pictures from that lunch because it was this huge, multiple course meal, and probably one of the best meals we’ve all had, and it was just amazing. I would highly recommend going there. So if you guys are looking at my Instagram feed, it’s 3 fancy looking plates in a row. {laughs} 3 fancy looking plates on white in a row; amazing, amazing food. So that was definitely my favorite, and I would eat there again in a heartbeat. It was quite a drive from the port, but definitely recommend that. That was just awesome.
That was kind of one of the things that Mira really planned for us that I’m taking as a lesson, and I think would be a really good lesson for anybody who is doing some traveling, if food is really important to you and having an amazing experience with food where that’s your memory, because each day Scott and I would be like; what was your favorite thing today. The meal and just experiencing the meal with our friends and sitting and not rushing through it and having that be an experience in and of itself, not just to eat, that has been our favorite part of the day. Our lunches were just our favorite part, so many of those days.
I think doing some searching; what’s the best restaurant in this town, look up on Trip Advisor, or ask your tour guide. Get a really good tour guide in those towns, in those cities. We didn’t go with any of the tours that were from the ship, because we just know we’re not the kind of people who want to just see all of; these are the sites that tourists want to see. That’s not how we really enjoy getting to know an area. We enjoy getting to know an area through, “what do the locals do?” or going to a wine tasting and getting to know somebody who is teaching us about the wine and sitting somewhere really quiet and enjoying time together with each other, more so than with 50 or 100 other people on a tour. So that’s been kind of a big learning for me of how to move through and plan these things if we’re not traveling with other people who do the planning.
So that was a big lesson, looking that stuff up, previewing menus. I know Mira sent a bunch of things ahead of time where she would say, this place or this place. But I think that’s a great tip for people who are looking for places to go. And I will of course put the names of all these restaurants in here, so if you guys want to visit any of them, I’ll let you know which ones I recommend the most and I can’t remember price points of any of them; some of them higher than others. None of them crazy expensive, but you can always make choices about what you want to spend. But I will say that budgeting the food wasn’t something we were looking at. I mean it really was, we take the food as an experience. I didn’t buy a ton of souvenirs because for me, I’ll spend the money on the meal and I don’t really need to buy a lot of extra things because I like spending on experience. That’s just my thing. I like doing it.
7. Charcuterie in Europe [40:29]<>/b
Liz Wolfe: Speaking of experiences, talk to me about the charcuterie?
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Charcuterie? So, I’m trying to think where we had. Ok, here’s something really hilarious. In Rome, they would say; oh, this comes with ham, and it’s prosciutto, and I’m just laughing.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: Because they’re like; oh, here’s; you know some menus would actually say prosciutto di parma the way that we would say it; but there were a couple of menus that said ham and you got prosciutto, and I was like; ok, this is their poor man’s ham. {laughs} Like, we think of…
Liz Wolfe: Tina, come get some prosciutto!
Diane Sanfilippo: I know. We think of this, I don’t know. You know, I call things shmo; like shmo ham. It’s not fancy, it’s just Oscar Myer, whatever. It’s just ham. So that was really funny. But the pizza that I ordered, the gluten free pizza that came with prosciutto, it was; if you ordered that here, you’d get little shreds that maybe would have added up to one or two slices. This pizza had to have 8 to 10 full slices of prosciutto over it. I was like; oh yeah, they are not kidding around with this stuff. It was literally blanketed on top of the pizza. It was amazing. Really fresh. I feel like the price of it was pretty similar. We did buy some at a butcher’s shop, but maybe because it was in a touristy stop.
So, ok here’s another lie I just told 10 minutes ago; we did buy some prosciutto and salami as a snack in one of the stops, because we were too hungry between maybe breakfast and lunch, I guess it was second breakfast. I don’t know what it was.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: But we did buy some and we kept that for quite a few days in our fridge, and I actually think I ate some of it on the way home, too. Because you know, cured meats last quite a while. But yeah, that was amazing. We didn’t have it in too many other stops. We had some in Barcelona for lunch. We had a little charcuterie board, which I think is also on Instagram. It’s got a blue tablecloth. You guys can see that; it was pretty delicious. And there I believe, what do they serve you; I don’t remember what they call their ham. Iberico ham or something? Different than the prosciutto di parma, they don’t serve you that because, no that’s Italian.
We saw an amazing market, as well in Barcelona. It was right in the middle. I know everybody who has been to Barcelona has seen this market, and I think I posted from it; the Mercat de… I don’t know you guys, the worst if you’re trying to get me to pronounce things. Something la boqueria, I think that’s what people might call it. Tons of pictures of that on Instagram if you go check it out. But we’ll link to that as well. But that was definitely an amazing place to look through and stop if you wanted snacks.
I don’t know, what the heck was I just talking about? I totally lost my train of thought.
Liz Wolfe: That you lied about snacking?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, {laughs} but there was something else… Oh, you were just asking how the charcuterie was. Yeah, I did not create a facial out of any of that charcuterie, however. So no. {laughs}
8. Food attitude in Europe [43:49]
Liz Wolfe: Did you feel like the overall attitude towards food was different there than it is here?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yes.
Liz Wolfe: I think romanticize it a little bit, like they understand food; that it’s pleasure and all of these other things. But did you find that to be the case?
Diane Sanfilippo: I did, and also one of the things that was kind of a caption I put on one of the pictures I posted was; you know, it’s just food on a plate. They do it well, it’s clean, fresh food. It’s not all heavy and fried and covered. Look; Italy and France are very different. In France, things do have some sauces and it’s a little more fussy, but really the place that we had lunch on the beach in San Tropez, it was like a hot spot. This place was popping; I think it’s a place where people go who, I don’t know, is to see and be seen. I don’t have an awareness of that type of thing, so when you said Kim Kardashian pronounces it this way; I don’t know who is going where, we just said ok that sounds good we’ll go there. But what I experienced definitely in Italy were; you look at the plate, you know what that food is, you know what I mean? It’s super clean and I could probably recreate it at home, and the only reason it’s not going to taste as good is that our ingredients might not be as fresh. You know?
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: Here in California; I think we have some of the most amazing food in this country at least, and that’s one of the reasons why we moved to where we moved right now. But I posted a picture; it’s grilled whole fish, so when it comes out on the plate it looks a little bit mutilated. It doesn’t look frufy or special, and some green beans, and some potatoes; which the potatoes are nicely done, they’re pretty browned. But it’s super clean, simple food. Recipes don’t seem to be overly fussy. A lot of these places it’s just a handful of really nice, high quality, very flavorful or clean ingredients put together, and that’s it. I think we; I don’t know, I think we stress about it too much and try and over-recipefy everything if that makes sense.
So again, if you look at some of the plates I post, they’re super clean, easy food. It looks like something you’d make at home. And that one restaurant I was saying was a super amazing experience; that’s really fussy food, but it is actually pretty simple, it’s just perfectly prepared, and that’s not what we would do at home. But a lot of the stuff was very basic, just nice, clean flavors put together. And I think that that is something we miss a lot here. I don’t know why people are going crazy trying to make complicated or overly fussy recipes. I think we just need to learn how to cook and not worry so much about learning how to make recipes, if that makes sense. I mean, I think it’s one of the things I try and teach people with recipes like the ones I do in Practical Paleo. It’s less about the recipe and just more about, how can you just season some chicken and put it in the oven and it will taste good.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: And you don’t need to spend 5 hours. You know; first brown the mushrooms and take them out of the pan; then brown the chicken and take it out of the pan. Then do all these crazy steps for something that’s a culinary experience. That’s not how most people in village in Italy, France, or Spain would actually cook their food. And I think we all enjoy that food. You know; we like the way it tastes. But I don’t know, maybe we’ve tried to get fussy with it because our ingredients don’t taste as good. So there’s another notch in the column for why to buy organic maybe, and why to buy local, and it might not cost as much. Because you don’t need to go so crazy spending too much time or loading too many other seasonings on it. A couple; one or two spices, one herb, something like that where you just change it up a bit, but a lot of this stuff was seasoned; salt, pepper, probably olive oil, lemon, some kind of fresh herb? Nothing. I’m sure that was your experience also in Greece. Maybe lemon, and that’s it. {laughs}
So that was kind of the big takeaway; very, very simple, clean food.
Liz Wolfe: The Balanced Bites podcast is sponsored in part by the Nutritional Therapy Association. The NTA trains and certifies nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants, including me, I’m an NTP, emphasizing bio-individuality and the range of dietary strategies that support wellness. The NTA emphasizes local, whole, properly prepared nutrient dense foods as the key to restoring balance and enhancing the body’s ability to heal. Nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants learn a wide range of tools and techniques to assess and correct nutritional imbalances. To learn lots more about the nutritional therapy program, go to http://www.NutritionalTherapy.com. There are workshop venues in the US, Canada, and Australia, so chances are you’ll be able to find a venue that works for you.
9. #Treatyoself: Spa at home [49:06]
Liz Wolfe: Alright. So speaking of decadence.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: and treating yourself. Should we do a little treat yoself?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, let’s do a treat yoself. Let’s make it not about food.
Liz Wolfe: Ok. I can do that. How about, an at home spa day.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yes!
Liz Wolfe: With; for me it’s the charcoal, the Beautycounter charcoal mask that just came out, some Primally Pure bath salts, which are amazing blends, and then maybe some Game of Thrones on mute so I don’t have to listen to the horrible writing that happened starting after the Red Wedding; or after George R. R. Martin just kind of disappeared off the face of the earth? Just fast-forward to the Jon Snow parts, watch those; nice little Saturday.
Diane Sanfilippo: In true Diane form; I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t watch vampire shows or whatever Game of Thrones is {laughs}.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, I haven’t watched a vampire show in a really long time.
Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know what Game of Thrones is, but I don’t want to start. But I will say, I will probably do some of this watching the new season of Orange is the New Black. I already watched one episode at roughly 6 a.m. this morning, since I was up at 4 jetlagged.
So my treat yoself with this stuff; I like these at home facial type things. I definitely love a charcoal mask, so I’m psyched I was away when the Beautycounter mask came out and I was like; ah! FOMO about the charcoal mask. I need to make sure I order it {laughs} before it’s gone! I feel like they sell out of some of these charcoal-based things so quickly. But I am obsessed with charcoal because every since you sent me that bar to try, I’ve purchased others just because I wanted to make sure I have them, and I’m still using the first one, it lasts a long time. But I also like these at home facial sheet things; so if you guys saw me on Snapchat, it looks a little Hannibal Lecter-ish when you put it on; like a hockey mask, and depending on the shape of your face you might need to trim a few; I have to trim the eye holes, as everybody knows my eyes are abnormally large. Fine, whatever. {laughs} So I trim the eyeholes, and I actually put some of the extra on my forehead because I have a really big forehead too {laughing}.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: Look, it is what it is. I’m not even putting myself down. I just know; when you put this mask on you realize your forehead is a little bigger than most people. So anyway; I think the one’s I’ve been getting are from Whole Foods, and they’re called Andelou Naturals. I’ll put a link to it in the show notes, because they do have them on Amazon. They’re like $6 bucks, no big deal, maybe a little less even. Sometimes Whole Foods has them on sale. But I like them. They actually feel really good and when I take them off, my skin actually does look different, so I like that, along with everything you just mentioned. So it sounds good to me.
I also buy Epsom salt; just straight up Epsom salt, sometimes from Walgreens or something like that. I like that too. At home spa. Good to go.
Liz Wolfe: The only thing that stinks about that is having to clean out the bathtub. Ugh.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, am I supposed to do that?
Liz Wolfe: I don’t know.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Oopsie. Whoops; my bad! {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Alright, I think we’re done for the day.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think so.
Liz Wolfe: I think we’re done for this extra special Tuesday episode. Thanks to everyone who stuck around through our once in a 5-year mini-hiatus. “We were on a break!”
Diane Sanfilippo: “We were on a break!” We saw actually, what was the; I have to see what the hashtag was. There was a hashtag for our break, and a bunch of people…
Liz Wolfe: Oh, I didn’t check it. Wasn’t it Balanced Bites on a break?
Diane Sanfilippo: Balanced Bites on a break. There were a bunch of posts for it; so thanks to everyone who pasted. I think Carrie; Health Coach Carrie, she’s one of our 21-Day Sugar Detox coaches; she posted, I feel like, what’s that kid TV show where they used to say everyone’s name at the end. Anyway, Unboundwellness on Instagram, she posted; primal_reset posted; I’m just trying to call you guys out. Shereecamilleinthekitchen; who else. Azzizajane; she’s one of our 21-day coaches. Anyway, a bunch of them posted. So thanks you guys for doing that.
Liz Wolfe: Alright then, that’s it for, well, that’s it for today. You’ve got another one coming this week. You can find me, Liz, at http://realfoodliz.com/ and you can find Diane at http://dianesanfilippo.com. Join our email lists for free goodies and updates that you don’t find anywhere else on our website or on the podcast. While you’re on the internet, we’d be very grateful if you’d leave us an iTunes review. See you soon.
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