Against All Grain Chocolate Chip Cookies

While I was in Atlanta for Thanksgiving, my parents and I hosted a drinks and desserts event at our home. I threw Paleo out of the window and made my pumpkin trifle and pumpkin chocolate chip bars, to go with the giant tray of chocolate that my mom tossed together and the blueberry-lime cake and fruit tarts that our friends brought. I wasn't intending on partaking in any sweets (I tried, but it's hard sometimes), but because I knew that my best friend's boyfriend is Paleo as well, I did make a batch of chocolate chip cookies, Because I was feeling a tad lazy and didn't want to come up with my own recipe at the last minute, I use the Real Deal Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from Against All Grain.

It turned out well. Honestly, the people who came over said that if I hadn't have told them about the whole non-grain aspect of the cookies, they wouldn't have known. Instead of grain, the recipe called for almond flour and coconut flour. Personally, they were a little dry/fluffy for my taste (I'm a chewy cookie sort of gal), but they did taste pretty good. I only got the chance to eat one, because everyone else ate the rest, but I do recommend it.

Some things to note about this recipe...

1. The recipe does include dairy - grass-fed butter and dark chocolate. (The recipe uses both Enjoy Life chocolate chips and dark chocolate.

2. The resulting mixture ended up very sticky. I recommend using two spoons to kind of scoop up the mixture, get it roughly golf-ball sized, and then get it onto the parchment paper-lined tray. I'm not sure how to describe the process that I used, but it was kind of like scooping the mixture from one spoon to the other repeatedly until it formed the shape I was looking for. Yeah, that's a terribly explanation, but that's the best I got without a video. Something to work on?

The Virgin Diet

In my continuing journey for health, I've started a new "diet" today. It's slightly different, but not much of a stretch from what I've been doing for the last year and a half. It's just more strict, because obviously my diet wasn't strict enough (read with sarcasm). Before I get into what this new diet change entails, let me give you some details of what's been going on for me lately (since I've so rudely disappeared lately). For the past three or four weeks, I've been severely lacking in energy/will power/excitement. Suffice it to say that I've been feeling burnt out. I wasn't sleeping well and I was under stress, which resulted in a massive migraine that left me crying at work and being driven home by one of my co-workers. The pounding headaches lasted for the next five days, and consisted of me taking my migraine medicine more over the course of one week than I have in the past year. The irony of the whole thing was that I had just gone in for a 6-month check up with my doctor a few days before and talked about how my daily headaches were manageable and I wasn't having to take the migraine meds. I should have known better than to say that out loud and jinx it.

At the beginning of this month I started a 6000 squat challenge, meaning 200 squats per day for 30 days. After the first day of squats, I had to start icing my knees. For the next couple weeks, I was icing my knees every day. Walking up and down stairs as well as just plain walking was painful. Then it seemed like all of my joints started hurting. Both knees, my left ankle, my shoulders, both elbows, my left wrist and thumb, my right fingers... it was ridiculous. I'm 26 years old and sitting hurts. Something obviously isn't right. Add in the fact that my jawline has been breaking out like crazy for the last month or so, and I think I need to make a change.

So that's what I'm doing. Last week I listened in on Real Food Con and while most of the sessions I listened to talked about eating quality foods while cutting out gluten and dairy, I heard something new. What I heard was the Virgin Diet. It's very similar to Paleo, but it doesn't exclude legumes. On the other hand, you can't have any eggs. I took the leaky gut quiz associated with the Virgin Diet and scored a 52. 16+ is a "high likelihood of leaky gut," so I'm literally off the charts. I needed a change, so here goes. The 7 foods that you can't have are:

1. Gluten
2. Dairy
3. Eggs
4. Corn
5. Soy
6. Peanuts
7. Sugar and Artificial Sweeteners

So the things that I'm going to be changing are cutting out eggs (which supposedly will help reduce joint pain - please!), and reducing my sugar intake. No, I don't eat foods with granulated sugar or artificial sweeteners in it, I'll be cutting down on the amount of natural sugars I consume. So when I eat fruit, I'm going to try to stick to berries and citrus fruits which tend to have more nutrients. Anyways, let's see how this goes.

BLT Salad

2 cups butter lettuce/radicchio salad mix

1 handful grape tomatoes, sliced in half

3 slices bacon, sugar-free, no nitrates

Lemon Vinaigrette Dressing

juice from 1/2 lemon

1 1/2 tsp olive oil

sprinkle of pepper

pinch of dried thyme

dash of garlic powder

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with tinfoil and lay strips of bacon on the pan.

2. Cook the bacon for 20 minutes or until the bacon reaches your desired crispiness. I prefer mine super crispy, but not burnt.

3. While the bacon is cooking, mix together the lemon juice, olive oil, pepper, thyme, and garlic.

4. Chop the cooked bacon into small pieces, and toss in a bowl with the lettuce and tomatoes. Add the dressing and enjoy.

I tossed in a couple blackberries and some mushrooms because I had them lying around, but make it your own and add in whichever ingredients you want.

Which is worse: gluten or dairy?

My friends (BK and DK) and I went to a basketball game last night. As you can see, I wore my glasses so that I could actually see what was happening on the court. The most exciting part of last night was that we magically got upgraded from our level 4 seats to level 1. And by magic I mean that as we were riding the escalator up to the 4th floor, a guy on the escalator (who works for the team) asked us if we wanted better seats. We said yes. We got new tickets, and all was well with the world.

Anyways, I got myself a G&T and was Paleo-bad and ordered a buffalo chicken tender basket. Surprisingly there was a separate  "restaurant" for gluten-free food available, but most of it was hot dogs (I shudder at the meat) and cheese-covered options. And for me, I choose gluten headaches over dairy-induced stomach cramps.

I often wonder which is worse for me, and I'm not really sure. I know that I react poorly to both, but overall it's a person-by-person sort of decision. I fell like every time I eat dairy, it's with gluten, but no necessarily the other way around. So if I have to pick one or the other, I choose gluten, plus I love bread. Though a lot of Paleo people out there would say gluten is worse.  What's your thoughts on the matter?

(Of course after I got my food, I realized that there was a salad place just past the gluten one. I smacked myself in the head for that smart move. Note to self: put on glasses when looking at things far away.)

I'm being healthy at work though. Here's what I ate for lunch today:

Chipotle Chicken Stuffed Sweet Potatoes (recipe to come soon), Thrive Brussels Sprouts, and salad with carrots, celery, and a hard-boiled egg.

My snacks for this week have been: celery, carrots, plantain chips, roasted unsalted pistachios, bananas, oranges, and almond butter.

Whole 30 and Dairy

So I'm starting the Whole 30 plan again tomorrow. I feel like I need a bit of a detox/kick-start after Jamaica and getting back into work mode. And this past weekend really made me want to stick with hard-core Paleo. I don't think I ever mentioned how Whole 30 went for me last time. My body just felt better - less upset stomachs, less headaches, etc. And I managed to lose 7 lbs over the course of one month (even during Thanksgiving). The two things that I cut out for Whole 30 in comparison to how I usually eat were alcohol and natural sugars, such as maple syrup and honey. What does this tell me? Apparently I consume a lot more alcohol and sweets than I thought.

So a few girlfriends came over on Saturday night to have a sleepover. Yes, we had a slumber party. Don't judge us. We watched Winning London, Dhoom 2, Pitch Perfect, and Jodhaa Akbar (though I think KAOS was the only one who lasted through that 3.5 hour-movie). Anyways, we ordered pizza for dinner; KAOS and I shared a gluten-free pizza with pepperoni. It tasted okay; nothing to write home to mom about. Unfortunately, by the time I fell asleep, it was misery: pounding headache, achy stomach. It was a non-Paleo food hangover. And it stuck around all day on Sunday with a pretty hefty dose of lethargy. So that's another reason why I'm sticking with Paleo. Because grains and dairy are bad, evil things. Evil, I tell you!

I got into a discussion with one of my friends about Paleo and dairy. I follow the type of Paleo where I don't have ANY dairy, including ghee/clarified butter or heavy cream. My friend said that he mainly follows Paleo, except for the weekends, but he does have dairy, like cheese which is a bit easier to tolerate from a lactose stand-point. He theorized that people who follow Paleo are making themselves lactose-intolerant by not eating dairy. I understand what he was saying. Trying to reintroduce dairy  products after eliminating them for a long time can be very unpleasant. The way I see it (non-scientific view) is that by continuing to eat grains, dairy, and legumes, your body has to maintain a defense against these foods. When you cut them out, your body gets the chance to relax and eventually stops being paranoid that you're going to do something mean to it. It gets used to your clean diet. When you reintroduce the evil foods, your body freaks out because it has forgotten how to handle those foods.

I think that he has a point, but only in the fact that I feel like you may feel more intolerant of dairy the longer you go without eating it. If you're like me, eliminating dairy makes you feel much better. So when you consume dairy again, the resulting stomach upsets seem that much worse in comparison to your new healthy baseline.

I've read articles and seen TV shows that claim that we as humans were not built to handle dairy. I agree with them. I've even seen the stat that 75% of humans are lactose-intolerant. Milk contains hormones that are intended for infants (of the respective species). Babies grow at much faster rates and don't have the teeth necessary to eat food that adults would eat, so milk helps deliver nutrients to aid growth and immune development. Here's an analogy for you...

Breast milk : babies :: cow's milk : calves.

Cow's milk is not meant for human babies, much in the same way that human breast milk is not meant for calves. Calves stop drinking milk once they are weaned. And I don't see any adults still drinking their mom's breast milk. So why do we consume something that's meant for babies of a difference species? Think on it...

Here's summary from the National Institute of Health (NIH) on lactose-intolerance:

http://consensus.nih.gov/2010/images/lactose/lactose_finalstatement.pdf

Some other articles to read about dairy:
http://thepaleodiet.com/healthy-eating/qa-with-dr-cordain-milk/
http://whole9life.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/cordainbastosdairy.pdf
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/dairy-free-dairy-6-reason_b_558876.html
http://paleosimplified.com/milk-no/