Recipes

Hashimoto’s Food Pharmacology, a new recipe book by Dr. Izabella Wentz

March 28, 2019 By Trudy Scott 2 Comments

The beautiful new recipe book Hashimoto’s Food Pharmacology: Nutrition Protocols and Healing Recipes to Take Charge of Your Thyroid Health (my Amazon link) by Thyroid Pharmacist, Dr. Izabella Wentz, just launched and I want to make sure you know about it and to also share some recipes with you.

I just got my copy and I’m excited to try out some of the yummy nutrient-dense and healing recipes. Flipping through it quickly I know already that I’ll be making the Morrocan Lamb Stew, the Truffled veggies and Cilantro-Lime Guacomole (it looks like a nice spin with some different flavors), the Liver Pate (this recipe has cinnamon!), the Zucchini Bread and the Mango Salsa (yuuummmm – I love mango and adore it in a spicy salsa). I’ll also make the Farinata bread (made with garbanzo beans) and Bacon and Chive Scalloped Potatoes for my family (I have SIBO and will enjoy them soon too I hope). I could go on and on…

Here is the Bacon and Chive Scalloped Potatoes recipe for you to try…

Dr. Izabella recently shared the AI Very Berry Pie recipe on Facebook and gave me permission to share it here too. She wrote that she created it when she was pregnant with their son (and why!) and more about the ingredients and nutrients:

I needed something yummy and nutrient dense! Initially the cookbook wasn’t going to have a dessert section but it ended up with 14 dessert recipes inspired by my sweet boy 😊 You can thank him and my pregnancy cravings.

The pie is filled with berries and the crust is gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free and nut-free. This was a huge hit at all of our parties. I hope you enjoy it! AI Very Berry Pie has the texture of a crumbly shortcake and even browns like a traditional pie. The secret to the yummy texture is the palm shortening, which can be used in Paleo baking instead of butter, while the maple syrup allows for a nice light brown color. Cassava flour is a fantastic gluten-free substitute for this kind of baking. I chose a mix of berries to include in this pie because of their antioxidant status; however, you can replace the fruit in the filling with apples, cherries, plums, peaches, or any other type of fruit you like.

I do love the blurb that Dr. Izabella includes with each recipe with a bit of the backstory and all the nutrients and health benefits we’ll be getting. The recipe photos are superb too!

Here is the recipe for the AI Very Berry Pie

Ingredients
CRUST
3 cups cassava flour
1 teaspoon sea salt or pink Himalayan sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon vanilla
½ cup maple syrup
1⅓ cup palm shortening

FILLING
5 cups mixed berries (halved strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries)
¼ cup maple syrup (optional)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400°F.
In a stand mixer, mix the cassava flour, salt, baking soda, and vanilla.
Add the maple syrup and mix, until the texture becomes crumbly.
Add the palm shortening, 1⁄3 cup at a time, until the crust reaches a pliable texture.
Divide the dough in thirds; reserve two-thirds for the base, and one-third for the pie top.
Roll out the dough with a rolling pin (used specifically for gf baking)
Gently press 1/3 of the dough into the bottom of a 9-inch round pie pan to create the pie base and another third of the pie dough onto the sides of the pie pan.
Toss the berries with maple syrup, if added sweetness is desired
Roll out the remaining third of the crust and place on top
Bake for 15-20 minutes until fruit is cooked through and crust Browned

Here is the official book blurb:

When I was in pharmacy school, I discovered that food has a profound impact on our healing and that what we put in our bodies will either heal us or make us sicker. In the same way that we use pharmaceuticals to impact our biology, we can use food as our medicine. I call this concept food pharmacology. Food is one of the most powerful tools in your healing journey.” – Dr. Izabella Wentz

More than 35 million Americans currently suffer from Hashimoto’s—the country’s fastest-growing autoimmune disease, which affects the thyroid gland and causes the body to attack its own cells. Many individuals with or without a formal diagnosis suffer daily symptoms, including chronic cough, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, allergies, persistent pain, hair loss, brain fog, and forgetfulness.

Hashimoto’s Food Pharmacology (my Amazon link) combines Dr. Izabella Wentz’s revolutionary and proven approach to reversing thyroid symptoms with delicious, easy-to-use recipes that delight the taste buds while they heal the body. Inside you will discover:

125 delicious and nutritious recipes for salads, smoothies, bone broths and crockpot and bibimbap-style meals, with thyroid-supporting nutrient details on every page

Over 100 stunning food and lifestyle photographs

Tips for revamping your kitchen and pantry

An FAQ for easy reference and quick answers

Easy-to-use, personalized meal plans and food rotation schedules to accommodate any diet

Successfully transforming the lives of thousands, Dr. Izabella Wentz makes it easier than ever before to live a life free from the suffering of autoimmune disease.

I recommend this book if you have hypothyroidism (an underactive thyroid), Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis or another autoimmune condition and want specific autoimmune-friendly recipes. Many of the recipes can be modified to low-FODMAP if you have SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth). If you do have oxalate issues you’ll need to adjust the recipes that use nut flours, greens like spinach, berries etc.

Even if you don’t have a thyroid or autoimmune condition it’s a lovely recipe book if you are looking for new nutrient-dense and healing recipes and some inspiration to get cooking!

Keep in mind, this book is way more than a recipe book. It’s also a nutrition guide with detailed information about how to improve your digestion and nutrient absorption; assessments and protocols; a discussion about the vegan/vegetarian diet and why a paleo-type diet with grass-fed red meat is beneficial if you have Hashimoto’s; why beets are good for you if you have the MTHFR gene mutation; crucial nutrients for thyroid function; when lab testing says you’re not gluten sensitive and much more.

You can purchase your copy of Hashimoto’s Food Pharmacology here (my Amazon link) or at your favorite bookstore.

Big congratulations to my brilliant friend Izabella Wentz!

If you have your copy already, what recipes are you most excited to try out? Or have you already tried some recipes? Do let us know.

Spicy Cauliflower Zucchini Coconut Soup Recipe

January 18, 2019 By Trudy Scott 10 Comments

This recipe – Spicy Cauliflower Zucchini Coconut Soup – is my new favorite because it’s nutrient-dense, creamy (because of the cauliflower), lasts well in the fridge for a few days, freezes well, and is oh so yummy!

I tend to create my own recipes after being inspired by a recipe in a book, blog or eating something similar. I knew I wanted something creamy and went searching and found this recipe – Zucchini Soup with Fresh Mint – in The Complete Gut Health Cookbook by Pete Evans and Helen Padarin (on page 147 in case you have this book or end up buying a copy. It’s a great book by the way!).

The beautiful green color caught my eye. Cauliflower is one of my favorite vegetables and I had never made a soup with cauliflower before! Pete and Helen’s recipe calls for 2 handfuls of spinach leaves which are problematic for with my oxalate issues so I improvised with bok choy. The end result is not quite a green but it’s still pretty and is really delicious.

I also LOVE all things coconut and can’t resist adding coconut milk to soups for the added creaminess and to provide a good healthy fat. And with that coconut I just had to add some Indian spices for all the goodness and flavor they offer. I’m a mild spicy kind of girl so it’s not too hot. If oxalates are an issue for you reduce the quantities of the higher oxalate spices or leave them out (more on this below the recipe). Here’s the end result:

Spicy Cauliflower Zucchini Coconut Soup (serves 12)

6 large zucchini (or courgette if you’re in the UK or South Africa)
1 large cauliflower
2 large bunches of bok choy
Approx 16 cups /3.5 liters/4 quarts of liquid (home-made chicken broth and enough filtered water to cover the vegetables, leaving room in the pot for the coconut milk)
1 can coconut milk

Spices

1 tablespoon turmeric (extra high oxalates)

1 tablespoon cumin (very high oxalates)

1 teaspoon curry powder (very high oxalates)

1 tablespoon coriander (high oxalates)

1 tablespoon ginger (low oxalates)

½ tablespoon sea salt

¼ tablespoon black pepper

(this is a mild combination of spices; you could add more curry powder to make it more spicy)

Chop the zucchini and cauliflower and add to the water in a large pot. Chop the white stalks of the bok choy and add to the water with zucchini and cauliflower. Reserve the green leaves of the bok choy and slice finely for later.

Bring to a boil, cover and simmer slowly for about 20 minutes until the vegetables are tender.

Open the can of coconut milk, reserving a few tablespoons for drizzling over the served soup. Pour the remainder into the soup pot, together with the spices and cook for a further minute, stirring to blend everything. Add the finely sliced green leaves of the bok choy and cook for a few more minutes.

Blend until smooth and add back to the pot to reheat. Serve with a drizzle of coconut milk.

Some other serving options:

add half a chopped avocado to the serving bowl (I like the chunks) and some MCT oil (for more of a keto-friendly soup and to help with blood sugar stability)
add chunks of cooked organic chicken or slices of cooked grass-fed beef
or simply serve before the main meal

Enjoy!

The pot should be almost full of liquid and vegetables

The blended soup can be stored in the fridge for a few days and re-heated for lunches and dinner (in a pot and not the microwave), or even enjoyed cold. Be sure to store in glass or pyrex containers.

It also freezes well (and again, use glass or pyrex). When you’re ready to use it, either thaw ahead of time or place the frozen glass/pyrex container in warm water for a few minutes in the sink. This thaws the edges just enough so it’s easy to tip the frozen soup into a pot to finish thawing and reheat. Use low heat while it’s thawing in the pot.

If you have food challenges with oxalates, autoimmune triggers or SIBO:

1) It’s low oxalate with the bok choy instead of spinach but you could use could use 2 cups of baby spinach if oxalates are not an issue.

Per the spreadsheet in the TryingLowOxalates facebook group run by Susan Owens, a biomedical researcher and the founder of the Autism Oxalate Project, the spices above add up to about 20-24g of oxalates.

turmeric (extra high oxalates)
cumin (very high oxalates)
curry powder (very high oxalates)
coriander (high oxalates)
ginger (low oxalates)

As I mention above, if you have a problem with oxalates you may need to reduce the quantities of the higher oxalate spices or use more magnesium citrate or calcium citrate with this meal.

On a personal note, I’m very sensitive to oxalates (too much and I get really painful hot-coals-burning/shards-of- glass type pain in my feet and very scratchy eyes) and I seem to tolerate the above amounts of spices in a large soup like this, provided I’m not eating other high oxalate foods at the same time.

2) It’s AIP-friendly (Autoimmune Paleo)

3) It’s FODMAPS-friendly as is or feel free to add garlic and onion if tolerated

Let me know if this sounds yummy and ask away if you have any questions. If you make it be sure to come back and let us know how you enjoyed it. And let us know if you made your own variation.

Trudy’s coconut seed bread recipe (modified from The Real Meal Revolution)

July 21, 2017 By Trudy Scott 25 Comments

My favorite “bread” and the only one that I can actually eat right now is a coconut seed bread that I bake myself. I adapted a recipe from Tim Noake’s wonderful book The Real Meal Revolution, a recipe book from where I grew up – South Africa.

Why I modified the recipe

I opted to leave out the sunflower seeds and almond flour because of the higher levels of oxalates in these seeds and nuts. I have an oxalate issue right now but I’m also concerned with all the nuts that I see in Paleo recipes. Another possible issue for someone with anxiety and low zinc is the high copper levels in nut flours.
I typically don’t add sugar or anything sweet to baked goods so just left out the stevia/xylitol
I love coconut anything so why not try all coconut flour – it worked out great!

The ingredients and recipe for my version

0.5 cup ground flax seeds (freshly ground)
1.5 cups coconut flour
2 tablespoons psyllium husk
250g / 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
6 organic or pastured eggs
10ml /2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
0.5 teaspoon sea salt

Grind the seeds and mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Mix the wet ingredients and combine with the dry ingredients using a wooden spoon.
Pour into a loaf pan that has been greased with butter.

Bake at 350 F/ 175 C for 50 minutes. I check it at 40 minutes and then take it out at 50 minutes once it starts to look brown on top and on the sides (I use a glass/pyrex loaf pan).

How to enjoy it?

It’s lovely eaten right away, warm and with loads of butter. I slice it thinly and keep a few slices in the fridge and freeze the rest in batches to use as needed through the next few weeks. It freezes really well and needs about 30 minutes to thaw at room temperature.

A few days a week I’ll have a slice with butter (I love butter!) and soft-boiled eggs, topped with whatever fermented vegetables we have on hand, and a side of avocado and left over vegetables from dinner the night before.

In case you’re curious, on this particular day, I used Kehoe’s Kitchen Fermented Paleo Mustard Pickles (it has a lot of cauliflower) and Kehoe’s Kitchen Beetroot & Ginger Sauerkraut. Both of these products are firm favorites in this household!

Similar products in the USA are made by The Brinery or FireFly Kitchens (just search online for “organic fermented vegetables”). Or make your own!

Remember if you buy fermented vegetables make sure to get them in the refrigerated section of the store. They need to be RAW in order to get all the benefits of the good bacteria for gut health and balancing your microbiome, and ultimately helping with reducing anxiety and depression.

The original recipe

Here is the original recipe from Tim Noake’s book (I don’t have the recipe book in hand right now as it’s still packed away with our move but I think this is the original)

0.5 cup ground flax seeds (freshly ground)
0.5 cup ground sunflower
1 cup almond flour or coconut flour
2 tablespoons psyllium husk
250g / 1 cup plain Greek yogurt or sour cream
6 organic or pastured eggs
10ml /2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
0.5 teaspoon sea salt
Pinch stevia or teaspoon xylitol

Optional: Cinnamon, caraway seeds, pumpkin seeds, various chopped nuts and/or cranberries/raisins

Tim Noakes and anxiety and depression success stories

Here is some additional information about The Real Meal Revolution. It started out as a Banting recipe book and has grown into a movement in South Africa. Banting is similar to Paleo but does include dairy. My darling sister gave me a copy of this very popular book on one of my trips back to visit family and I really like it! It is fastest selling cook book in South African history with over 200,000 copies sold and is now available internationally in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

In this blog post about anxiety and depression success stories when eating Paleo and grain-free, Alice shared this about her change to a Banting way of eating:

Three days after I stopped eating grains, my chronic depression lifted and has never returned (it’s three years later now). I had been a vegetarian most of my life, discovered in my early 50s that I was gluten intolerant, went off grains, started banting (Cape Town craze!) and have never felt better. Gut, mood, bones, energy, skin … all better!

Let us know if you try this recipe and enjoy it and do share some of your favorite fermented vegetable companies or recipe books.

And do let us know if you do better on a grain-free diet.

Dr. Drew Ramsey’s new book Eat Complete

May 23, 2016 By Trudy Scott Leave a Comment

Dr. Drew Ramsey’s newest book just released this week and it’s wonderful! Mine just arrived and the food photos are superb!

Check out Eat Complete: The 21 Nutrients That Fuel Brainpower, Boost Weight Loss, and Transform Your Health

From leading psychiatrist and author of Fifty Shades of Kale comes a collection of 100 simple, delicious, and affordable recipes to help you get the core nutrients your brain and body need to stay happy and healthy.

What does food have to do with brain health? Everything.

Your brain burns more of the food you eat than any other organ. It determines if you gain or lose weight, if you’re feeling energetic or fatigued, if you’re upbeat or depressed. In this essential guide and cookbook, Drew Ramsey, MD, explores the role the human brain plays in every part of your life, including mood, health, focus, memory, and appetite, and reveals what foods you need to eat to keep your brain—and by extension your body—properly fueled.

Drawing upon cutting-edge scientific research, Dr. Ramsey identifies the twenty-one nutrients most important to brain health and overall well-being—the very nutrients that are often lacking in most people’s diets. Without these nutrients, he emphasizes, our brains and bodies don’t run the way they should.

Eat Complete includes 100 appetizing, easy, gluten-free recipes engineered for optimal nourishment. It also teaches readers how to use food to correct the nutrient deficiencies causing brain drain and poor health for millions.

Featuring fifty stunning, full-color photographs, Eat Complete helps you pinpoint the nutrients missing from your diet and gives you tasty recipes to transform your health—and ultimately your life.

Of course blueberries are featured – so it’s a perfect tie-in to the new blueberry-PTSD research.

Dr. Ramsey is one of our expert speakers on the June Anxiety Summit (which airs June 6-16) and I can’t wait to share more with you! In the meantime, enjoy his new book and get inspired to get back into the kitchen!

Food for Your Hormones + Brazil Nut Butter recipe

March 12, 2016 By Trudy Scott 6 Comments

In case you missed the email announcements, this is a quick reminder that this no-cost webinar is happening today (Saturday morning) at 10am PST!

If you haven’t registered yet, you can still register here:
https://xa202.isrefer.com/go/cfb1/trudys/

And if you have already signed up this is your friendly reminder and a new recipe for you! Enjoy!

Brazil Nut Butter Recipe – by Magdalena Wszelaki

brazilnut-butter

This nut butter can be generously spread on crackers, toast or used as a dip with chopped up vegetables (I used radishes here as they also support estrogen detoxification) or fruit (I had apples on hand). I recommend soaking the nuts to improve their digestibility. If you tolerate nuts and have no time to soak and dry them, skip the initial steps and go to the blending instructions. Allow yourself to be creative and play with other nuts and seeds (sunflower and pumpkin seed butter is wonderful too) as well as spices like cardamom, cloves or lavender.

brazilnut-butter-2

Serves: 25 servings (tablespoons)
Time to soak: 12 hours
Time to roast: 1 hour
Time to prepare: 15 minutes

Ingredients
2 cups organic Brazil nuts
¾ cup avocado oil
½ cup coconut butter
½ cup golden flax seed
⅓ cup maca root powder
1 tablespoon camu camu (buy on Amazon)
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon vanilla essence or powder
¼ teaspoon sea salt

Place the nuts in a large bowl, cover with filtered water and let them soak overnight, or for 12 hours.

Preheat the oven to 200F, spread the nuts on a baking tray and slow-roast for about an hour or until they become slightly brown.

Cool off the nuts and place in a high-speed blender or food processor (I use Vitamix). Add all the remaining ingredients and blend on high for 3 to 4 minutes.

Transfer to an air-tight container and keep in the fridge for no longer than 2 weeks. You can also freeze the butter.

Magdalena shares why incorporating brazil nuts and this lovely nut butter into your diet may be beneficial. It’s all about selenium and thyroid health and she shares this….

If you have a thyroid condition, it is very likely (like 90% likely) that you have Hashimoto’s disease, which is the autoimmune version of hypothyroidism. Interestingly, in most cases of hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s disease, it’s not the thyroid that needs to be looked after but the immune system (since Hashimoto’s is an autoimmune condition). One way to know whether you have Hashimoto’s is to test for thyroid peroxidase antibodies (they also go by TPOab).

If the TPOab test result is high, an important mineral that can help bring down the TPO antibodies is selenium.

Selenium plays a key role in thyroid and autoimmune health because it protects thyroid cells from oxidative damage by forming selenoproteins. This extra protection helps to bring down the TPO antibodies. Selenium also acts as catalyst for converting the inactive T4 hormone to the biologically active T3 hormone.

The Brazil nut is the food that is highest in selenium. Three organic Brazil nuts per day will give you the daily recommended dose of 200mcg of selenium. You can incorporate them into your diet in a variety of ways. If you don’t tolerate nuts, you can take a selenium supplement.

I’d like to add that you can enjoy this nut butter even if you don’t have a thyroid problem. Selenium deficiency is pretty common and is often an issue with anxiety and depression.

So to recap (in case you missed the earlier notifications): Cooking for Balance will start with this no-cost live online workshop called How to Use Food to Rebalance Your Hormones today (at 10am PST, 1pm EST).

Cooking for Balance is an online cooking program created by my friend and colleague Magdalena Wszelaki, founder of Hormones Balance. You may remember our great interviews on last season of The Anxiety Summit! She was a hit, is a wealth of knowledge and very hands-on when it comes to food for hormone balancing! I really love what she offers (and her cute accent)!

Tune in to the no-cost webinar to learn a ton, have fun, get some great cooking ideas.

At the end of the webinar she’ll be sharing more about her next upcoming Cooking for Balance online cooking program that helps women rebalance their hormones with food, offering tailor-made nutritional protocols for women with thyroid issues, Hashimoto’s, adrenal fatigue, estrogen dominance, menopause and PCOS. This online program features 4 live classes, over 20+ done-for-you guides, 80+ recipes and 20+ demo videos. They focus on quick, simple yet nutritionally-dense cooking techniques that will help you feel like yourself again.

Registration page for the no-cost webinar is here:
https://xa202.isrefer.com/go/cfb1/trudys/

Apigenin, a flavonoid in parsley increases brain connections, reduces anxiety

December 25, 2015 By Trudy Scott 9 Comments

parsley

New research finds that a flavonoid called apigenin increases brain connections:

the flavonoid apigenin, a substance found in parsley, thyme, chamomile and red pepper, improves neuron formation and strengthens the connections between brain cells, new lab research demonstrates… and has potential to treat diseases like schizophrenia, depression, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

Previous experiments with animals had already shown that substances from the same chemical group as the apigenin… positively affect memory and learning. Many studies highlight the potential of flavonoids to preserve and enhance brain function.

While the effectiveness of flavonoids for brain health is not an entirely new concept, this research is the first to show the positive effects of apigegin directly on human cells and the first to unraveling its mechanism.

The neurons that were treated with the apigenin flavonoid (API) show more formation of synapses (red) than the neurons that were not treated. You can see this in the image on the right.

The study concludes with this:

since flavonoids are present at high amounts in some foods, we can speculate that a diet rich in flavonoids may influence the formation of neurons and the way they communicate within the brain.

Yes! These are powerful foods and nutrients for brain health! And these flavonoids have been shown to specifically reduce anxiety too, as mentioned in this paper – Flavonoids and the central nervous system: from forgotten factors to potent anxiolytic compounds

A paper published in October 2015: Flavonoid nutraceuticals and ionotropic receptors for the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA likens flavonoids to benzodiazapines:

A number of studies have likened flavonoids to the widely prescribed benzodiazepines as ‘a new family of benzodiazepine receptor ligands’.

It is time to consider flavonoids in their own right as important modulators of these vital [GABA] receptors in brain function.

So let’s eat parsley and get a decent serving size in a delicious salad. I’ve got the perfect recipe for you, created by Rebecca Katz, author of The Healthy Mind Cookbook. I interviewed her on the Anxiety Summit and this was our topic – Your Brain on Food: The Science and Alchemy of Yum for Alleviating Anxiety!

We talked about one of my favorite recipes from her book: a pomegranate olive mint salsa recipe

When I read the ingredients list I was surprised about the quantity of parley and mint but followed the directions anyway and the end result is incredibly yum! We LOVE this recipe – it has become a standard in our home. We have had it with both salmon and with lamb chops (it’s the best mint “sauce” for lamb).

Enjoy and let us know what you think! If you have a recipe that uses parsley feel free to share a link or the recipe in the comments.