Podcast Episode #179: Hayley and Bill Staley, Authors of Make It Paleo II

Topics:
1. Introducing our guests, Bill and Hayley from Primal Palate. [1:56] 2. Book tour dates [3:02] 3. How have you changed your writing style over the course of your books [5:30] 4. Evolution of recipe development [8:27] 5. Caitlin’s contribution to the book [10.49] 6. What sets Make it Paleo 2 apart from the other paleo books [15:29] 7. Bill’s food projects in Make it Paleo 2 [19:58] 8. Evolution of grain free baking [24:03] 9. What are some of your favorite go-to quick and easy meals [27:35] 10. Bill’s healing journey with leaky gut [32:15] 11. Hayley’s current struggle with Candida and MTHFR [35:19] 12. Would you try eating or cooking with insects? [43:03] 13. Thoughts on running a business with your significant other [44:06] 14. Can they teach me everything they know about camera work and gardening [50:08] 15. Favorite “I wouldn’t survive without it” kitchen gadget [59:33] 16. Final words with Bill and Hayley [1.01.15] 17. Liz’s Baby Making and Beyond tip of the week: preconception testing [1:02:37] [smart_track_player url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/balancedbites/BB_Podcast_179.mp3″ color=”00aeef” title=”#179: Hayley & Bill Staley, Authors of Make It Paleo II ” artist=”Diane Sanfilippo & Liz Wolfe” ]

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Diane Sanfilippo: Hey everyone! Welcome to Balanced Bites podcast episode 179. And I’m here with my good friends, Bill and Hayley of Primal Palate fame, and a special guest today. A special co-host.

Dr. Scott Mills: Yeah! Dr. Scott Mills. {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: You have to talk into the mike, honey. {laughing} Alright, well Scott normally edits our podcast, and today he wanted to join us because Bill and Hayley here are good friends of ours. For those of you who may not know this, they actually introduced us. So…

Dr. Scott Mills: We get to hang out on the podcast today.

1. Introducing our guests, Bill and Hayley from Primal Palate. [1:56]

Diane Sanfilippo: We get to hang out. And we’re not drinking hard cider, which is usually what happens when we hang out. At least for 3 out of 4 of us. Hayley kicks it with some, I don’t know, green juice. {laughs} So basically, I’m going to just jump right into our interview, because any of my updates are really going to roll right into what we’re talking about with Bill and Hayley.

To introduce them really quickly, they are bestselling authors of a bazillion cookbooks. No, Make it Paleo, which was one of the very first paleo cookbooks out there. Fantastic book. The 30-Day Guide to Paleo Cooking, and Gather, the Art of Paleo Entertaining. Is that the right subtitle?

Bill Staley: Yeah, that’s right. {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: I’m looking at their faces right now. {laughs} We actually have a video chat open, and we’re super excited today to talk about their brand new book, Make it Paleo 2. Over 175 new grain free recipes for the primal palate, which is pretty much the most done in cookbook. And Liz and I already talked about it, I think a few weeks ago when we first got our review copies. We were like, of course Bill and Hayley just upped the ante one more time. Every time there’s a new book, you guys kind of blow it out of the water. So congratulations, it’s amazing!

Bill Staley: Thank you.

Hayley Mason: Thank you.

Bill Staley: Yeah, that pretty much made our day when we heard you guys say that. That was awesome.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} We’re pretty excited to cheer on our friends, but we’re always like, man! Why are they so good?

Bill Staley: {laughs}

2.Book tour dates [3:02]

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} I’m only sort of kidding. Let’s just quickly talk about tour dates that you and we all have coming up. This episode is going to be airing on Thursday, February 19th, which the book just went on sale this week. Where are you guys going to be for the rest of this week, for anyone listening today or going forward?

Bill Staley: Yeah, so today we’re up in the air. We’re in between Seattle and Chicago, and we’ve got 2 dates coming up in Chicago. We’re going to be in Skokie, which is north of the city tomorrow night, which is Friday at 7 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. And then we will be at Costco on Saturday in Naperville, I don’t know if I’m saying that right.

Diane Sanfilippo: Naperville, I think.

Bill Staley: Naperville!

Diane Sanfilippo: So that’s the 20th and 21st of February.

Bill Staley: Yeah, the 20th and 21st. And then we’re in Denver on the 22nd at Barnes and Noble in Glendale. And then we take off 3 days, and then we go to Texas. We do Dallas on the 26th, Austin on the 27th. You’ll probably find us on the lawn at Picnik on the 28th {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: Nice.

Bill Staley: And then on March 1st we’re in Houston. And then we join you in March.

Diane Sanfilippo: Or I join you. {laughs}

Bill Staley: Well, yes.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, so March we have dates in Alexandria, right?

Bill Staley: Yep.

Diane Sanfilippo: March 13th, and then the 15th will be in Charlotte, North Carolina, and then a couple of days off in sunny Florida and we’ll be in Orlando on March 18th. So definitely come check us out. You can RSVP for all of the events, either from PrimalPalate.com/events, or actually if you go to my website BalancedBites.com on the sidebar I have a link to the few events that I’ll be at. But you can go to PrimalPalate.com/events for all of the events.

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3. How have you changed your writing style over the course of your books [5:30]

Diane Sanfilippo: Awesome. Well, let’s get into chatting about your new book, and then everything else we feel like talking about.

Hayley Mason: Charlie is being so bad {laughs}

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} He’s being quiet.

Hayley Mason: Yes, we keep muting it!

Bill Staley: We call it a Shih-tzuation where he’s …

Hayley Mason: He was just chewing on the headphone cords.

Bill Staley: Yeah, he’s pretty much chewing on anything he can. He’s biting me really hard.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Dr. Scott Mills: He wants your attention.

Bill Staley: Yeah, so if anyone hears any growling, barking, snarling, sneezing, snorting, that’s all Charlie.

Diane Sanfilippo: Smothering of the dog. {laughs}

Hayley Mason: {laughs}

Bill Staley: Yeah, he’s really not happy we’re doing this right now. What was the question?

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} And you are? Well, let’s talk about the new book. Make it Paleo 2, and specifically, some of these were Scott’s questions, do you want me to ask them or do you want to ask them?

Hayley Mason: {laughs}

Dr. Scott Mills: Well, I was thinking as I was looking through the new book, obviously I want to keep some praise on here too. Another offering from you guys, I don’t know how you do it. Everyone seems to get better, more delicious looking, more beautiful, so congratulations on the book. I was thinking about it, and I was wondering from your perspective, what kind of has changed the most over the course of writing your four books, would you say, as far as approach or otherwise.

Bill Staley: It’s a style thing. The style of the recipes, I think, has become more streamlined as we’ve gone on, and obviously the style of the photos too, which is visually apparent from opening up the first book to this new one. It’s definitely changed a little bit. But I think, and Hayley you might be able to speak more to this, but I just think the style of sort of, and people who have our other books would just know this, that our recipes are just sort of streamlined in their approach. They’re not super fussy, there are not 25 different steps. We really try to work on making it as few steps as possible. It’s hard doing this while there’s a dog chewing on my hand. I really don’t know how I’m going to manage this.

Dr. Scott Mills: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Just let him chew so he doesn’t bark, and we’ll be good. It’s ok if you start bleeding.

Bill Staley: Ok.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Hayley Mason: I don’t really have anything else to add to that.

Diane Sanfilippo: But what about, because I know you guys so well, and for people who wonder if we’re actually friends. Because, a lot of us are friendly in the community. I probably have, I don’t know, anywhere from 1-600 text messages from Hayley each week {laughs}.

Hayley Mason: {laughs}

4. Evolution of recipe development [8:27]

Diane Sanfilippo: Back and forth. So I mean, we’re good friends, and I know that the process, for all of us when we go to write a book, it changes and obviously we get better at the writing process and just kind of deciding what we’re going to include, and what might be creative and interesting. I’m curious, Hayley, where your head went in terms of not wanting to make the recipes too simple, but wanting to make them interesting and different and creative; because they look both that. They look easy enough that I can make, and everyone who is listening, easy enough to make but also they all just have this air of, ok, we’ve matured in the way that we think about recipes. So what do you think has really contributed to that?

Hayley Mason: I think it’s just mostly our own evolution of being cooks ourselves, over the years. Make it Paleo, there are some really great recipes in that book, but they are really basic. And then Gather, we got a little more challenging with the recipes in that book, but we still tried to keep them a little more simple. And then for Make it Paleo 2, it was really important to me to have a mix of the qualities that people really loved in the first Make it Paleo, that the recipes were so simple and approachable, but also throw in some stuff that was a little more advanced, just because we had some people saying they were too simple. So I really wanted this book to appeal to a broader audience, but still also appeal to the people who really enjoyed the simple recipes in Make it Paleo 1.

I guess the biggest thing with this book was just trying to make a cookbook that we thought our audience really needed. We said this in a different interview; when we wrote Make it Paleo, and when we started our blog, we really just kind of did whatever we wanted to do, and now it’s more about what our readers want or need from us. So that’s sort of the big difference between our other books and this book.

5. Caitlin’s contribution to the book [10.49]

Diane Sanfilippo: So, one of the things that I see, obviously your sister. It says Caitlin Grace and I was just about to call her Caito, and I think it says Caito in our questions list.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Because that’s your nickname for her. Obviously, she joined you guys in writing this. I know that she’s an amazingly talented chef, and I think we want to know a little more about her involvement in the recipes. I can see it because I know what her influence is and her background, but why don’t you tell people listening where she came in and how much of her flavor and flair kind of got into things.

Hayley Mason: Yeah. When we decided we wanted to start on another book, we asked her if she would be a part of it, and we thought it would be really fun for her to join in. She told us no, several times. She was like, no I’m not doing that.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} She’s like, I’ve seen what happens when y’all write books.

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Hayley Mason: Yeah. She was like, no I’m not doing that. And we finally were able to convince her. So for anyone who doesn’t know my sister, throughout our entire childhood, she wouldn’t eat anything. She would eat white food; that was it. Pasta with butter, bagels with cream cheese. She would eat nothing. So now, she’s an extremely talented cook. She’s one of the best sushi chefs I’ve ever met. Her sushi is unbelievable. And everything that she does in a kitchen is just amazing. So her impact on the book was huge, because I think just having another person in the kitchen with us, bringing fresh ideas and a different skill set really just had a huge impact on us.

We were joking, when we first started the book with her, you know she works in restaurant kitchens. So she would yell at me because I would walk with a knife, and not say anything about it.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Hayley Mason: She’s like, you’re going to stab somebody! So she would get on our cases about doing stuff like that, and then for her, it was a huge learning experience working on a book. Because you’re not cooking to get food out on a table, you’re cooking to photograph a dish. So it was cool how we learned stuff from her, and she learned stuff from us.

As far as the recipes in the book, a lot of the Asian inspired dishes are hers. She had an amazing ravioli recipe. She made chutney. A lot of Asian inspired dishes, but there’s just so much more in the book that she contributed to. So really a wide variety of recipes. It was just great having her on the project.

Diane Sanfilippo: It’s funny when you say about having a chef, someone who’s used to working in a professional kitchen, when Caitlin and Nabil were here working on Mediterranean Paleo Cooking and Nabil was doing a lot of prep ahead, and we’re like, yeah, we need to count how much time that’s going to take. You know? And they’re getting their mise en place ready, right, and you’re like, yeah but we need to factor that into this recipe. It can’t be like, pull all the diced peppers out of your fridge. {laughs}

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s not how the home cook operates. You know, they don’t have 6 containers of ingredients already prepped from yesterday. It’s like, no they have to chop that right now. That was the funny thing, because it was a different experience.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: When the three of us all worked, when I was with you guys and you were working on Gather, and you were in the kitchen with the Chinese food recipes, it was like, we all work the same way.

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: We were like, on our toes all the time, and just scribbling on a note pad some semblance of what just went into that recipe.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: And shoot, I just added another tablespoon of that. And it was total mayhem writing them out the first time. But that’s not how they work, they’re so methodical.

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Hayley Mason: Yeah {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: And then we have to test. So, do you want to ask a question here? You’re leaning into the mike.

6. What sets Make it Paleo 2 apart from the other paleo books [15:29]

Dr. Scott Mills: Sure, yeah. What else can we ask about? One of the things I was thinking about too, guys, obviously as paleo has gotten more popular, a lot of books has come out and I was just curious your take on this Make it Paleo 2, kind of what it offers to the market as something new and sort of what sets it apart from some of the other things you guys have done, and the other people are doing.

Hayley Mason: That’s a good question, because there are so many. When we released Make it Paleo, there weren’t paleo cookbooks, really. There was Sarah Fragoso’s first book and Paleo Comfort Foods, and then us. And I still remember {laughs} I still remember that very first PaleoFx and the apartment that we rented for the weekend.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Hayley Mason: We were sitting on the couch, we had just met Diane, and we were sitting on the couch showing her the entire book on the computer.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, that was AHS.

Bill Staley: That was AHS.

Hayley Mason: Oh, that’s what I meant. Not PaleoFx.

Bill Staley: Yeah. {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, and my favorite part of that is you guys would be like, this one’s really good. This is really good. And I was like, don’t they think every recipe is good? And then I finished Practical Paleo, and when I was showing people I was like, that one’s really good. And I’m like, oh my god I’m doing it. {laughs}

Bill Staley: Yeah, totally.

Hayley Mason: Yeah. This book was definitely challenging in that way, because pretty much anything anyone could ever want out of a paleo cookbook is out there already. So I think our biggest thing was just creating the best recipes that we felt like we could create, and then also making it appeal to people’s needs. So, having options for people who can’t eat nuts, or can’t have nightshades, can’t have eggs, those sorts of things.

I love making desserts, so I wanted to make sure that there were nut-free desserts for people in the book. And also a few things like the dumplings, we wanted to make sure that we had an option for people who couldn’t have nuts for the dumplings, people could enjoy the dumplings.

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Hayley Mason: Which is a really good recipe {laughs}.

Bill Staley: Yeah, same thing with the pasta, though right? The pasta dough is also nut free.

Hayley Mason: Yeah. And also with the front of the book, the information that we put in the front of the book, that was sort of another thing. How do we explain paleo to people who don’t know, but what can we offer people who already have Make it Paleo or any other paleo cookbook out there? How can we repeat this information, but still have it appeal to all those people.

Bill Staley: There’s a lot of specialized cookbooks out there, and we had taken the year off from writing, and we took another year to really travel a bunch. We had a lot of ideas. It wasn’t really like any one thing. Some of the dishes are travel inspired, but really we just wanted to write a general cookbook. We find that that’s the most useful thing in the kitchen, anyway.

Dr. Scott Mills: Right.

Bill Staley: Is that, you know, you have all these nice recipes, you have a couple in this style, a couple in this style, a couple in this style. It really flows nicely. I think this book flows the best out of any of our books, really. It’s not heavily biased in any one direction.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think a couple of things that I really like about this book. I saw you guys sent out previews, and posting on Instagram and all of that, but then when I got the book and I was looking through it, I think there are probably 3 things that stood out to me that were unique about this book. Like you said, it’s a wide variety of recipes, it’s not just this stuff. But this stuff stood out to me.

One was, as you mentioned about Caito’s influence; the Asian influence. Which I think is really great, because it’s a lot of these really nutrient dense ingredients, and using things, like kombu, and ways to enrich broth and different ways to make Asian sauces that are very traditional but I think people have a hard time finding some of these sauces without soy, or gluten, or something like that, and using coconut aminos in a way to kind of transform them and make them taste like what we remember. So I know those are a couple of things, just nutrient dense recipes, that was the other thing in general.

7. Bill’s food projects in Make it Paleo 2 [19:58]

And then the food projects. Which I know that’s a huge influence from you Bill, because you're the food project guy. So if you want to talk a little bit about some of the food projects in the book?

Bill Staley: Yeah, that chapter was sort of my little project, so to speak. {laughs} I had done a bunch of things in the year off from writing, like I learned how to cure my own bacon, and I learned how to brew my own ginger beer, and things like that. And as we came to this book, I know that I’m sort of known as the photographer, but I also love, love, love to cook. I’m the guy who likes being in the kitchen for hours. I feel like the more prep or intensity, the better. {laughs} I’m sick that way, I love it.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Hayley and I are like, this will be 20 minutes, I’ll be right back.

Bill Staley: Yeah, that’s not me at all, actually. And not that the food projects or crazy insane or anything, but I sort of like digging in and learning how things work. Like with the bacon thing, and I’ll use this as an example. For a while, people are saying, you’ve got to get nitrate free bacon. Ok, well, in doing my research.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing} I told you guys! Go ahead.

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: I’m like, that’s not possible.

Bill Staley: You’re absolutely right it’s not possible. And you don’t want bacon without nitrates, because that’s what keeps you safe. That’s what keeps the bad bacteria at bay. I get so animated about this stuff, I love it. I’m passionate about it, I’m passionate about learning these things. But anyway.

Dr. Scott Mills: Our friends get animated about bacon; that’s a good thing.

Hayley Mason: {laughs}

Bill Staley: Yeah. The bottom line is, even if you get bacon that says “nitrate free”, guess what? You’re going to read the ingredients and you’re going to see celery salt. And celery salt imparts nitrates. And they can’t market that as cured bacon, so it will say uncured. But there’s this whole; I did so much research for a lot of these projects, and I think some of them are really neat. It’s projects and basics, so you’ve got a bunch of different spice blends that are really versatile for cooking, stuff you can throw on food really quick if you don’t want to follow a recipe. And we do that in our day to day cooking almost every day. We have little jars of premixed blends that we just throw on sweet potatoes, or chicken wings, or vegetables, whatever, and it really brings it up a notch. But I wanted to include that in the book; that was sort of my major contribution, from the cooking aspect, at least.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think people are ready for that stuff. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen more and more people, not only digging into fermented foods and making more kombucha and sauerkraut. There are still people now who are just finding out that there was a sauerkraut recipe in Practical Paleo. I’m like, you guys should make that. It’s really good {laughs}

Bill Staley: {laughing}

Hayley Mason: It is really good.

Diane Sanfilippo: I love that we got to eat all that food together. I’m kind of bummed that I didn’t get to eat all of this food with you guys.

Dr. Scott Mills: That’s exactly what I was thinking when I was flipping through this book. Oh my gosh.

Diane Sanfilippo: It sucks. Don’t write a cookbook again without us coming to camp out for like a month.

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8. Evolution of grain free baking [24:03]

Diane Sanfilippo: There’s so much stuff in here, and I think there’s a lot of, like you mentioned, Hayley, before, some that are more advanced recipes. They’re not so advanced that peoples are going to spend days. It’s not intense French cooking, it’s just kind of taking it to that next level now that people are familiar with some of these ingredients and especially, I know some of the baked goods and grain free flours and starch flours and things like that. I know you made little, what are these, what did you call them, mince pies?

Bill Staley: Oh, the Scottish meat pies.

Hayley Mason: The meat pies.

Diane Sanfilippo: Meat pies, and then also the hand pies.

Hayley Mason: Uh-huh.

Diane Sanfilippo: I was like, can I have those. Do you want to talk a little bit about some of the evolution of the grain free baking that’s going on? Because I think that’s something that people are interested in.

Hayley Mason: The baking and the dessert section in this book, I really tried to present my best work with that. Just because, again, when we released Make it Paleo, there wasn’t a lot of that. That book was the cleanest recipes ever, and then a giant dessert section.

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Hayley Mason: So I wanted to include stuff like grain free pasta dough, and sandwich bread, and stuff like that, stuff we didn’t put into the first book.

Bill Staley: And the fried wontons. {laughs}

Hayley Mason: And the fried wontons, yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, yeah. Little crispy wonton chippie things.

Bill Staley: Yeah. Love those {laughs}

Hayley Mason: Now, with people like Brittany Angell and Urban Poser, there’s just incredible grain free desserts out there. If you want something that looks and tastes like the real thing, it is out there. So it was really important to me to put that quality of dessert into this book. And just over the years from baking, I’ve learned a lot and I’ve learned a lot from my friends. Brittany has taught me so much about grain free baking. So I just had more to offer people with this book. I feel like the desserts are really, really good in this book.

Bill Staley: Definitely.

Hayley Mason: They’re awesome.

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Dr. Scott Mills: Including even the, I saw the wedding cake made it in there.

Bill Staley: Oh yeah! {laughs}

Hayley Mason: Oh yeah!

Bill Staley: You guys had that.

Diane Sanfilippo: We did.

Dr. Scott Mills: Yes we did.

Bill Staley: The real one.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Bill Staley: We didn’t have enough room to explain it on that page, so it’s sort of like, you’re going to get to the end of the book, it’s all alphabetical by chapter, so you’re going to get to the second to last recipe, and you’re going to go Wedding cake? And there’s literally no explanation from us, because the recipe is pretty involved. But that cake was inspired by the cake that we had at our wedding.

Hayley Mason: Mm-hmm. Which was a vanilla cake with lemon curd and fresh berries.

Diane Sanfilippo: It was good. I love lemon curd.

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Hayley Mason: Me too!

Bill Staley: It’s just really bright and fresh. That’s a great cake. It’s not like a heavy chocolate cake. The lemon curd, the acid in the lemon curd really brightens it up. It’s really fresh.

Dr. Scott Mills: Awesome. You want to take an Instagram question there, Diane?

Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know, you have questions right there.

Bill Staley: Let’s go to the Instagram hotline.

Dr. Scott Mills: {laughs}

9. What are some of your favorite go-to quick and easy meals [27:35]

Diane Sanfilippo: Let’s go to the video tape. Alright, let’s go to the Instagram hotline {laughs} I like that. I feel like Liz and I should do this. When we’re doing Q&A, we should be like, we’re recording right now, what are you questions? Boom. Let’s see. I like this one. They make so many amazing recipes, but what’s their favorite for a quick and easy meal. Which, by the way I just kind of want to remind people to follow you on Instagram at Primal Palate because then you can see {laughs} #thisishowwereallyeat.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Bill Staley: Yeah {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: What we eat all the time. But yeah, why don’t you tell people what some of your favorite go-to quick and easy meals are.

Hayley Mason: Breakfast lately has been sautéed Brussels sprouts, like shredded Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes. We’ve actually been doing {laughs}

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Hayley Mason: You guys did that at the same time.

Diane Sanfilippo: Well I muted us, so we both took a drink. We were like, glug, glug, glug, glug.

Hayley Mason: {laughs}

Bill Staley: Hilarious.

Hayley Mason: So the home fries recipe in Make it Paleo 2, and we use white potatoes for that. But we’ve actually been using the seasoning for home fries on sweet potatoes. So Bill will dice them up, and he’ll fry them in lard on the stovetop, and we’ll season them with that.

Bill Staley: It’s the Japanese sweet potatoes. The ones that have the purple skin but the white flesh.

Hayley Mason: They’re white on the inside.

Bill Staley: They’re sort of squarely in the middle, in terms of a flavor profile between a jewel or a garnet sweet potato and a russet white potato.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Bill Staley: No seriously! Man, everybody laughs at me.

Diane Sanfilippo: I love Bill, he’s such a nerd.

Dr. Scott Mills: Oh I love it too.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s awesome.

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: Bill is the smartest guy in any room, by the way.

Hayley Mason: {laughing}

Bill Staley: Continue.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Dr. Scott Mills: That’s why they come out so good. I’m picturing your big Dutch oven with the lard in there, and coming out perfectly and crispy, right?

Hayley Mason: Uh-huh. Yeah.

Bill Staley: Yeah, yeah.

Hayley Mason: So those are awesome. We’ve been having those, and just fried egg. Which I did not know how to fry an egg until Diane taught me how to fry an egg.

Diane Sanfilippo: Wait, what?

Hayley Mason: No, seriously. When you came to work on Practical Paleo.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Hayley Mason: And Ina Garten does it the exact; no, not Ina Garten, just kidding.

Diane Sanfilippo: I was brought up on the Food Network, so.

Hayley Mason: A chicken lady that we watched on YouTube, that was completely different. {laughing}

Bill Staley: Are we really referencing this right now?

Hayley Mason: Does her eggs the same way.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, we’re going to talk about chickens.

Dr. Scott Mills: Oh yeah. That’s coming.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Bill Staley: {laughing}

Hayley Mason: So fried eggs {laughs}.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s like a 10-minute breakfast.

Hayley Mason: Yeah {laughs}

Bill Staley: Yeah, it’s quicker to make it. {laughing}

Hayley Mason: Yeah. Our lunches/dinners are much faster. We’ve been doing chicken wings a lot. We’ll just put them on a wire rack, and we’ll season them with some spices, either adobo or the salty rib rub from Make it Paleo 2, and we’ll do some steamed artichokes and a salad, or more roasted sweet potatoes or something. And that’s really easy to throw together. Tonight we had grilled ribeye steaks and a salad and steamed artichokes. Diane knows, we don’t have to say this, our every day cooking is as easy as it can be. Every once in a while we’ll do something a little more involved, but the less fuss the better.

Bill Staley: Yeah, and we repeat the stuff that gets on the table quick. The stuff that we really like to eat. It’s not like every night is something totally different.

Diane Sanfilippo: I feel like the way most of us eat most nights of the eat is pretty much how Make it Paleo was.

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: I mean, that really was how we actually eat.

Hayley Mason: Mm-hmm.

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Seriously. Grilled meats, or baked or roasted meats or veggies, and skillet veggies and stuff like that.

Bill Staley: yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: It’s just super easy. And it’s funny. I feel like maybe after we work on developing recipes, it’s like all the creative juices come out, and you just want to eat food and you don’t really want to think about it.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think those spice blends. We kind of do the same thing.

Dr. Scott Mills: Definitely.

Diane Sanfilippo: We’ve been eating chicken wings a bunch, and marinating them. I’ve been going the marinating route versus the spice rub route these days. Who knows, but we probably eat pretty much the same things all the time.

10. Bill’s healing journey with leaky gut [32:15]

Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, so artichokes. I have a question about Bill’s digestion {laughs}

Bill Staley: Really? I didn’t see that one.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} No, nobody asked this. I was going to say.

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} No, I want to ask really briefly, because I know your fans and readers know that Hayley’s been doing Candida cleanse and detoxing and all that. I know you guys talked about this stuff in the front of the book, Bill I’m guessing.

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Because there’s a picture of garlic and onions next to it.

Bill Staley: {laughing}

Diane Sanfilippo: And I’m like, he’s probably talking about FODMAPs right here?

Bill Staley: Totally, yeah! {laughing}

Diane Sanfilippo: And when we were all together, and I was working on Practical Paleo, it was like, FODMAP discussion every day, right?

Bill Staley: Yeah, yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: It was like, does this have FODMAPs in it? That was in 2011, we were talking about that stuff. So is your digestion pretty good these days? How’s it going?

Bill Staley: Yeah, yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Let’s talk about it. No I’m just kidding {laughs}

Bill Staley: It’s really good. I’m past the 2 year mark; well, actually I’m just around the 2 year mark of being completely healed up. I had leaky gut for a long time. I didn’t know I had leaky gut, all I knew was that I was having problems, and then I knew I was having problems with FODMAPs, and finally I saw our holistic doctor, and I know I’ll get a million questions, it’s Dr. Frannie Berez of Squirrel Hill Family Wellness. She did a panel of tests, and it came back and showed that I basically had a bunch of indicators for leaky gut. So I did a round of supplements, gut healing stuff like slippery elm, marshmallow root. I was drinking aloe; aloe is very gut healing, as everyone who listens to this podcast probably knows.

It took about 4-6 months for me; I got initial relief in about 3-4 months, and I got almost complete relief within 6 and I’ve pretty much been symptom free for two years. You know, there’s one or two things I still just can’t eat, like red onion and shallots raw. I know my body doesn’t like those, but other than that I am completely healed, and happy. This stuff really works if you do the right things. Like getting a doctor involved, getting the right supplements, and then following the protocol.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, giving it time. I mean, I think saying feeling initial response in a few months, and then a lot more healing in a few months, that’s what people listening really need to hear. Because people all expect a shot gun, 30 days, you’re whole life is changed. And that’s not really the whole story. I probably haven’t seen many people; I have a lot of friends who follow a lot of protocols, and they’re great at it; but you guys are like, you’re given a protocol and I’ve never seen people follow a protocol better than you two. You’re like, we’re doing this.

11. Hayley’s current struggle with Candida and MTHFR [35:19]

And you’re so amazingly supportive of each other. Hayley, I know you were doing a Candida cleanse detox kind of whole shebang you’ve been Instagraming about; do you want to talk just a little bit about that? Just briefly, because I know we could probably get into it more in a few more months maybe when you’re through a little bit more of it. Maybe we’ll have you come back on and talk more about it.

Hayley Mason: Yeah. So, I found out I have the MTHFR gene mutation back in August. And I know someone asked what led me to find out about that. There were a couple of things; one was pretty much every since our wedding I’ve been struggling pretty badly with anxiety. And I was working with a nutritionist, who did a lot with amino acids and she was doing this anxiety summit, and she had someone on that was talking about MTHFR and anxiety. And I had shared it on Facebook, and I got a private message from my uncle, and he said, hey I just wanted to let you know that I have this, you should get tested.

So, there’s lots of indicators whether you should get tested or not. If you know that a family member has it, that’s one of the biggest ones. There’s also lots of physical signs, which I didn’t know you could tell by looking at someone, and some of them are if someone has had tongue tie; any abnormalities down the center of the body. So, scoliosis, I have scoliosis, Dr. Scott knows that.

Dr. Scott Mills: {laughs}

Hayley Mason: {laughs} And thanks to my scoliosis, you guys are now together.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s right.

Bill Staley: Getting hitched. {laughs}

Hayley Mason: And then Down’s syndrome. There’s some physical signs you can tell by looking at someone to know whether or not they have this mutation. And then there’s other things, like mood disorders and different ways to tell, autoimmunity, if someone has cancer in their family. It’s just all over the board.

So I got tested, and I found out I had it, and then I was learning that people who have MTHFR have trouble detoxing, and heavy metals can be a problem. So then I did a heavy metal test. I went to see a doctor in town who specializes in heavy metal detoxing, and he took a look at my blood work. He said, you have higher levels of tartaric acid, and fungus produces that, not humans, so I think you have Candida.

Bill Staley: Smoking gun.

Hayley Mason: Yeah. So, that was sort of my path with the detox, and Candida road. I’ve never really given up sugar before. This is the longest I’ve ever gone without sugar. It was kind of crazy to me that I’ve always sort of had sugar in my diet. I didn’t really talk about it, but it just was always there. There were times when I was eating a lot of sugar, and then through the wedding planning, the wedding, and then after the wedding, it was just sort of always a little bit like, if I wanted a treat I would have one. So I never really didn’t have sugar in my diet. And when I cut it out, for a while I added it back in, and I got really sick from it. Like, immediately. And I did it a couple of times, because who doesn’t want to not be able to eat sugar. So I tested it out a couple of times, and I got really sick from it. So I haven’t eaten it and not gotten sick recently, and I don’t know what will happen eventually.

Diane Sanfilippo: For you, when you say you got sick, is it you feel you mood changing really drastically, or fatigue, or what does that mean for you?

Hayley Mason: I’ve sort of had a blood sugar reaction, I think, and I got really bloated, and I had some digestion upset, and then I woke up in the middle of the night with acid reflux. So it was just sort of a mix of things, and then I would notice my mood immediately would change, and my heart would start racing. Sort of a lot; I don’t know, is there anything I’m missing?

Bill Staley: No, that was the big highlights, for sure.

Hayley Mason: Yeah. And it was every time, so it was just really strange. And it was one of those things where I was like, if this was gluten, I’d be like, I’m never going to eat gluten again. You know?

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.

Hayley Mason: This was several times that I ate it, this reaction happened. So it’s kind of weird; I hope that one day I can eat a treat again.

Diane Sanfilippo: Wait, I saw you’ve been making some treats with sweeteners that are Candida overgrowth friendly. Which I know for a lot of people; a lot of people poo-poo something like stevia, right? And they say it’s not ok for this, It’s not ok for that, it is ok for this. I feel like there’s a time and a place for it. I personally, there are certain forms of it that don’t taste right to me, which is why I don’t use it most of the time. I don’t care for the taste of it.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: But this is kind of like the perfect case for it, because it’s not going to feed the Candida, but it will make you feel {laughs} a little bit more human maybe.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: I saw you put up a video of pudding?

Hayley Mason: The chia pudding? Yeah. I mean, I’ve tried making some things, when I first started the Candida cleanse I was making lemon Jell-O, and sweetening it with some stevia. And then we were making coconut milk ice cream with gelatin as a thickening agent, and those sorts of things just so I would feel sane. And then the chia pudding with whipped coconut cream, that takes the chia pudding to the next level, if anyone was wondering.

Bill Staley: {laughs} Yeah it’s really good.

Hayley Mason: But I’ve sort of gotten to that point where I think this is your approach with the Sugar Detox. It doesn’t taste that good anymore. Well, this is ok if I really, really need something, but it doesn’t taste like a treat so it’s not really worth eating that much. But it is nice when I need something.

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12. Would you try eating or cooking with insects? [43:03]

Diane Sanfilippo: So we have a bunch of questions from the Instagram. Can you open up the other feed, can you open up their Q&A on their picture, and I’ve got some on the one I shared. I know people are asking, are you open to eating and cooking with insects.

Hayley Mason: Well, I really like those Exo protein bars.

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: I haven’t been able to try them because they all have nuts in them.

Hayley Mason: They’re really good. We tried all of them at PaleoFx, and then we ordered some.

Diane Sanfilippo: Have you thought about getting the flour to do anything with that?

Hayley Mason: No, but I would.

Bill Staley: Yeah, it’s not a concept that’s particularly prominent in our culture, but I dig it and I think it makes a lot of sense, and I think we’re both pretty open to it. It would strike a lot of people that we know as unusual.

13. Thoughts on running a business with your significant other; the good, the bad, and the awesome? [44:06]

Diane Sanfilippo: But yet you’d go for it. Alright, so this is a good one, this isn’t necessarily a food related question. Thoughts on running a business with your significant other; the good, the bad, and the awesome?

Hayley Mason: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: I like that one.

Hayley Mason: Take it away, Bill.

Bill Staley: Oh really?

Dr. Scott Mills: {laughing}

Bill Staley: I don’t know. You know, we’ve been doing this for almost 5 years now. {Laughs}

Hayley Mason: Ok, so I’ll say something to sort of start it up.

Diane Sanfilippo: So classic.

Hayley Mason: Yeah. Ok, so we just really don’t like being apart.

Dr. Scott Mills: Awww.

Hayley Mason: And that sounds sort of silly. {laughs} We just really, ever since the beginning, we just didn’t like really being apart. And even when we were mad at each other, we still didn’t really want to be apart. So, we just work really well together as a team. I mean, I’ve talked to people who are like, wait, you work together, all day, every day, you don’t get any time apart?

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Hayley Mason: And it’s not really something that we need to have. Some couples do I guess, but we don’t. In that way, it’s helpful. We really complement each other, which is good.

Bill Staley: I like those leggings you’re wearing.

Hayley Mason: Thanks.

Dr. Scott Mills: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Bill Staley: {laughing} Those compliments are important too, people.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Bill Staley: Those are very important.

Dr. Scott Mills: Love advice, good.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Bill Staley: This is the Valentine’s day episode.

Hayley Mason: Oh my gosh. {laughs} Things that are really important is that we communicate really well. There were definitely some times that we didn’t communicate well, so talking to each other is really important. Talking through difficult things is really important. Figuring out what’s working and what isn’t, and working on the things that aren’t.

Some of the ugly is that we don’t have really any down time. Our work overlaps with our life, so there’s really no separation. We have to try a little harder to sort of have that, you know, unplugged alone time sort of stuff. And when you work for yourself, you could just be working all the time. And for most people who do work for themselves, we feel guilty not working. So that’s something that we’ve been working on lately is trying to find a little separation from work and focus on just us and that sort of stuff.

And then the good is, I guess, is that we get to spend time with each other all the time. {laughs}

Bill Staley: It’s awesome. I mean, if you think about the type of relationship that we have where we’ve been together for 5 years, but we also work together, we spend almost every hour of every day together, it’s like a lot of traditional couples where each person would go to a different job, and then they only have time in the evenings together. It’s like our relationship is like 15 years down the road instead of 5 because we’re together 3 times as much as most couples are.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.

Dr. Scott Mills: That’s a good point. I think that’s a really good point, too, Hayley. Being intentional, there, is what you were getting at there as far as being intentional with making time just for your relationship together. If you’re working with somebody or spending a lot of time with that person, and you have a propensity to work really hard, which as entrepreneurs you do, right?

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Dr. Scott Mills: You have to take that time. I think I know for our relationship, very similar, I almost forced Diane to take some downtime, some breaks. She’s a hard worker, just as you guys are, as well. It’s important to be intentional about that time.

Bill Staley: If you bottled up that rainbow string, who knows what could happen.

Dr. Scott Mills: Who knows. It could explode.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. And we definitely, we get to spend a lot of time together during the week, even though Scott has “a regular job” whatever it is.

Dr. Scott Mills: A brick and mortar.

Diane Sanfilippo: A brick and mortar. He’s learning not to call it a real job, because he’s like, you’re job’s pretty real.

Hayley Mason: {laughs}

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: But we see each other a lot during the day. And it is definitely really different. We were just talking about that earlier this week. Some people are gone from each other all day and do really different, separate things all day, and we’re home. A few hours on the days that he goes to his office, those days we’re apart for several hours, and it’s like, oh how was your day? But most days, I don’t know, I want to say at least 6 hours during the day we’re together, middle of the day. Lunch; I mean we almost eat every meal together. A few early mornings he leaves at 6:30 and I’m definitely not up eating breakfast at that time. {laughs}

Dr. Scott Mills: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: If I can help it. But yeah, it is really different. I think in the economy today; maybe it’s just our bubble, because we do know so many entrepreneurs, but I do think there are more entrepreneurs with the whole boom of the internet, obviously. I think it does change things for a lot of people. I think there is more opportunity for people to kind of work for themselves, make their own schedule, and work together with their partner. I definitely think, even though we don’t work together, technically speaking , because we work so closely in a similar industry, just health oriented. I can’t imagine being apart more, you know? I’m fine with the few hours on those days where he’s gone, and I’m working, or whatever. But then I’m like, ok as soon as he’s walking out there door, I’m like, ok come back!

Dr. Scott Mills: {laughs}

Hayley Mason: Yeah {laughs}

Bill Staley: {laughs}

14. Can they teach me everything they know about camera work and gardening [50:08]

Diane Sanfilippo: So I just can’t imagine. Alright, let’s see. I know, Bill, you have something you’ve been working on. A little side project, as we like to call things that we do.

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: Shiny object, side project, on food photography, right?

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: We have question about, can they teach me everything they know from camera work to building cold weather garden frames, and so much more.

Bill Staley: Better buy the house next door, because that’s going to take a while. {laughs} Yeah, we obviously have a lot of pet projects. We love to garden together, and we’re coming up on that season really soon. Especially with the cold frames.

Hayley Mason: We got herbs all year.

Bill Staley: Yeah, we still have fresh rosemary outside. It’s 6 degrees outside, and we have rosemary underneath the cold frames. And the woody herbs, they really like that. We had fresh lettuce the whole way through the New Years.

Diane Sanfilippo: For anybody who doesn’t know, Bill is also a landscape architect, so when he starts talking about plants, it gets really nerdy.

Dr. Scott Mills: It gets really nerdy.

Diane Sanfilippo: And if you drive around a new town with him, he starts planting out all the plants that are there with all their scientific names.

Bill Staley: Oh, yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: And woody herbs. You didn’t think that was nerdy, but I was like {laughs} nobody says that.

Hayley Mason: Side note; when we were planning our wedding. I had a really hard time; I don’t know much about plants. And I was like, oh great. I’m marrying a landscape architect, you can tell me what flowers we should be looking into for the wedding.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Hayley Mason: And he was like, no. I don’t know flowers.

Bill Staley: It wasn’t really my focus as a landscape architect. I was more of like an urban planner. I wasn’t like a backyard pick out a flower landscape architect. And there are plenty of those out there that are extremely good at what they do. I was always better at drawing roads and buildings. {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, so sorry. We sidetracked.

Bill Staley: Yeah, blew that out of the water. But yeah, for anyone that’s interested in the cold frame gardening, what we did is we have two raised beds. We got reclaimed windows from a recycling construction place. They were cheap, they were like 6 or 8 bucks a piece. We basically built this glass greenhouse over our flowerbeds, and it extends the growing season in both directions. So we were able to replant lettuce in late September/early October, and that lettuce grew the whole way through Christmas.

Hayley Mason: That “lettuce” grow things all the way through.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing} I heard that too.

Dr. Scott Mills: Badum-bum.

Hayley Mason: {laughs}

Bill Staley: Oh my god.

Everyone: {laughing}

Bill Staley: But it allows us to start earlier, too. We have a little temperature gauge inside it, and it’s on a south facing side of the house that gets reflective light from a white brick wall. It’s like the perfect place for a vegetable garden, so it gets good sun all year long. Even in the winter on a sunny day it will be 55 or 60 degrees in there, and that’s the perfect temperature for growing plants.

Diane Sanfilippo: Are you guys blogging more about that, or I know you guys are working on the chicken project also.

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, that was a collective sigh.

Dr. Scott Mills: That was a groan {laughs}

Bill Staley: Well {laughs} there’s a lot, probably too many projects around here right now. The chickens are definitely near and dear to our hearts, but they’re also sort of in an awkward stage where, they’ve grown really quickly, but it’s too cold outside for little baby chickens, so they’re sort of in the house, and a little smelly.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Bill Staley: Yeah. {laughs} So that would be the groan. But we love them. I mean, we’re really looking forward to getting them outside. We just got the coop. We ordered one from Urban Coop Company in Austin. And really looking forward to putting it up when we get back from our book tour. And that will be the right time to put them outside, too. My poor parents are going to have to clean chicken brooder out for like two weeks while we’re gone.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Dr. Scott Mills: {laughs} Man.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, that’s the only downside of having their kids close by. I’m sure they won’t mind.

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Bill Staley: Well, they’ll get fresh eggs towards the end of the summer when they start laying.

Diane Sanfilippo: There you go.

Bill Staley: So it’ll be all good.

Diane Sanfilippo: Are you still working on food photography?

Bill Staley: Yeah, everyone’s been asking about this. It’s a project that I’ve been sitting on for about a year now, because we’ve been working on Make it Paleo 2. I wrote, and wrote, and wrote last winter, and it still wasn’t enough for me. But I have 10-12,000 words written so far, and I probably have another several thousand I could continue to write.

I was working on an eBook; it was sort of part of another eBook that spurred me to doing it. And I said, well hey listen I’m going to publish this on my own eventually. I’m sort of at this point now where I want to do instructional videos to go along with it. I want to bring more value. It’s one thing to have an eBook about food photography; there’s plenty of those out there. But you know, I really do have a little bit of a method to my madness, and I think if we could create some videos to go along with it, it would just be really helpful for people to see, have me set up something, and we could style it together, and just explain, hey, this is what we’re doing, this is the time of day, this is what the light is doing, this is how we’re playing with the light. We do 99% natural light photography. And you do that too, I think. And a lot of people do. And it’s challenging, and you’re like go, go, go! In the winter because you're running out of a light, and all of a sudden you’re making dinner at 2:30 in the afternoon going, what am I doing? {laughs}

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Dr. Scott Mills: That’s going to be really awesome, man. I’m excited for that.

Bill Staley: Yeah, I don’t know when it’s going to be finished. There’s sort of a beta version of it that’s finished that we’re including in a food photography giveaway that we’ve got going on right now.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s right.

Bill Staley: We’ve put together this really great package, the value is almost $2,000. It’s a canon 70d body, which is a prosumer camera. It’s not like an entry level one. But it’s not something so high level and professional that someone just couldn’t use it. And we’ve handpicked all the components that go with it, like this 50 mm1.4 aperture lens, which is a really sharp lens, and anyone that follows the paleo blogs, if you’ve ever seen Slim Palate or the Domestic Man; Russ and Josh both shoot that lens and it’s really sharp. It has a big aperture, so it let’s in a lot of light.

Diane Sanfilippo: I have no idea what lenses I have. I bought whatever lenses you told me to get 3 years ago, and that’s all I have.

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: I used the little one for Mediterranean Paleo Cooking. Whichever one that was.

Bill Staley: Yeah that’s a 50

Diane Sanfilippo: It’s a 50 mm something.

Bill Staley: It’s 1.8.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, that’s it.

Bill Staley: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: I have no idea what I’m doing.

Bill Staley: It’s probably time for you to graduate to the 1.4, or even the ….

Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t even know what that means. Like, you say it, and I’m like, I don’t know what that means. {laughs}

Bill Staley: So lens designation, I cover this in my very distant to be released

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Dr. Scott Mills: {laughs}

Bill Staley: Photography book. Lens designations are based on focal length and aperture. So when you say 50 mm F1.2, that’s a 50 mm lens, that’s the focal length, and 50 mm is very close to what the eye sees. It’s not a lot of distortion. Sorry, I know I’m like blabbering.

Diane Sanfilippo: No, it’s alright, I want to hear it.

Bill Staley: And then the aperture, the 1.2, 1.8, 3.5, whatever that is. That’s basically how big of an opening that’s inside that lens. And the bigger the opening is, the smaller the number is. So a 1.2 would be a huge opening; 3.5 wouldn’t be very big. But that sort of dictates how much light gets in, it dictates the depth of field. And there’s a lot more that I could say about it. That’s the way lenses are classified.

Dr. Scott Mills: You guys want to tell the listeners how they can enter that amazing giveaway?

Bill Staley: Yeah, yeah. You can go to PrimalPalate.com/giveaway, and there are details there. There’s a couple of ways to enter. For anyone that has ordered or preordered our book; that counts as an entry. There’s an alternate form of entry for that one, too. And then regramming something on Instagram. All the details are on our blog. It’s a really good giveaway. We’re excited about it. It’s the camera and the lens, it’s a camera bag from Kelly Moore, which we all have Kelly Moore bags, they’re really great.

Diane Sanfilippo: When does the giveaway go until?

Bill Staley: March 3rd, so there’s going to be plenty of time. There’s still another week and a half after this airs they could enter.

Diane Sanfilippo: Awesome.

Dr. Scott Mills: Cool.

Bill Staley: And it’s not like people that have entered before have a leg up. It’s a level playing field up until last minute, so go ahead and do that. We’re really excited about it, it’s a great package.

15. Favorite “I wouldn’t survive without it” kitchen gadget [59:33]

Diane Sanfilippo: Awesome. Were there any other questions that you guys saw that you wanted to jump on?

Bill Staley: Let’s see, I’m scrolling down through the feed too. Favorite “I wouldn’t survive without it” kitchen gadget.

Diane Sanfilippo: I like that.

Bill Staley: I like that.

Diane Sanfilippo: I have one more here that I want to ask you guys, too.

Bill Staley: And I know that everybody has their own version of this, and we cover this in our book with the tools. Just at a very high level, top 3 things, when you’re cooking fresh ingredients, there’s breakdown of ingredients involved. So having a good knife; even just one good knife, like a chef’s knife. A Global, a Wusthof, a Henkel, one of those knives would be really great to have for about 100 bucks. And then having a cast iron skillet that can go from the stove top to the oven, you can cook anything in a large cast iron skillet, and it will cost you about 25 bucks at Target. Those two things are really important. And just, you know, if you have those two, and maybe some sort of saucepan or stockpot, you could do 90% of the cooking in our book, just with those 3 things. And most paleo cooking, too. It’s not complicated stuff. Can’t live without a good knife; that would be my answer.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, for sure. I remember when I first got to your house, and I think I was trying to cut something with a knife, and I was like, what is this?

Hayley Mason: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: You were like, we need some new knives. I was like, I need to bring my knives here, and then you guys had, like a week later, you had better knives than I had and I was like, ok. I should use your knives now {laughs}

Bill Staley: {laughs}

16. Final words with Bill and Hayley [1.01.15]

Diane Sanfilippo: I was like, these are really sharp. Awesome. Well, is there anything else you guys want to tell people before wrap up, because it’s getting late. I know you guys have your amber goggles on. Somehow Bill lost his, I think the Shih-tzuation made the amber goggles fly off.

Bill Staley: Could be.

Dr. Scott Mills: He’s out now.

Diane Sanfilippo: He’s tuckered out now back there.

Bill Staley: I will say this, though. That rescue remedy. That was a really good decision for him.

Dr. Scott Mills: This was like the crazy pet episode. Mason, our cat, decided to make his home on my lap in the middle of that.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Bill Staley: Oh yeah. That’s a little bit less disruptive than a dog who’s biting me. {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, he’s pretty quiet.

Bill Staley: Oh, jeeze. I don’t know, is there anything else? No. We’re just really excited for people to get the book. It’s going to be in a bunch of places. It’s already popped up in some Costco stores, it’s going to be in Costco nationwide and even in the English speaking stores in Canada.

Diane Sanfilippo: Wo-hoo!

Bill Staley: They’ll be able to find it in Barnes and Noble, and if you can’t find it, just ask. Books a Million, Indigo in Canada. Really just everywhere. And we want to see what you guys are making, so use the #makeitpaleo2 and we’ll probably send you a kissy face, or a heart.

Dr. Scott Mills: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Bill Staley: And say way to go, or something like that. {laughs}

Dr. Scott Mills: That’s awesome.

Diane Sanfilippo: Awesome.

17. Liz’s Baby Making and Beyond tip of the week: preconception testing [1:02:37]

Liz Wolfe: Hey everyone! Liz checking in with a Baby Making and Beyond tip of the week, here of course with my BMB partner, Meg the midwife.

Meg Reburn: Hello!

Liz Wolfe: Hello. So last week you got an intro to my partnership with Meg, our stories, learned more of what Meg is about. If you didn’t already know, now you know. And today’s tip is about preconception testing. Remember we are not doctors, nor are we giving medical advice or offering diagnoses or treatment. This is just information that you can take to your healthcare provider.

So we will talk more comprehensively about preconception testing in Baby Making and Beyond, what people might be interesting in doing, what might tell them something, what might not. But what are the top two tests that those who are thinking about getting pregnant can ask their healthcare provider about? If you had to pick your favorite two.

Meg Reburn: Top two. It’s hard, because there are so many.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Meg Reburn: But I think, you know, kind of the top two, and these are most common tests that any care provider could order. Some care providers will offer more comprehensive testing, but some physicians will just offer things that they can check off on their box that their local lab offers. So, if you had to pick two that are the most widely available, I would say the first one would be vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 has been linked to severe fatigue, infertility, and most recently there have been quite a few studies linking it to recurrent miscarriage. Women who are vitamin B12 deficient can suffer from preterm labor or preterm birth, and they can also suffer from depression and anxiety, as well other neurological disorders. So vitamin B12 is super important to have lots of.

Interesting factoid, also. Infants who are born to vitamin B12 deficient mothers seem to be at increased risk for colic, which is otherwise known as persistent crying.

Liz Wolfe: Hmm.

Meg Reburn: Which might be the cause of anxiety and depression. But anyway, people who would be deficient in B12 might be someone who was a long term vegetarian or vegan, so recovering vegans and vegetarians really want to make sure they’re getting lots of B12 in their diet. There is no good vegetarian source of B12. We need animals to get B12 into our system.

Other people who would be deficient in B12, somebody who has low stomach acid. Vegetarians and vegans might also suffer from low stomach acid. So if you do that, you might want to consider taking something like a hydrochloric acid supplement. You want to make sure that get lots of vitamin B12 from your diet.

Things rich in B12 are liver, which…

Liz Wolfe: Ding, ding, ding.

Meg Reburn: Yeah, there’s nothing that liver doesn’t do, really.

Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Pretty much.

Meg Reburn: So just eat it. {laughing} Find a way to eat it, and eat it. Lots of it.

Liz Wolfe: Yep.

Meg Reburn: We’re going to have actually a bunch of different ways to eat liver, and recipes over on the Baby Making and Beyond site, too. Other things that have B12, so beef, liver, bison, wild game, and to a lesser extent eggs and milk from grass-fed cows has some B12 in them. You can also take a B12 supplement. It’s best to get something like a sublingual B12, so something that goes under your tongue. It’s the best absorbed, and of course can turn your pee into lots of fun shades of delightful yellow.

Liz Wolfe: How fun.

Meg Reburn: I know. So the other test would be vitamin D. I just read a study the other day that said 40-50% of women are vitamin D deficient. So, it is by far one of the most common deficiencies when I test women, too. Now that people are so fearful of the sun, they’re slathering themselves in SPF 5000.

Liz Wolfe: Yes.

Meg Reburn: And not getting the vitamin D from the light. But by far, vitamin D deficiency is not a good thing if you’re planning for fertility. The active form of vitamin D helps with genetic expression of the genes that you need to make estrogen. It also helps with egg maturation and embryo implantation. So these are all really important things for fertility.

They’ve done a lot of studies on women who undergo in vitro fertilization, and they seem to show that women with higher levels of vitamin D seem to have greater success with the IVF procedure.

Liz Wolfe: Hmm.

Meg Reburn: So you can either get more vitamin D from sunlight, or you can take a supplement. I usually recommend to my moms taking a vitamin D/K2 supplement. They’re really complementary together. There will be lots of recommendations on Baby Making and Beyond, but it’s a good place to start.

Liz Wolfe: Alright! So that’s it then for the BMB tip of the week. Hop over to Baby Making and Beyond.com to sign up for the program alerts, and we’ll talk to you again next time.

Meg Reburn: See you next week.

Diane Sanfilippo: Alright, well I guess we’ll wrap up this episode. It’s been fun chatting with you guys as always. Nice to see you.

Dr. Scott Mills: Nice to see you guys.

Bill Staley: Likewise.

Diane Sanfilippo: On video.

Bill Staley: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: So for those of you listening, if you want to find more about Bill and Hayley, you can find their website at http://www.primalpalate.com/ and their Instagram is @PrimalPalate. And you can also, of course find them on Facebook, Primal Palate on Facebook. They’re all over the place.

Bill Staley: I think we’re actually the Food Lovers on Facebook.

Diane Sanfilippo: Are you the slash.

Hayley Mason: What?

Bill Staley: Oh, did we change it to Primal Palate.

Hayley Mason: Oh, if you’re like doing the…

Diane Sanfilippo: You can find them.

Bill Staley: Yeah, if you doing that. Just look for Primal Palate on Facebook.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Primal Palate, and PrimalPalate.com will link you to all of that stuff. And don’t forget you can find me, Diane at BalancedBites.com or http://dianesanfilippo.com, whatever you feel like typing in, if you’ve learned how to spell my name by now, cool. If not, just do Balanced Bites, you’ll get there. And as always you can find Liz at http://realfoodliz.com/. I think that’s pretty much it. If you’re around the internet, join our email lists for free goodies and updates that you don’t find anywhere else. And, leave us a review on iTunes. We’ll see you guys next week.