Spagetti Squash & Meatballs

I was a little intimidated by spagetti squash at first but it is SO good and super easy to make! To prep the spagetti squash cut off the ends and then cut it in half. It can be little tough to cut so eat your Wheaties and roll up your sleeves. Spagetti squash have guts on the inside like a pumpkin. Scoop all that crap out and throw it away. Then bake the squash open sides down on a baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 350° and bake 30 minutes. 

When you can stick a fork in the outer skin it is done. After it is finished baking, scrape out the insides with a spoon. This squash I made was a mutant. They are not normally this huge. Here's what you get after scraping. 

(Ignore the date stamps on these pics apparently I have to reset it)

I also make homemade meatballs for this dish. Here are the meatball ingredients: 

• 1 lb grass fed ground beef
• 1 organic egg
• 2 tbsp water
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs (I use brown rice breadcrumbs from the gluten free section)
• 1/4 cup minced onion 
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper

Combine everything in a large bowl and mush it together with your hands. Roll meatballs about 1" in diameter and put them in a broiler pan. You cook the meatballs for about 30 minutes at 350° (same as the squash) so you can bake everything at the same time. 

I use an organic spagetti sauce to top it off. This is a really healthy alternative to spagetti and it's great if you are avoiding gluten/carbs. Pasta is verboten in my diet so this has been a fantastic substitute when I am craving Italian!  

Unfortunately I have to skip the cheese due to the diet but if you know of a non-dairy cheese substitute that actually tastes good please let me know! My friend Karla tried and reviewed a vegan cheese in her blog (sounded like an epic fail) but so far we can't find anything good in the non-dairy cheese department. 

Grocery List

A friend of mine asked me to blog my grocery list. I thought that was a great idea! Grocery stores can be totally overwhelming. It's so confusing to make healthy choices when you are confronted with a wall full of soup that all looks the same.

Before I got into the habit of reading ingredients on labels, I used to buy whatever had the coolest packaging. Unfortunately nicely designed labels on the outside do not always equal healthy food on the inside. 

ALWAYS READ THE INGREDIENTS! I was amazed to find that very few foods have just the basic ingredients. Almost everything has sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial color & flavor and a host of other additives I can't even pronounce. 

My rule of thumb, if I can't pronounce it... I don't eat it. 

Here is an example of my typical grocery list: 

• almond milk (Silk)
• honey
• onions (2 or 3)
• red bell peppers (2)
• baby spinach 
• carrots 
• squash (1) 
• cucumbers (1)
• free range chicken (1 or 2 packages of 3 breasts)
• grass fed ground beef (1 or 2 packages) 
• 1 bag nuts (almonds, cashews, walnuts)
• hard tofu (1 package)
• multi-grain wraps (1-2 bags)
• hummus
• Mary's Gone Crackers 
• bananas
• strawberries
• blueberries
• cantaloupe 
• refried beans
• organic brown or wild rice (1 bag lasts awhile)
• salsa
• veganaise (dairy free mayonaise) 

I may not get all of these items every week but those are the basics. I usually make a seafood run every week or so to Valley Seafood in Wilkes-Barre, PA for salmon, haddock or flounder. 

The Lyme diet has some handy shopping lists online if you are following the main diet:

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Phase 4

Recipe Swap

Recipe thread!

 Post some organic recipes you've tried in the comments, I love trying new things! 

Free Range Chicken & Organic Veggies

I had no idea what chicken is supposed to taste like until I tried free range chicken. It's sooo good! 

I make several variations of this recipe. Sometimes I marinate the chicken in organic italian or greek dressing before cooking. Sometimes I grill it, sometimes I bake it in the oven. Sometimes I add fresh dill to the veggie mix. I get bored making things the same way all the time so I like to experiment with different ideas. 

Ingredients

• free range chicken breast
• organic onion
• organic red bell pepper
• extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt
• black pepper

Slice the onion and pepper and toss the veggies in a bowl with 3-4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and pepper (to taste). Arrange a little bed of the veggie mix on tin foil and put the chicken on top. Cover the chicken with remaining veggie mix like this: 

I make the same veggie/chicken sandwich arrangement in a covered baking dish for oven cooking. For grilling I wrap it in a tin foil pocket like this: 

Grill the chicken and veggies at 450° - 500° for 15 minutes on each side (30 minutes total). If your chicken breasts are very thick you may need to cook an extra 5-10 minutes. 

If I am baking in the oven I cook it covered with foil at 425° for about 45 minutes. I usually check it after 30 minutes and take off the tin foil for the remaining cook time. 

Unwrap and serve! I like to add another veggie with my chicken. I made the dish below with half an organic sweet potato. 

Sometimes I serve the chicken on a bed of organic brown or wild rice and grilled carrots on the side. Like I said I like to vary things. 

If you try this with any new ingredients leave me a comment and tell me what you did! 

Wild Caught Salmon with Herbal Rub

This is a great recipe for beginners. Salmon is good for you! Wild caught salmon (as opposed to farm raised) is better. You can bake salmon in the oven or grill it. Cook times may vary depending on your oven temperature and the thickness of your salmon fillets. In general if your salmon is flaky, it is done.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup basil
• 2 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon roasted organic garlic
• sea salt and black pepper to taste
• 2 wild caught salmon fillets

Mix the basil, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper in a bowl, cover and refrigerate for 2 days. Rub it on your salmon steaks and bake or grill. 

Grill - fold each salmon steak in tin foil (I make a little tin foil pocket) and cook 10 minutes on each side around 400°

Oven - fold each salmon steak in tin foil, place in a baking dish and cook around 375° for 35-45 minutes

I like to eat this salmon on top of a giant salad. You get a few servings of veggies all at once which is nice. This salad has (all organic) spinach, broccoli, carrots, onions, yellow squash, cucumbers, almond slices and raspberry vinaigrette dressing. 

Salad dressings can be tricky. Here's another food that can come in deceiving packaging to look "all natural" when it's not. Read the ingredients! If there are ingredients you can't pronounce, artificial colors/flavors or excessive grams of sugar, put it back on the shelf. 

You can also serve this on a bed of organic brown or wild rice with a side of veggies. 

My mother hated salmon before she tried this recipe. She always said it tasted too "fishy"but she LOVES this salmon dish. 

Just say no to GMOs

One of the first things my doctor told me to eliminate from my diet was genetically engineered foods or GMOs. I had heard of GMOs but I didn't know much about them. I started doing some research. 

GMO stands for "genetically modified organism". GMOs are foods that have been created in a laboratory. Some foods are engineered to produce their own insecticides or to resist certain viruses. Other foods are modified to make more food faster. GMOs were developed with good intentions (sustainability) but the verdict is still out on the long term health impacts of humans eating them. 

If you live in the United States, you have been eating GMOs since the mid 90's. The food industry slipped them into our food supply but didn't bother informing us. 70% of all foods in US grocery stores and all fast food contain GMOs. There are currently no labeling requirements for foods containing GMOs in the US or Canada however much of the rest of the world requires labels or has banned them outright. 

See map larger

Because there are no labeling requirements in the US, it can be difficult to buy food without GMOs. The only way to be sure your food does NOT contain GMOs is to buy organic. Be careful here because many companies design packaging that looks like it should be healthy and natural but it's not. Only foods stamped with the USDA Organic seal are actually organic. 

Buying produce can be especially confusing but you can check the PLU code if you're not sure. Organic produce has a 5 digit PLU code that starts with a "9". Here's a video demo on decoding produce. 

Just to give you an example, genetically engineered chickens typically can't walk because they are too fat for their legs to support their bodies. So they sit on the ground in cages usually in their own excrement until they end up in your grocery store or fast food restaurant.

More about GMO chicken

Gross right? These chickens are given growth hormones to make them mature faster and antibiotics to kill off diseases they pick up (laying around in their own poop). The growth hormones and antibiotics end up in your body. The build up caused by us eating antibiotics everyday may be the cause of developing resistance to antibiotics. It's call it genetic tolerance if your interested in more info. I have to avoid them because the antibiotics in GMO food interfere with the antibiotics I take to treat Lyme Disease.

If you want to avoid eating Mr. Frankenchicken on the right here, buy free range chicken (or cage free eggs). Also go for the wild caught fish and grass fed beef. These foods are all natural, contain no antibiotics and they taste WAY better than the alternatives. 

There are very few studies to date on the long term effects of eating GMOs on a daily basis. Common sense though... if it's made in a lab it's not natural. If you are a healthy person, it can't be good. If you have a pre-existing illness (who doesn't) GMOs can make you sicker. 

One of the best movies I found about GMOs is Fed Up but there are a lot of good resources out there.

The Diet

So as I said in the Intro my doctor ordered me to start an anti-inflammation/elimination diet. It starts out with the bare essentials and then adds foods back in as you go. It's a good way to figure out if you have any food sensitivities or allergies.

The way my doctor explained it to me was that I would be taking antibiotics to kill off the bacteria and following the diet to "provide a hostile environment that discouraged bacterial growth." The idea of providing a hostile environment for illness is something that has stuck with me. 

So I have been following the diet from Recipes For Repair since May 2012. 


Here are some pointers to get started:

Preparation

Give yourself about 1 week to prepare before starting the diet. Get your ingredients. Organize your spice rack (or get a spice rack if you don't have one). Throw away any bad food that's in your kitchen. Clean out your fridge & freezer. 

I read a great article several months ago that I can't find now to link you to. It was about changing how you think about food. We tend to eat food that makes us feel good emotionally. The key is to eat food that makes you feel good physically. Once you know the difference, you will crave the good stuff and forget the bad. 


Read Labels!!!

You have learn how to read labels like a hawk. Give yourself extra time at the grocery store for label reading. In the beginning it took me about 2 hours to read all of the food labels and get through the grocery store but it gets easier as you go. 

Education

Learn about the food industry. Once I learned about what I was eating, where it was coming from and how it was produced - it was much easier to make the change. Here are some good videos. Watch them. 

Forks Over Knives

Fed Up!

Decoding Your Produce

GMO Ticking Time Bomb


Cooking

Probably the biggest obstacle I had to overcome was learning how to cook. I was the most undomesticated person on the planet before all of this started. 

Supercook.com saved my life. The most fantastic website for the domestically challenged... you type in the ingredients you are allowed to eat and it tells you what you can make with them and how to make it. 


Time

It takes time to prepare healthy food. I plan 30 minutes to 1 hour before each meal for food preparation. Plan ahead and be prepared to take the time necessary to cook your food. Once I learned a few recipes I would cook larger batches of things at once to give myself a break. 

Seriously people, I used to nuke it or drive thru it for all of my meals. If I can do this anyone can. 

Food

I eat a lot of organic fruits and veggies. I eat raw foods everyday and I try to eat a variety of colors. Eat from the rainbow. I usually snack on nuts such as almonds or cashews in between meals. 

Foods I was advised to stay away from include sugar, bread (yeast), white potatoes, pizza, pasta, dairy, peanuts and alcohol. 

Intro

My mom says I used to be a "TV Dinner Girl". I had terrible eating habits. If it was fast and easy, it was for me. I was slightly overweight. I had no idea how crappy I felt. I was a nightmare in the kitchen. 

I got really sick in the Spring of 2012. First my hands went numb and I had weird facial twitches. My coworkers thought I was having a stroke and called an ambulance. The initial symptoms progressed quickly into shooting nerve pain and within a week I couldn't turn a door knob. The pain spread from my hands to my shoulders, back, neck and jaw. I'm only 37 years old, it was really scary. It felt like my body was revolting against me. 

It took 6 doctors and 2 months of testing to determine I have Lyme Disease. I was lucky really, most people don't get diagnosed so quickly. I have no memory of being bit by a tick or having a rash but they suspect I had Lyme for several years. I was told the treatment was about 1 year and was given antibiotics, supplements and vitamins. I was also ordered by my doctor to drastically change my diet. Easier said than done. 

There's much more to changing your diet than simply eating different things. I am going to give you recipes, resources and some helpful hints to show you how I did it. 

I'm not going to talk much about Lyme Disease here but if you're interested check out Under Our Skin. 

My symptoms have been steadily improving. I got the use of my hands back after about 4 months. I'll be continuing treatment until around July 2013 and my doctor assures me I will be cured. Bonus to being forced on a diet... I lost 30 pounds, 10 dress sizes and knocked my cholesterol down by 53 points. 

This is a blog about how I changed my eating habits. I am not a doctor or a nutritionist. Please always consult your health care professionals before changing anything. What I eat may not be right for everyone, but it is probably healthier than what you eat right now.