Topics:
1. What’s new for you from Diane & Liz [2:27] 2. This week in the Paleosphere: The Depression Sessions [9:40] 3. Shout Out: Russ Crandall, the Domestic Man [11:40]
Listener Questions:
4. Need for endurance foods on paleo [14:44]
5. Paleo travel tips and paleo on a budget [24:43]
6. Severe scalp flaking issues [33:49]
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Links:
Underground Wellness: The Depression Sessions
Subscribe to DianeSanfilippo.com
The episodes are also available in iTunes & Stitcher.
Show sponsors:
Episode #196
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: Alright friends, it’s me, Liz, here with Diane as usual.
Diane Sanfilippo: Hey.
Liz Wolfe: Was that a little more peppy than my usual opening?
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Not really? I don’t know.
Diane Sanfilippo: Did you get some sleep?
Liz Wolfe: No, but I had a macaroon. Like a big macaroon.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Did you hear?
Liz Wolfe: Incidentally I did find out; oh, we’ll save that for news in a bit. Let’s hear from our sponsors.
Diane Sanfilippo: We’d like to thank Tin Star Foods for being a proud sponsor of the Balanced Bites podcast. For those of you who aren’t sure what ghee is, it’s clarified butter. So if you’re sensitive to dairy proteins, it’s a really good option. For people who are highly, highly allergic, it maybe for you, it maybe not. I know that Tin Star is certified as casein free as well as lactose free, batches are tested every few months so if you’re very sensitive to that, or you’re on an autoimmune protocol, this could be a great option for you. And if you’re looking for a fantastic cooking fat, ghee is a perfect choice. It has a very high smoke point, and it tastes great with just about any type of food
Tin Star Ghee is what I reach for most when I’m cooking in my own kitchen, and if you’re looking for an alternative to something like coconut oil or other animal fats, definitely check it out. As a special offer for our listeners, you can save 15% off any ghee in your order from http://www.primalfoodpantry.com/ using code BALANCEDBITES, so check them out. http://www.primalfoodpantry.com/ and grab your Tin Star Foods Ghee.
1. What’s new for you from Diane & Liz [2:27]
Liz Wolfe: Alright, so my only news, Diane, is that I got a little ping from my friend, Kristine Rudolf, you can find her at Exploring Wellness. Apparently, these macaroons we were talking about, the Jennie’s Macaroons, they’ve changed their recipe, which super sucks.
Diane Sanfilippo: No!
Liz Wolfe: I guess it, I took a look at the, see there’s the lesson, right there. You’ve got to always check the ingredients on your favorite stuff, especially if it’s not overtly paleo, because they used to be just coconut, honey, and egg, and now they’re like sugar, tapioca, coconut, it’s just, it’s just changed. It’s not what I thought it was anymore. So you may be right; maybe I will have to make my own fertility macaroon to sell. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: You know, I thought they had {laughs} I know. I’m just picturing you baby boom style, how she makes one batch of applesauce, because she wants to make it for herself, and then all of a sudden it’s like {laughs} kitchen explosion. For somebody who probably never cooked at all, she was like, a city slicker, you know?
Liz Wolfe: Yep. That’s exactly what it would look like.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh that would be so awesome. Yeah, I feel like they had organic cane sugar when I got them. I don’t know. My ear buds are plugged into my microphone and everything is a little out of reach, if I could just reach around into my pantry I could grab them and look at the ones I have here. But yeah, I don’t know exactly what’s in them now.
I actually don’t have a problem if they do have organic cane sugar, and even a little bit of starch, but I think that might spike some people’s blood sugar more, having extra starch or different types of sweetener, etc. So who knows.
Liz Wolfe: It’s definitely not organic, I know that for sure.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, ok.
Liz Wolfe: That’s probably some GMO sugar beet cane sugar right there.
Diane Sanfilippo: Uh-oh, not good.
Liz Wolfe: I know. Any who, what’s going on with you?
Diane Sanfilippo: Let’s see, so by the time this episode airs I’m not positive if this will still be the case, but I just keep telling people wherever I can because I have no control over this, but I think it’s awesome. Amazon marked Practical Paleo down like, I don’t know, a bunch of dollars and it’s been 51% off. It’s usually somewhere around anywhere from 36 to 40-something percent off. We know Amazon always has great prices, but it’s been 51% off and I don’t know when that will stop or whatnot. By the time this airs on Thursday, it could be over.
But I do just want to tell people that anytime I’m talking about it, it’s a crazy price that it’s not normally at. But also that if you are near a Target store, whether it’s 51% off or whatever the price might be, you can always go into Target and have them pull up the book on Amazon.com or even Wal-Mart.com, and whatever the lowest price is, they’ll match it. So if you just want instant gratification and walk into Target and {laughs}
I’m just thinking, nobody walks into Target and just gets one thing and walks out, however, at least I definitely don’t. but if you want to go in there, you have to take it to customer service, but it’s worth it because they have it just marked at full price, its $39.95, which is worth every penny, but you take it up to customer service and you can get it for more than half off. And then you can go spend the rest of that 20 bucks on a couple of cute tank tops, or something. {laughs}
I get lost in there. If I go by myself and Scott’s not with me, it could be a long time. I mean, it could be hours {laughs}.
Liz Wolfe: It’s been a very long time since I’ve been to Target. A very long time.
Diane Sanfilippo: Do they have them near you?
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: Is there a Target? I mean you live in the middle of nowhere.
Liz Wolfe: Do they have Targets in Missouri?
Diane Sanfilippo: What?
Liz Wolfe: No, not really. The closest one is at least 40 minutes away. And it’s a long 40 minutes.
Diane Sanfilippo: Isn’t the closes everything like 40 minutes away, though?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, pretty much. No, the closest Walgreens is about 15 minutes away, and you know I could get lost in Walgreens.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Looking at the scrunchies and the wet and wild nail polish.
Diane Sanfilippo: The funny thing is you don’t buy 99.9% of anything that people would go into Walgreens for, but Liz finds things in Walgreens that nobody even would know that exists in Walgreens, like neon pink socks. I was like, Liz, where did you find these? She’s like, oh I just got them at Walgreens. {laughs} Ok.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} They’re great socks too, I mean come on. It’s not just a pharmacy.
Diane Sanfilippo: What about you, what’s going on? Updates from the farmstead, babystead?
Liz Wolfe: I’ve got very little for you. Very, very little for you. There’s not a huge lot going on. Still, whenever I can get a spare hour I’m working on Baby Making and Beyond. Meg the midwife is working her tush off on BMB as well. That’s chugging along. I’m trying to not stress myself out too much with work, but as I’m able to, I’m getting back into the groove and getting back into that. It’s going to be an awesome program, I’m really, really excited about it.
Let’s see, what else. I don’t know, that’s about all I got. I got a little nap this morning, feeling a little refreshed. Shaved my armpits yesterday.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Good to have goals.
Liz Wolfe: Which, may I point out, that is a personal choice, and I respect anyone that chooses not to do that. I just tend to smell a little better when I do. Did you see all the controversy going on about this new trend of women not shaving their armpits?
Diane Sanfilippo: Uh, no. Where would I would see this?
Liz Wolfe: It’s not a new trend, it’s an extremely old trend that was interrupted.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Exactly.
Liz Wolfe: By an extremely short trend of women shaving their armpits. So I say rock on with your full on natural self if that’s your thing.
Diane Sanfilippo: I definitely think that, being someone who doesn’t tend to wear regular/real whatever you want to call it synthetic chemical laden deodorant, I feel like shaving is kind of, I don’t know. It’s the thing I can do to help keep everything kind of fresh.
Liz Wolfe: It does seem to help with that musk. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. I kind of think if you’re going to go not shaving, it’s probably, it’s just going to require a little extra cleansing. Perhaps, right?
Liz Wolfe: I’d have to agree.
Diane Sanfilippo: Do whatever floats your boat. Whatever makes you happy. {laughing} This show went off the rails really fast.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Sorry. I’m so sorry. This is true art with a sleep deprived human being on my side, and you’re side trying to flex for whenever I can make this happen. I’m like, hey I can podcast in 10 minutes, she’s sleeping.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, well. I was just on the couch writing musings from my random thoughts on a Sunday morning, so it’s all good.
Liz Wolfe: Well everybody else didn’t have to know that.
2. This week in the Paleosphere: Underground Wellness The Depression Sessions [9:40]
Diane Sanfilippo: Alright, how about a little bit of this week in the real food/paleosphere?
Liz Wolfe: I think this one is all you, girl.
Diane Sanfilippo: Well I think I’m just going to basically let folks know that The Depression Sessions is going on right now. That’s one of Sean Croxton’s big summit type events, but he does them to a level that’s kind of super well produced, amazing video content. I think you can get audio content if you can’t watch the videos. A lot of folks kind of tune into this stuff at work. Which, if I worked at a regular office type job, I would totally be doing that. And I definitely did when I worked at an office, I used to listen to podcasts all the time.
We will put links to The Depression Sessions to our show notes, so definitely check that out. If it’s something that you’ve dealt with or you have friends and family members who might be able to benefit from it, I believe that it’s a similar kind of conference where the videos are free for a certain period of time, and then obviously at the very end, if you miss something or you wanted to get all of them and listen back at any time, get transcripts, etc. I believe there’s a cost to it at that point, but I think it’s great to be able to get this information for free from a ton of top experts and doctors, etc.,
You know, sometimes you’re dealing with a medical profession that has been helping you for a long time but just doesn’t see eye to eye with the way you want to approach things anymore. So you might hear something in one of these interviews that will just spur you to contact somebody new to get help or just trigger some idea of something you hadn’t tried yet or just kind of connect the dots for you. I definitely think it’s worth checking out, especially if you’re able to tune into it. Again it goes until the 27th, so if you’re listening to this when it airs, you’ve got at least, I don’t know, 9 or so days more of the conference, so definitely check that out.
3. Shout Out: Russ Crandall, the Domestic Man [11:140]
Liz Wolfe: Alright, so who’s our shout out to this week?
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, my shout out this week is going to be to the most interesting man in paleo, and I nicknamed him that at PaleoFx this year, because he gave his introduction for his cooking demo, and I was like, there he is, everyone, the most interesting man in paleo. Because the things that come out of his mouth, you’re like, I don’t know how you got to this conference {laughs} because you’re obviously overqualified and way more interesting than everybody else here. The domestic man himself, Russ Crandall.
He’s just got a really interesting, fascinating story. He is a super nice guy, just super genuine. As soon as he starts talking you just want to hear his stories. I’m sure that there are stories that could fill hours, and days, and weeks. But he’ll be my guest next week on the show, I’m giving you a little bit of a break. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Grazie.
Diane Sanfilippo: You’re welcome. I just wanted to give him that quick shout out now to congratulate him on the release of his second book, Paleo Takeout. The Ancestral Table was his first book, and this is his follow-up. It’s nothing short of amazing. I got to look at it before it went to print so I could give him a quote for the back cover, and I was flipping through it like, holy cow, this is amazing. I’m super excited to give that one to my parents. My dad loves to cook, particularly Asian food at home. He is always trying to recreate different things at home that, I don’t know if it’s just a food hobby or a budget thing. My dad used to always, I’ve said this before on the show, he went to learn how to figure out how to create bagels at home because he felt like 0.75 cents was just too much to pay. {laughs} He’s like, this is ridiculous, I’m going to make them myself. Which, we don’t eat them anymore so {laughs} that doesn’t really happen anymore.
Anyway, I’m excited to share this book with him. It’s got a ton of different types of everything from Asian food, American food take out, just runs the gambit. Anyway, I’ll be talking to Russ next week, and you can tune in to hear my interview with him and learn some tidbits about why I think he’s the most interesting man in paleo at that point.
Liz Wolfe: Awesome.
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4. Need for endurance foods on paleo [14:44]
Liz Wolfe: Alright. Questions, eh?
Diane Sanfilippo: Questions. Yes, yes, yes.
Liz Wolfe: Alrighty. Endurance foods on paleo. Brit says, “Hi Diane and Liz! First off, you two are bomb. Without getting too sappy about how much I adore you, I just want to thank you for all you do and the amazing impact that you have. I know you get it all the time, but you’re seriously making a difference in people’s lives.” Man, I always feel like a chuck-a-luck when I read those things. Like I’m patting myself on the back publicly; but really, I promise, I don’t read these before, too far before we go on the air.
Diane Sanfilippo: No, I actually paste all the questions in, so when Liz reads them, it’s not {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Lately I’m not getting to them ahead of time {laughs}.
Diane Sanfilippo: Well, Liz isn’t like, I’m going to use this one, this person really likes us. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: No, I think it’s really nice though, and I want them to know that we appreciate them too.
Liz Wolfe: It’s so nice. And it’s not like I would just cut that part out if I read this ahead of time.
Diane Sanfilippo: That would be rude.
Liz Wolfe: But that’s just very sweet. Sometimes I just feel awkward reading these things, it’s just so nice! Thank you! Ok. “I’m wondering if you can help me with one of those, help me to explain paleo to non-paleo people questions. My brother asks me a lot of paleo questions. He’s incredibly intelligent.” Ugh, I hate people like that! Smart people. “And I always feel like I’m not smart enough to explain things adequately. And yes, I need to go buy him a copy of both your books stat. He’s been a vegetarian for 20+ years, and it works well for him. He’s active, energetic, healthy, and happy as can be. So it’s been very hard for him to wrap his head around the fact that being vegetarian was decidedly not healthy for me. I had become one from his inspiration, and was for about 14 years, and find myself often flailing a bit in explaining my transition to paleo to him.
I generally would just get sick of trying to justify myself, live and let live, right? But I do think he really is interested in learning more about it. Even if it is hard for him that my sister, mom, and I have all moved away from our vegetarian pasts. Though we are very picky about sourcing of our meat, now. So, this time, the question is endurance foods. We were planning on either a long hike or a long bike ride the other weekend. He asked me what my paleo friendly endurance foods were so we could plan properly. I said that paleo doesn’t need endurance foods; if I eat a healthy sizeable breakfast before we head out, for me that’s probably going to be a big veggie and egg scramble, 3 pastured eggs, carrots, green onions and spinach, coffee blended with coconut oil and ghee and maybe half a banana, then I could easily go on a 4-ish hour ride or hike and not need anything until we grab a late lunch after. He didn’t believe me.
I tried to explain that fat adapted thing, and how I’ve found that eating paleo, I now only really need 3 meals a day. Once in a while, I’ll have a snack, but I really don’t need it. Could you help explain a little more thoroughly for both my sake and his why I used to need to eat every couple of hours and choke down Gu and other endurance foods for long runs, rides, hikes, and now don’t rely on that at all. Thanks so much!”
Well. I always like to share my nutrition in 100 words shareable that I made in collaboration with Steve’s Paleo Goods, because I think that’s a really great, kind of intuitive type explanation that people would be like, ok. I like that, that’s cool. And maybe kind of starting from that place. And from there, if you’ve got somebody that’s super intelligent and probably wanting all kinds of white papers and studies and stuff like that, I think Eat the Yolks is a great way to go because I do have a pretty robust reference section, if I do say so myself. But also, I don’t look at paleo as being all that different from vegetarianism aside from eating meat, and if it’s sustainable meat, there are a ton of resources out there.
Diana Rogers, my Modern Farm Girl buddy wrote a ton about this in her book, the Homegrown Paleo Cookbook. It’s just harder to argue with sustainable meat when we’re not talking about feedlot cows. Maybe this is a person who really likes to cover all of his bases, you can basically just say, we’re talking the same type of food, save for the addition of meat, and when we talk meat, we’re talking about sustainable meat and maybe bring in a little bit of information from Alan Savory’s work, how grazing animals can actually really help to rebuild the environment and how important they can be, the types of nutrients we’re getting from meat, things like that. And that’s all in my book as well, so that’s the good news.
I will say, I was thinking the other day. Eat the Yolks does, it doesn’t come down hard on vegetarians so much as it comes down hard on fake meat vegetarianism, and kind of getting into all the funny stuff around how “Dr. Kellogg” kind of started us on this path to vegetarianism inside 50 years ago. It’s kind of a new phenomenon, so feel free to quote directly from my book, I won’t come after you for plagiarism or anything like that.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Just make it yours. I’m cool with that. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: So when it comes to the whole endurance foods things, and not needing a snack, this is my wheelhouse. Because that is exactly who I was and how I was. I couldn’t {laughing} in the past, I didn’t exactly frame it as I could go for a long ride or hike and be ok, it was like, I could go to the mall for an hour and be ok {laughs} because this was my past. But I would not be able to last, historically, one to two hours even without having something on hand, just because my blood sugar would drop, and I would get hungry. It would not be ok. And the difference between somebody who eats a relatively high fat, moderately low carb diet, and that’s low carb in relation to everything else. You could eat 100 grams of carbohydrates in a day, and that’s percentage wise pretty low if you eat a lot of protein and fat. And 100 grams of carbohydrates could be pretty high for you if you don’t eat a lot of the other stuff. So, whenever we say low or high, there’s an absolute number but there’s also a relative number, just based on percentage wise.
When I look at relatively what someone is eating in the course of a day, when they’re eating a diet that’s probably at least 40-50% fat, I would say maybe 50% or more fat, and if you eat real, whole foods, you don’t avoid fat, you will generally be at around that 50%, relative calories from fat for the day. What that tends to do is it puts you in that fat for fuel as a priority zone. So when people are eating, when they’re avoiding meat, it probably is the case, especially with your brother, that he’ll tend to eat a lot more carbohydrate in the day and so then his percentage of fat in the day might end up being lower. It may not, but generally when you’re eating more carbohydrate, your body will preferentially go to that for fuel. It’s an easier, faster fuel source. So when you are in that sort of place where that’s what your used to eating more, and that’s what you’re body is used to getting more, then your body wants to look for that preferentially and not only that, we only have a limited amount of carbohydrate that we can store, so we will burn through that and we will need to eat more of it, pretty quickly, all things considered.
So if you’re looking at burning fat for fuel, and eating fat to burn that, but also burning body fat for fuel, it’s something that we have longer burning energy from. We know that fat has 9 calories per gram and carbohydrate has 4, so that’s the amount of energy per dose of that carbohydrate or fat. We’re either getting 4 calories, or 9. So the other issue there is when we tap out on our limited stores of carbohydrates, which is not a big storage, it has that limit and it’s not that big of a storage. Meaning a couple of hours of walking, and you’ll probably be tapped out.
If you were to continue walking or cycling or hiking, or what have you, and you have some body fat on you, which most of us do. Obviously, if somebody is very, very low body fat this will not be quite as easy, but they still do have body fat. That body fat can be used for fuel. So our body taps into those fat storage areas to use that for fuel. It’s not as good as doing that if it’s more adapted to burning carbohydrates for fuel.
So there’s not an exact, it takes this many days of eating this much food, some people can test for it. You can test to see if you are burning fat for fuel if you have high levels of ketones, either in your urine or you can check your blood. Sometimes the high levels in the urine are not actually the best sign because it means that you’re excreting them. Just having your body more used to eating fat and a little bit less carbohydrate will tend to make you feel more balanced and make you feel satisfied a lot longer, and you just won’t get hungry as quickly. That’s even the basic part of it there, is that a lot of folks who are avoiding protein and maybe avoiding more fat, they tend to eat a lower calorie breakfast, and eating about 2-300 calories for breakfast won’t last you that long. Eating 4-600 calories for breakfast, you’re going to last a lot longer. So it’s kind of like the basics of it right there. It’s really not super complicated, but that’s why we tend to last a lot longer, and don’t need a ton of snacks.
5. Paleo travel tips and paleo on a budget [24:43]
Liz Wolfe: Ok, very good. Next up is paleo travel foods. Amy says, “Any travel friendly paleo snack ideas? Specifically for toddlers and their moms who absolutely eat their food. Also, any tips on eating a paleo lifestyle on a budget? Going local, grass-fed, organic, etc. can be a little pricy, and my husband is not really on board with that.”
Well, luckily, I think we already have a ton of resources for Amy. At least you do, Diane. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: I feel like she mentioned, somehow I didn’t copy it in here, I feel like she mentioned she has both of our books, so I just wanted to remind her to review the sections in Practical Paleo for not only travel foods, which I have a whole section in there on travel foods, but also on eating paleo on a budget, because there’s a whole section on that, as well. I also now have blog posts on both of those things, so there’s a blog post about eating paleo, prioritizing for eating paleo on a budget as well as a paleo travel tips blog post that I put up just a couple of weeks ago, so you can definitely check those out for kind of more general tips and tricks. Just kind of the basics there.
Some practical stuff that I just, kind of off the top of my head, I wanted to throw out there. Finger fruits, like grapes or cherries or anything that’s not super mushy and messy, those are really good travel foods. And this is, I’m kind of thinking like car food. But for airplanes as well, you could definitely do that. Put them in Ziploc bags, something that won’t get squished. So an apple or something you can hold that won’t really get damaged, or even an orange or a grapefruit, that’s a little more sturdy.
I think dried fruit, nuts, trail mix, obviously that stuff’s always really useful, and to keep the price down on that you can either shop at some place like Trader Joe’s, which they have organic nuts and seeds and dried fruit that you can get pretty inexpensively. I think if you have one of those near you, it’s definitely where I’ve seen the lowest prices in a store, but you can also check out just any kind of local grocer. If there’s a trail mix that doesn’t have really what you want in it, or it has some extra gunk that you don’t want, I just think making your own, you can get the stuff that you really like the best in there.
And also, homemade jerky is a really great option. You don’t have to always worry that it’s not grass-fed, perfect meat. It doesn’t have to be that way, but you can use chicken breast, you can use turkey, you can use beef. There are a bunch of recipes in all different paleo cookbooks out there. You can just do a little Google search for paleo jerky recipe. But if you’re looking at something for kids; I’m not exactly sure how old the toddler is, but I have made jerky from ground meat before. And this is a pretty common thing. I know Sophia’s Survival Food has a ground meat based jerky, as well as muscle meat that’s not ground, so if you want to try and buy some but again it might be cost prohibitive.
But you can make it from ground meat, and all you really do is, you can either get this extruder tool that will give you this flat, thin pieces that you can then cut apart, or you can just form it into a super thin layer. I think you’d have to use a couple of pieces of parchment paper and a rolling pin, kind of the way you would do dough, but you roll it out really thin and you bake it at a low temperature, or use a dehydrator, and then cut it into little chunks and pieces.
I think the ground meat could be a lot easier for a toddler, and for us. Sometimes jerky just for me, sometimes it’s really hard to chew just depending on how it’s cut and all those. Those are kind of my basic tips for travel food that’s a little more budget friendly. For me, travel food does tend to be one of the things that I end up spending more on, because it’s just point blank a convenience thing. It’s not the stuff that I’m eating every day, I really do not open up bags of jerky in the house, because it is more expensive and there are other snacks or other foods that we could be eating in the house that can be from the fridge, they don’t have to be preserved the same way or dried, so I really try and avoid eating the stuff that we buy for travel if we’re not traveling. That can be things like Epic bars and whatever else. Again, they can be a little bit pricy.
The other thing I was thinking was as for your husband not being on board with the price of some of the foods, if there’s an issue around budgeting, there, maybe this is where you can, and every household is different. They just run the way they budget things all differently. So if there’s a way that you can show him where you're saving money from the food budget. Like if you're grocery budget has been increasing, and you need to spend more money on this type of thing, inherently you’ll be spending less on things like dining out, or even little treats. Perhaps you're not stopping at a regular ice cream parlor anymore because,
I don’t know where you live, I didn’t add that in here, but in the summertime around here, people often just stop for ice cream, and if you go paleo, maybe you’re not doing that anymore. Maybe you’re making ice pops out of fruit at home, or something that’s a little more cost effective. You might be saving money in other areas of your budget that your grocery budget may be increasing, but these other budgets may be decreasing. Sometimes it’s not easy to always see that unless you point it out. So just kind of see if you can point that out. And if you haven’t been doing that, I would just look to maybe shift some of your budget around and make sure that you are allowing extra for that food budget. I’m sure you're not dining out quite as much as you used to if you did dine out more before. So usually that expense can kind of roll into your regular food budget.
Liz Wolfe: So obviously I’m not an expert on toddlers, yet. I’m not sure when people like to introduce the nuts to toddlers, so I was going to echo the nuts and seeds type of thing. But what I’m curious about is when people actually want to introduce those things to their kids. I’m not sure. But aside from the nuts and seeds, I’ve been sitting here thinking, where is there a prepackaged affordable portable travel friendly toddler food that is actually filling that you could buy, you know what I’m saying? I think a huge argument here is, what’s actually going to keep the little one full and satisfied versus just being this crazy snack monster where it’s like, oh, the kids being crazy again 15 minutes later so let me give him this fruit goop.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. Are nuts an issue because of a choking hazard or is it just an allergy issue?
Liz Wolfe: I think it’s an allergy issue. I think it’s not wanting to introduce it too soon to develop allergies. I don’t know, I just have seen people talking about stuff like that on.
Diane Sanfilippo: I guess it also depends on the age, too.
Liz Wolfe: yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: If it’s a 2-year-old versus a 4 or 5-year-old. I mean, I don’t know when you stop considering a child a toddler, after 5? 6?
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} You’re like 10? 10 years old?
Diane Sanfilippo: I mean, I think 16 is still a size? I actually used to sell children’s clothing. What?
Liz Wolfe: I’m not entirely sure, maybe 10 or 12? They’re always going to be babies.
Diane Sanfilippo: No.
Liz Wolfe: But that just kind of jumped out in my head, because all I was going to say was that in talking to your husband, ask him if he can think of something that is prepacked and convenient travel food that will actually keep the kid and the parent full. You can tote around an avocado, you can tote around almost anything in a cooler bag that’s actually “paleo” and is going to keep you really full and has good healthy fats, whether you’re talking nuts, avocado, hardboiled eggs, or any of the stuff that Diane talked about. That stuff is actually going to satisfy and provide some nutrition. The other toddler snacks I can think of, and they’re not even that affordable, is puffs and different kinds of cardboard basically starchy, sugary stuff with very little healthy fat or protein.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mmm. I feel like those are mostly just a distraction.
Liz Wolfe: Oh yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: They’re not really providing a ton of calories or nutrition to keep somebody full. I mean, it’s mostly an entertainment, here pick this up and eat it, kind of thing.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’ve actually recommended in the past, too, that folks do sweet potato that they dehydrate, because people have asked me, what can I use instead of that type of thing, like a puff, and I’m like, maybe try dehydrating sweet potato. Which, you can dehydrate it in your oven or dehydrator. But yeah, coconut butter might be another good one, another fat source. You can put it in a little squeezy bag, or you can buy the squeezy packets, but you can put it in a little bag or container and use that. I like the hardboiled eggs idea, too. Obviously that’s a really good, portable snack.
Liz Wolfe: I’ve been on a plane with you many a time where you whipped out a hardboiled egg. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Or sardines. I’m like, I do not care how this smells.
Liz Wolfe: You’re like, your Panda Express smells like crap just as much as you might not like smelling your hardboiled eggs. Not my Panda Express, but your fictional seatmate.
Diane Sanfilippo: That’s right. That’s right.
Liz Wolfe: Who is eating Panda Express. I have not eaten Panda Express since I was 13 years old, getting dropped off at the mall, at Oak Park Mall.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yep. That’s mall food, for sure.
6. Severe scalp flaking issues [33:49]
Liz Wolfe: Alright. Next up, this is from Allison. Help for a dry, flaky scalp. “Hey ladies! Over the past several months, I’ve been struggling with some ongoing upper GI issues. While the final diagnosis was gastritis, the diagnostic process had me on literally dozens of different medications, all of which seemed to bring their own side effects, which, you guessed it, required even more medications. After about 6 months of this process with little improvement, I decided to say, screw this, and went off the medications entirely, including a birth control pill I had been on for almost a year. My stomach seems to be making slow but steady progress. My acupuncturist says it can take almost a full year for organs to heal from trauma, but a few other issues have cropped up along the way.
First and foremost is crazy eczema like dry skin on my scalp. I washed my hair twice a week with Morocco Method shampoo, and my hair itself has never looked better. My scalp, however, looks like a flaky, scaly mess. Help! I’m tired of looking like I have this constant dandruff, but I know it’s more than just dry skin. Maybe a nutrient deficiency? A food sensitivity?
Additional info: I eat a pretty paleo diet, and try to limit my gluten-free grain intake to no more than one meal a day, max. My gastritis made it difficult to digest meat without a lot of nausea, so I had brought some grains back into my diet during that time to keep from losing more weight. I’ve been right on the BMI border of underweight for several months now. Now I’m trying to phase them back out, and consider starting a program this summer to get me back on track. Breakfast is usually eggs and bacon, morning snack of pumpkin seeds and fruit, lunch is leftover dinner, and dinner is usually pastured or wild caught protein with veggies, possibly with added quinoa pasta if I feel I need the calories. Dessert is either berries, a green smoothie, or almond butter freezer fudge made with almond butter, coconut butter, and maple syrup. I have a tendency toward low blood sugar issues, so I try to manage that as best I can, as I know it contributes to moodiness and anxiety. In an effort to get myself back on track post illness, I also supplement with probiotics, Biokult, a whole food source multivitamin, vitamin D and MCT oil, and Nordic Naturals cod liver oil. With all the nausea, I just haven’t been able to choke down the fermented stuff.
Months of being run through the allopathic medical wringer also made my anxiety go through the roof, so I do my best to meditate, practice yoga, and drink a nice valerian tea each night to help me sleep. I’m an anxious person in general, especially as concerns my health. I have a gluten free English muffin occasionally, quinoa pasta once or twice a week, brown rice once a week, dairy occasionally besides grass fed butter all day every day,” {laughs} “as I know it bothers my digestion. You guys are amazing; this may be super weird but listening to your podcast has been a highlight of these very difficult past several months. Keep on with your bad selves. Liz, hearing you talk about your baby makes me want a baby too, even though I usually tend to fall on Diane’s side of the fence with that one.”
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Sweet! Team Liz’s baby.
Diane Sanfilippo: This question is definitely all you.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Ok, so I think that she kind of knows where to nudge herself with regards to food and eating. So I’m not going to get super into that, although if your digestive system is really sensitive, as it sounds like it is, it might actually be exacerbating the issue a little bit, like having the quinoa pasta in there. You just never know; you never know with that kind of thing. But a lot of times you’re making these tweaks, and it will kind of turn on one switch and turn off another, things like that. It’s just hard to tell.
But I definitely think going in the direction of a paleo oriented program, which is generally a good idea as long as you’re not being an accidental under eater or as long as, as it seems like she does, as long as you have an eye for whether or not you’re getting enough food, especially if you tend to be on the underweight side. So, I think she’s got her head in the right place. But there could be a few little strange things in here that maybe could be taken out.
Maybe instead of the gluten free English muffin or the quinoa pasta, adding in more starches like, even sources of resistant starch like cooled potato salad to help feed that good gut bacteria. Maybe plantain, maybe banana if you can tolerate it. That might be a good idea. I’m just a little bit less concerned with her ability to figure that out, because it sounds like she’s on the right path.
I think the question about the scalp is interesting, because a lot of times I tell folks, if you keep an eye on healing your digestive system, which she’s doing, and if you keep an eye on eating the right foods, which she’s working on, usually these things will start to resolve themselves. Now, what I’ve found with things like eczema and psoriasis and these niggling topical issues is that a lot of times you really do have to do something on the outside, it’s not going to be completely resolved by something you do just on the inside. Because sometimes you just have this issue with the way the skin cells are shedding, things like that. And a lot of times that can actually be helped from the outside.
So, what I would probably start out by doing is maybe doing something really simple like an extra apple cider vinegar rinse. Maybe once or twice a week. If you really like your hair with the Morocco Method, it could be that your scalp is just adjusting to the new routine, I don’t know how long you’ve been using the Morocco Method. But it could be, if it’s for a short period of time, that you’re scalp is just getting used to it. So a lot of times, the hair will be great, super balanced, look lovely, but the scalp is like, what are you doing? So, give it a little bit of time there. You could add in the apple cider vinegar rinse in a couple of times a week. Dilute it, one part apple cider vinegar to maybe 2 or 3 parts water. Just pour it on and rinse it off. That might help in balancing the scalp a little bit.
Also, you might try, I really like oil treatments. You might try some borage oil. I had an amazing amount of success; my little one had a touch of cradle cap there for a second; I tried everything and nothing worked until I tried borage oil. And there is some, what’s going on there is borage oil will provide basically an anti-inflammatory fatty acid that sometimes will replace a step in the inflammatory process that maybe your body is having a little bit of trouble with. It’s a little bit more complex than that, but it helped almost instantly.
So you might try a little bit of borage oil; it’s kind of hard to get that stuff on your scalp, especially if you have really long hair. What you can do is kind of get a dropper, and squeeze in a little bit of borage oil, and then part your hair and drop that borage oil along the part in your hair, rub it in, make another part, drop some borage oil in, so on and so forth, and see how that works. That stuff can be a little bit difficult to get out using products like Morocco Method that don’t actually foam up, so after you do the oil treatment, leave it on a couple of hours or even overnight if you are so inclined. You might have to use some kind of soap or shampoo or something like that to get it out. Something really basic and fragrance free that you can find anywhere would do just fine.
I talk a lot about nutrition and digestive support in the Purely Primal Skincare Guide, formerly known as the Skintervention Guide. So if you’re needing a little bit more guidance on digestive healing and the way I think is important to eat for healthy skin and hair, I would really consider picking that up. It’s basically what I used to give folks in one-on-one consultations before I got a little bit overwhelmed with that and later on stopped taking one-on-one consults because I just didn’t have the time anymore. It really is kind of a comprehensive guide to nutrition and digestive health and topical care and that’s what I would do next.
I also actually have the skin care product I’ve been working on should be workable for both the hair and the skin and its pretty much a multipurpose product, it’s going to be really amazing. It’s basically a nutritive treatment for your body. So if you want to wait with baited breath for my skin care product that will come out eventually, definitely stay tuned for that.
Diane Sanfilippo: Pete’s Paleo is a friend of the Balanced Bites podcast. They’re bacon is insanely delicious, and sugar free, and their premade paleo meals make your life so much easier when everything is getting busy and getting real food on the table is still a top priority, as it should be. Pete’s paleo is now offering a 30-day gut healing kit containing bone broth, gelatin gummies, instant organic soup packs, and an E-cookbook. It’s the perfect complement to any anti-inflammatory diet. Get yours today at guthealingkit.com. Use code GRABACUPPABROTH to get $25 off; that’s an amazing deal. It’s GRABACUPPABROTH, C-U-P-P-A. And you can grab that code at any time at BalancedBites.com to just read and make sure you’re typing it in right. You can also use code BALANCEDBITES to get $5 off any of their regular meal plans. Check out PetesPaleo.com today. Pete’s Paleo; bringing fine dining to your cave.
Liz Wolfe: Alright folks, a little bit of a shorter one this week, but we’ve got a lot of awesome questions coming up in the weeks to come, so stick with us. You can find me, Liz, at http://realfoodliz.com/ and you can find Diane at http://dianesanfilippo.com. Be sure to 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, leave us an iTunes review. See you next week.