Category Archives: Diet for Autoimmune Conditions

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My Very Easy and Healthy Smoothie and Granola Recipes!

I find it amusing and perplexing that bloggers love recipes and anything written about food. I could have 99 posts about ME/CFS that never get read, but the 100th post about my oat bar recipe will have 10 bloggers “liking” it. So, with that in mind, listen up foodie bloggers! (foggers? bloodies?) I -somebody with too little energy to shower most days- make a smoothie every day and granola every week. They’re easy and they cost such an exorbitant amount of money at the shops, that you should start making your own immediately!

Triple Berry Smoothie 1

[Edit: I have since started doing green juices and not eating so much fruit, but this is still delicious for a yummy treat.]

E.M.’s Basic Smoothie (dairy-free, sugar-free, gluten-free etc.)

Blend:

  • 1 banana
  • a few handfuls of frozen mixed berries
  • almond milk (sweetened or unsweetened, vanilla or original)

Now, here are the variations that make it interesting:

  • 1 banana (or pear, if bananas are too much sugar or too many carbs. Often I’ll put half the banana in my granola for breakfast and then use the other half in a smoothie for “elevensies”)
  • a few handfuls of frozen mixed berries (or fresh berries or mango or…)
  • almond milk (or coconut milk or soy milk or hemp milk or cow’s milk or yogurt or ice cream or frozen yogurt or…)
  • splash of orange juice (really kicks it up a notch)
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • pinch of cinnamon and/or nutmeg
  • agave nectar or stevia to taste (but you don’t need it!)
  • 1 tbs flax seed meal (I always do this)
  • a few walnuts (I always do this, too. You wouldn’t believe how good walnuts are blended up in a smoothie)

Also, you can add water or ice to thicken or thin the smoothie without adding calories, but not affecting the taste too much.

Granola after roasting

Granola consists of oats, a far and something sweet. So, it can be as simple as oats, oil/fat and honey… and then you get to add any seeds, nuts or different flavours you like. I made up all these measurements, you less or more to your liking.

E.M.’s Healthy Granola (dairy-free, refined sugar-free, gluten-free)

  • 4 cups gluten-free rolled oats 
  • 1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds (can be salted. If not, add 1/4-1/2 tsp salt to recipe)
  • 1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
  • 1 cup chopped nuts (any kind: I like pecans, cashews and almonds. If I didn’t put walnuts in my smoothies, I’d put them in my granola)
  • 1/2 cup coconut (can be sweetened or unsweetened)
  • 1/2-1 tbs cinnamon
  • 5 tbs fat of choice (butter, high-oliec sunflower or canola oil, heated up coconut oil… lately I’ve been using olive oil and the taste has not overwhelmed the finished product)
  • 5 tbs honey (or brown rice syrup or maple syrup or whatever liquid sweetener you like)
  • 2 tsps pure vanilla extract (I add much more because I love vanilla)
  • 1/4-1/2 cup dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, apples, cherries etc.)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Combine dry ingredients. Heat oil, honey and vanilla over low heat until it is runny but not boiling. Pour over dry ingredients, mix thoroughly and spread over 2 baking trays lined with foil or parchment. Bake for about 30 minutes until golden. When cooled, add dried fruit (otherwise they have a tendency to get a bit crispy and charred in the oven). I love mine in clumps, but I think you’d need more honey to get that effect. The NY Times recently said that if you leave a “donut hole” in the middle of the baking trays and don’t stir the granola while it’s baking, it’ll come out clumpier, however, it didn’t work for me.

Which brings me to the variations: obviously, you can have no seeds or no nuts or no coconut. You can have no vanilla or cinnamon or dried fruit. Tinker with the oil and honey. I only put 2 tbs honey and 2 tbs agave nectar in my last batch, knowing I could always add more to my bowl of granola when I’m eating it … but, I didn’t think it was quite sweet enough. This is not grocery store granola! This way you can make it healthier or not ~ whatever you like. You’re in charge. 🙂

Enjoy!

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Rotten on the Inside.

I spoke too soon about Fuji apples. I just cut into this one and it was already brown on the inside…. Oh, and I never mentioned the broccoli mites! I doubt very many people would even have noticed them – they looked like the tips of the broccoli itself and were clumped in between the branches. I don’t mind insects in my produce – I once almost ate a huge grasshopper in my organic salad and you have to wash slugs and critters off our garden veg, of course – but there was something disquieting about how camouflaged these little buggers were. And it is unnerving when fruit looks so delicious on the outside, but is rotten when you slice into it. Oh god, I just described this and so many other diseases… Rot that can’t be seen on the outside. Invisible illness.

20121205-200134.jpg

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The Next Installment in Bad Food Experiences

Some of you might recall my experience with earwigs inside a peach and mold inside an apple and the bloody, black soul I found inside a banana… My saga continues with the manky, moldy, mildewed, malodorous COCONUT. Yes, those are colonies of mold growing in the shell and on the flesh, which is meant to be white. And, yes, it smells bad ~ my husband wouldn’t let it stay in the house.

coconut

I also want to mention that there is something wrong with some organic foods. Three times I have bought organic avocados which look great on the outside, but are weirdly stringy and discoloured on the inside. And, worse, they are tasteless! I’ve never experienced a “watery”-tasting avocado until I started buying them in the organic store. Also, bananas. I won’t buy organic ones anymore because they are strange inside. Their molecules are different; they don’t hold together the same way  ~ they separate length-wise when you are just trying to peel them. And they brown strangely. We have bought green organic bananas and, a few days later, they are still mostly green but practically liquid inside. Ew. I don’t get it. Is it because our food is so processed and chemicalized that I don’t even recognize the real thing anymore? And why are Red Delicious apples mealy, Granny Smiths give me a stomach ache, Mackintoshes are gorgeous to look at, but have no flavour, and Fujis are consistently crisp, sweat and tart? And where did all the gnarly crab apples go? And cooking apples? Did you know, when I was a kid in Ireland, we got apples, tangerines and nuts in our trick-or-treat bags?

Apple bad3

CookingApples

perfect apple

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe the business of “organic” and the labeling laws are a bit of a scam… Maybe the bigger issue is loss of diversification in our crops (remember the famine?) and consumers’ changing ideals of what our foods should look like and… Monsanto. I kind of want to launch into a huge diatribe about losing our fruit and vegetable varieties and the importance of seed preservation and how necessary it is for us to spend our money on the unknown, under-appreciated, ugly foods and not be sucked in by the pretty, homogeneous GMO products… But, I’ll spare you.

I’m grateful for vegetable gardens. Assuming we can have access to heirloom seeds. And climate change doesn’t destroy everything. 🙂

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…and I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him…

I don’t think I have the energy to write much because I have big plans today like making a few phone calls and washing my cpap. I’m also determined to do my stretches today, which I haven’t been able to do for ages. I had 19 very bad days. The worst day of all was two days ago. My brother, a pilot, was in town overnight and I wasn’t able to see him. I haven’t seen him since August, 2011 ~ two months before I got sick. I kept thinking, I manage to get to a doctor appointment and talk for 45 minutes, but I’m not able to meet my brother for breakfast? But he has another layover here in two weeks, so I get a second chance.

Then, right after that horrible day, miraculously, yesterday I felt better. Not great, but better. I wish I could adequately describe the difference between a bad-but-not-horrible day and a good-but-not-great day. They are worlds apart. Instead of getting out of a chair like a crippled, arthritic 90 year old, I get up like a typical 39 year old who is in pain. Instead of walking up the stairs to the bathroom delicately, with difficulty, concentrating on each baby step and clutching at the walls, I walk up slowly, heavily, but without much thought. Instead of watching tv as still as a statue, unable to smile, needing to block my ears at loud noises, but having a hard time holding my hands up to my head, I can laugh and operate the remote control. Instead of unhappily eating an apple or drinking an Ensure to pad my stomach for the pills I have to take, I am hungry and look forward to eating a (really boring) meal.

I looked in the mirror yesterday and there was pink in my cheeks, but not in a feverish way. I had been ashen for weeks ~ grey skin, dull yellow eyes ~ and overnight it looked like I had taken a walk outside. It feels like the Monster, who has been crushing you in both hands for weeks on end, had to scratch his nose or something and, with one of his hands not pressing in on you, you are suddenly able to take a breath… to have a conversation without sweating and shaking… you are able to pet your dogs and hug your husband and make granola. And the whole time you are thinking, thank you thank you thank you. That is when I can see a tiny seed of hope. I have to remember in the despairing, dark days of pain, that there will be another day in the future when the Monster has to let go to answer the phone or smoke a cigarette or whatever… and you will be able to move a little easier.

monster

I saw the Good Doctor on Monday and she is adamant that I stay away from dairy, gluten and grains still. I am also back on all the same supplements as before, plus berberine to combat yeast and magnesium to help pain and sleep (note to those that may not know: magnesium glycinate is the form that should not mess with your bowels. Other forms can help you poop or cause diarrhea, depending on how much you take). I’m thrilled. After months of stagnation, I have forward momentum. I told her, “I don’t care what we do, but I have to do something. If you don’t want me back on the supplements yet, I’m going to start the Chinese herbs.” After much research online into ME/CFS experts’ protocols, I was bolstered to see many of the same supplements that the Good Doc has me on (CoQ10, fish oil, acetyl-L-carntine etc.). I started them again on Monday and I wonder if they contributed to the uptick on Thursday. Placebo effect doesn’t really work with this disease in me, as much as I wish it would. It might make me feel a little lighter or more hopeful, but the placebo effect cannot cause the difference between practically bedbound and able to walk and talk. It’s more likely the fact that I slept fairly well Wednesday night ~ 8.5 hours. My plan is to start Cymbalta on Monday or whenever the initial nausea from the supplements wears off… so I can deal with the initial nausea of the Cymbalta. Joy.

Here’s my daily regimen:

 daily pills

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An Update on my day-to-day…

Here is an update for those of you that have tried to contact me. I’m okay. Not great, but okay. After the Worst Headache, I had an up-swing for two weeks, feeling like I had more energy, less pain, more mobility and JOY. Today is day 14 of the subsequent down-swing. I have been struggling. I’m in constant pain, which gets worse in the evening. I have a headache and sore throat every day, my neck and my lower back are stiff, inflamed, screaming. There are jolts up and down my spine. My hands ache, my jaw is tender and I don’t even recognise my eyes anymore. Sunken and puffy, swollen, red, dry and circled with purple. I’ve had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, I’ve only been able to do my stretches every other day, I’ve only been able to do 2 to 6 laps of the house, I’ve been walking somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 steps each day. I haven’t been sleeping very well and my deep sleep keeps dwindling (according to the Zeo). However, I’m still walking, I’m still talking, I’m still sitting at a computer, I’m still bathing myself and making my way around the house. I’m still breathing. Focus on the positive!

I continue to use the CPAP, but I’m still having difficulty. The nose pillows-with-tape-over-my-mouth routine allows me to move around in my sleep and rest my head on its side, but I wake constantly from the air inflating my cheeks or traveling around my gums. It is the weirdest thing. I will wake up because there is a worm of air crawling its way along the outside of my bottom teeth. It will journey along my gum line in the front of my mouth and find a tiny outlet between my lips to whistle its way out. Or, I will awaken with one cheek suddenly puffed out, ballooned with air. Or, my whole mouth will inflate so I look like a chipmunk ~ with a mask plugging my nose and tape over my mouth, I expect my ears and eyes to bulge out like those squeezy rubber dolls we played with as kids.

Also, the tape is wreaking havoc on the skin around my mouth and the inside of my nose is raw and sore. None of that happens with the full face mask, but I can’t turn on my side without it moving, air escaping and me waking. Unbelievably,  the former situation is the lesser of two evils. Far fewer mask parts to wash, too. The washing of the CPAP parts is a huge ordeal for someone with ME. It is not an easy chore and almost negates the better sleep I am meant to be getting. The dental device that my father recommended costs $600 – $800, which I would spend if I could be guaranteed it would work. For right now, I just don’t have the energy to tackle a new appointment with a new dentist to get a new device.

The last few nights I have awakened in the throes of the full-body flex that I have talked about before. It’s as if there is an arc of electricity going through my body: back arched, toes curled, arms and legs rigid, hands in fists. I have thrown my neck out this way before. I now wonder if a muscle relaxant taken before bed is the answer for this. I’ve taken 1mg of melatonin a few nights this last week and I think it might help a little (or maybe it’s the placebo effect), but not enough. I should have taken my GP up on the offer for Ambien or Traxodone or Flexeril, but I’m such a scaredy-cat. It has to stop, though. I don’t think I’ll improve without pharmaceutical intervention. I’ve been taking tylenol with codeine every day the last few weeks and it’s not very effective at the low doses I like to take ~ plus, it gives me a kind of hangover. On Monday, I start Cymbalta. Duh duh duuuhhhhh….. Please don’t let me chicken out. I need to try something. My doctor said to expect to feel crappy for the first few weeks. But, in theory, it should help with the chronic pain, sleep and anxiety.

I continue my no-dairy-no-gluten-no-eggs-no-most-grains diet. I enjoyed starchy veg and popcorn over the last week, but, starting today, I am removing them from my diet again. I might be removing rice and/or oats, too. I am going to talk to the Good Doctor about that on Monday. After a lecture from my husband about what systemic yeast overgrowth might look/feel like, I am also going to try a little more diligently to cut down on sugar in all forms ~ fruit juice, dried fruit, Theo chocolate bars, agave syrup in my granola, cane sugar in my almond milk etc.

I sit here looking out the window at my husband in the garden, pruning our plum tree. He is tireless. Even when he has no work, he never stops working. He rakes leaves and mows the lawn and scoops poop. He shuttles me to and from appointments, does the shopping, cooks dinner. He washes dishes, hoovers, puts on sheets. In the past few years, he has rewired the house, replumbed the house, put in under-floor heating, cleaned out the rat shit and reinsulated the attic, built a second bathroom, expanded the first, built a shed for a new water heater and installed it himself. He landscaped our whole garden with an expertise that knew what it would look like in years to come ~ if he planted certain shrubs, trees and flowers in certain places at certain times of the year, given time, it would be a masterpiece. He built and tends the vegetable garden, he repaired our chimney and built me a porch with a little heater so I could get some daylight in the winter. He deals with his own physical problems and health issues and never complains. My brother called him a saint. My mother called him a hero. I call him a life saver. Without a shadaw of a doubt, I wouldn’t still be here without him. Gratitude is too small of a word.