Brain Food: Five Strategies for the Wahls Diet

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Over the course of the last couple weeks I have developed strategies to make sure I get the nine cups of veggies, one teaspoon of minerals and  four ounces of grass-fed meat or wild seafood a day.  I thought I ate a lot of veggies before, but this much requires some planning on my part.

1. Start the day with a lot of produce and some seaweed.

 

This could be something like the breakfast skillet, or a smoothie.  The video below is Dr. Wahls making a smoothie of 1 cup kale stems, 2 cups orange juice, 1/4 teaspoon of powdered kelp and a banana.

2. Soups are wonderful ways to fit in more vegetables and broth.  

One cup bone broth counts for the day's mineral requirements.  I like cabbage soup, butternut beet soup, and beef mushroom and barley soup.  

3. Salads feel more like a meal with a cooked component.  

I've had a hard time thinking of a salad as a meal.  However, they are an excellent way to eat the three cups of greens. I find that adding a cooked something gives a warm contrast to the cold leaves and makes the salad feel like it has more substance.  

Last night for dinner we had grilled wild salmon on a bed of lettuce and spinach with grated carrots, sliced radishes and warm pan roasted butternut squash with garlic.  Another example would be the warm butternut and chickpea salad.

I just posted  the recipe for the Sardine Avocado Citrus Salad which has sauteed onions and warm sardines.  It's good, I promise and the sardines count towards the one serving of organ meat a week!

4. End the day with a sweet fruit smoothie.  

Now I'm not saying I don't miss baked desserts or ice-cream but a smoothie is a nice way to make sure that you've got all the bright colors and have a little something sweet.

The Wahls Diet includes three cups of bright colors per day;  one cup of each of red, orange/yellow and blue/black.

I've taken to making a smoothie of frozen strawberries, peaches and blueberries with some 100% grape juice concentrate.  I adjust the ratio of fruits to make sure I have gotten all my bright colors.  Usually I am missing the blue/black so I make sure to add a full cup of blueberries.  

5. Grain and sweet craving can be assuaged with granola and dark chocolate.  

I'm not completely sure what Dr. Wahls thinks about dark chocolate, but I have seen cocoa powder in her recipes so I think as long as it is not sugary chocolate we are in the clear.  I enjoy the granola recipe with a sprinkling of high quality dark chocolate.  It tastes like a chocolate chip cookie.

There you go.  How do you make sure you eat well every day?

My other posts in this series:

Brain Food: Adopting the Wahls Diet
Brain Food: Breakfast Skillet Inspired by Dr. Wahls
Brain Food: Warm Butternut Chickpea Salad - Recipe
Brain Food: What I ate today on the Wahls Diet
Brain Food: Sardine Avocado Citrus Salad - Recipe
Brain Food: Sauerkraut and Cabbage Soup - Recipe
Brain Food: Liver and Onions - Recipe (Guest posted on Spain in Iowa)
Brain Food: One Teaspoon of Minerals a Day

For more recipes and ideas visit my Wahls Paleo Pinterest Board.

Read More

Brain Food: Sardine Avocado Citrus Salad - Recipe

Sardines are yummy.  If you haven't actually tried them, I bet you'll be surprised.  Plus everyone in Europe eats sardines.  An entire continent can't be wrong.  Peer pressure man, peer pressure!

This is an awesome little salad that comes together quickly and easily scales for just one to a crowd.  The oily sardines are cut by the citrus and the avocado adds a nice creamy factor.  To make the salad feel more like a dinner menu item I saute an onion and at the very end add the sardines to heat them up.  Then I use the sardine oil, plus a little balsamic vinegar and sherry to make a simple dressing.  That's it.  All of 15 minutes and you're ready to eat.



Plus since I'm doing the Wahls Diet this month this salad has three cups of greens, half cup of avocado, one orange for bright colors, one leek or onion for sulfurous veggies and four ounces of sardines which count as the weekly organ meat as well as the four ounces grass-fed meat or wild seafood.

Sardines > Tuna

It's true sardines are better than tuna.  Sardines have fewer heavy metals like mercury because they are lower on the food chain.  Heavy metals bio-magnify man! Tuna are in danger of being over fished. No one is worried about the sardine population. Both tuna and sardines are an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids, but sardines have more! Since we eat the whole fish including the guts and bones of sardines; they are a good source of B12, Vitamin D, iron, potassium, co-enzyme Q10, phosphorus and selenium. Guts and bones, delicious and nutritious! And the lastly, sardines are less expensive than tuna!  Hurrah for sardines.

My favorite variety of sardines is Wild Planet.  The sardines have a fairly mild flavor and they are sustainably caught off the California coast.  Wild Planet uses BPA free tins for all their products.  I find them in the natural foods section of my grocery.  They are very similar in cost with other canned sardines.  

Although if you really don't like sardines, but do like tuna.  Tuna would be a yummy substitution.

I don't think I'll have to write persuasively to convert people to oranges and avocados.  You know those are delicious, right?  On to the recipe!

This recipe is a combination of Joy the Baker's Spinach Feta Blood Orange Salad and Alton Brown's Sherried Sardine Toast.  I took out the toast and the feta since dairy and gluten are not allowed on the Wahls Diet because they are common allergens.  Basically I put the sardines and dressing of Alton Brown's recipe on the salad recipe from Joy the Baker and it is delicious.  You're welcome.

Sardine Avocado Citrus Salad

2 servings

2 leeks or onions, sliced
1 tablespoon coconut oil, tallow or lard
2 tins of Wild Planet Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 avocado, sliced
3 oranges, pealed and wedges cut in half length-wise
6 cups of greens, spinach or lettuce

1/2 tablespoon sherry
1/2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1. Saute the onions or leeks in the tablespoon of fat.  Add a little salt and pepper to taste, but go easy on the salt as the sardines are naturally salty too.  
2. While the onions are sauteing open the sardine tins.  Drain the olive oil into a small bowl.  When the onions are done turn off the burner and set the sardines into the pan so they can heat up a bit.  You want the sardines whole, so don't stir them in. 
3. To make the salad dressing mix the oil from the sardines with half a tablespoon of each sherry and balsamic vinegar.  Combine with a fork or whisk. 
4. Place 3 cups of greens onto each dinner plate.  Add the avocado and orange on top. Divide the sauteed onion/leeks between each plate and  top with the sardines.
5. Serve with the dressing on the side.  

Alternatively this makes an excellent cold lunch.  Just pack the sardines, sauteed onions and dressing in one container and the greens, avocado and orange in another.  Dump the sardine container into the greens container and enjoy!

My other posts in this series:

BBrain Food: Adopting the Wahls Diet
Brain Food: Breakfast Skillet Inspired by Dr. Wahls
Brain Food: Warm Butternut Chickpea Salad - Recipe
Brain Food: What I ate today on the Wahls Diet
Brain Food: Five Strategies for the Wahls Diet
Brain Food: Sauerkraut and Cabbage Soup - Recipe
Brain Food: Liver and Onions - Recipe (Guest posted on Spain in Iowa)
Brain Food: One Teaspoon of Minerals a Day

For more recipes and ideas visit my Wahls Paleo Pinterest Board.

Read More

Brain Food: What I ate today on the Wahls Diet

Top (left to right) Breakfast egg skillet,  half an avocado with carrots
Middle: Green tea, fruit smoothie, granola, dressing for salad, more tea
Bottom: kiwi and grapes, sardine avocado citrus salad

I have been following the Wahls Diet for two weeks now so I thought I would share what a day's worth of food looks like for me now.  

• 3-4 cups of green tea
• 1 cup of granola - I modified my recipe to use coconut oil instead of butter
• Breakfast egg skillet - I only had one egg today so I added some left over roast chicken
• Kiwi and grapes for a snack
• Avocado and carrot for another snack
• Sardine Avocado Citrus Salad - this recipe will be my next post
• Strawberry, peach and blueberry smoothie for dessert - I omit the yogurt from the linked recipe

Green tea.  I drink a lot of green tea partially because it is winter and because  Dr. Wahls recommends beverages that have lots of antioxidants and anti-inflammation nutrients.  Green tea is one of them.  She also recommends matcha, ginger tea and yerba mate.   

All together my daily food counts as : 

• 4 cups of sulfurous food
• 8 cups of bright colors
• 4 cups of leafy greens
• 1 cup of other vegetable (avocado)
• 1 teaspoon minerals (there is dulse seaweed in the breakfast skillet) 
• 5 ounces of grass-fed meat and wild fish

Today I am a bit of an over achiever because I've got 17 cups of vegetables and fruits.  The Wahls Diet only asks for nine.  I've had trouble hitting the mark in the past, so I guess I over compensated.  You could take out the snacks and still be fine. 

I should note I am a nursing mama so I might eat a little more than most.  I'm not sure.  All I have for comparison are several example menus in Minding My Mitochondria 2nd Edition.  

Here's one of those sample menus: 

• Smoothie made with almond milk, cocoa, cinnamon, flax meal and peach
• Spinach salad with green beans and grapes
• Curried peanut butter, greens soup with bok choy salad, flax oil rice vinegar salad dressing and bone broth.

I imagine that everybody can find a way to work the Wahls Diet into their lifestyle. Next week I'll share some strategies I've come up with to make sure I get what my body needs to maximize my health.



My other posts in this series:


Brain Food: Adopting the Wahls Diet
Brain Food: Breakfast Skillet Inspired by Dr. Wahls
Brain Food: Warm Butternut Chickpea Salad - Recipe
Brain Food: Sardine Avocado Citrus Salad - Recipe
Brain Food: Five Strategies for the Wahls Diet

Brain Food: Sauerkraut and Cabbage Soup - Recipe
Brain Food: Liver and Onions - Recipe (Guest posted on Spain in Iowa)
Brain Food: One Teaspoon of Minerals a Day

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Brain Food: Warm Butternut Chickpea Salad - Recipe

This salad is a full meal.  It has warm spiced butternut squash with chickpeas and a tahini dressing over mixed lettuce.  

I was excited when I realized this recipe I've been making for years fits nicely into the Wahls Diet.  It's gluten free, dairy free and includes leafy greens and bright colors.  

I'm challenging myself to follow the Wahls Diet for one month!  All the recipes and posts during this time will be on my experiences as I learn to cook organ meats, eat nine cups of fruits and veggies in a day and give up gluten and dairy.   I'm calling this series Brain Food.  Here's the intro post if you missed it.  

I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen and from the picture and title I wasn't convinced.  It was Deb's enthusiastic praise that this is a recipe she could eat forever.  And now that I have gone back and re-read her post, I realize this is not her recipe it is from Molly of the blog Orangette who adapted it from a cookbook from the UK’s Moro restaurant.  You know it is a good recipe when it gets passed down the culinary ranks. I'll add my two cents and say yes this recipe has been part of my household's regular meal plan for at least two years.  It is excellent left over too.  

I made a couple of changes so it fits the Wahls Diet even better.  

1. I exchanged the oil for roasting the butternut squash from olive to coconut.  Coconut or animal fats are the only oils Wahls approves for heating.  Recently on The Wahls Foundation Facebook Page this was posted: "Coconut oil is ok for heating, clarified butter (removes proteins) and rendered animal fats all ok for heating. All others cold. Heating food at high temps damages vitamins, antioxidants, takes away compounds your cells wanted to use."
    
2. I switched up regular table salt to sea salt because sea salt counts towards the one teaspoon of minerals daily. Sea salt has iodine, zinc and other trace nutrients that straight salt lacks.
     
3. Instead of using canned chickpeas which are probably in a tin lined with BPA plastic; I hydrated and sprouted dry chickpeas and then cooked them in stock.  I do large batches of chickpeas and freeze them for both this recipe and hummus.  The soaking and sprouting reduces their phytic acid and increases nutrition.  The stock adds minerals.
   
   “The process of germination not only produces vitamin C, but also changes the composition of grains and seeds in numerous beneficial ways. Sprouting increases vitamin B content, especially B2, B5, and B6. Carotene increases dramatically-sometimes even eightfold.” Sally Fallon, Nourishing Traditions
    
4. I added a base of lettuce or spinach.  There is plenty of tahini dressing for some greens so serve this salad over even more salad.  Get your three cups of leafy greens a day!

Even if you aren't interested in following the Wahls Diet, give this one a go.  It's an excellent recipe year round!  A little side note to my sister who has more squash than she knows what to do with from her garden last year: Clarissa, try this salad!

Warm Butternut and Chickpea Salad

Warm Portion of Salad:

1 large butternut squash, peeled and cleaned and cut into 1 inch cubes

1 head of garlic, cloves peeled and trimmed but left whole (save one for dressing)

1 teaspoon ground all spice

2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Fresh Portion of Salad:

2 cups of cooked chickpeas (see above for how I prepare dried chickpeas)

1/4 red onion, minced

1 cup cilantro leaves, chopped

9 cups lettuce or spinach

Dressing:

1 garlic clove, finely minced with a pinch of sea salt

1/4 cup lemon juice

3 tablespoons tahini (sesame seed paste - find it in the international or health food part of your grocery)

2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons high quality cold press virgin olive oil (bonus points for upgrading to flax or hemp seed oil)

Yields 3 dinner portions

1. Start by preheating your oven to 425.  In a large bowl toss the butternut squash and garlic cloves with all spice, coconut oil and sea salt.  Arrange the mixture on a baking sheet in a single layer.  Roast for 25 minutes or until the squash has browned and is fork tender.
    
2. While the butternut is baking make the dressing.  Combine the minced garlic, lemon juice, tahini, water and oil.  Depending on my mood and how thick the tahini is I either run it through the food processor or whisk by hand.  Add up to 2 tablespoons more water if the mixture isn't the consistency you would like.
      
3. To plate place three cups of greens on a dinner plate.  Heap 1/3 of the warm butternut squash in center.  Sprinkle 2/3 cup of chickpeas and 1/3 of the red onion on top.  Drizzle a generous amount of dressing on top and garnish with 1/3 cup cilantro.  

One dinner sized serving meet the Wahls Diet daily requirement of greens, bright colors: yellow/orange, and 1/3 of the sulfurous veggies.  



My other posts in this series:


Brain Food: Adopting the Wahls Diet
Brain Food: Breakfast Skillet Inspired by Dr. Wahls
Brain Food: What I ate today on the Wahls Diet
Brain Food: Sardine Avocado Citrus Salad - Recipe
Brain Food: Five Strategies for the Wahls Diet

Brain Food: Sauerkraut and Cabbage Soup - Recipe
Brain Food: Liver and Onions - Recipe (Guest posted on Spain in Iowa)
Brain Food: One Teaspoon of Minerals a Day

Read More

Brain Food - Breakfast Skillet Inspired by Dr. Wahls

I've decided to adopt the Wahls Diet in stages.  It's a little too intense to just jump in cold turkey.  This week I am focusing eating all the servings of vegetables, meat and minerals.  Over the next couple of weeks I'll work on eliminating gluten and dairy.

My first challenge was figuring out what to eat for breakfast when gluten is out and lots of vegetables need to be added in. This egg skillet has been my go to breakfast.




If you missed it here's my introductory post on starting the Wahls Diet.  In short it is a nutrient intense diet aimed at getting your body all it needs to run optimally.  I'm calling this series Brain Food.

Here's a little video from Dr. Wahls herself on how to get started:

After doing some trial recipes between Thanksgiving and Christmas I realized in order to eat all this nutrient dense food every meal would have to count.  This egg skillet is the perfect way to front load your vegetables for the day.

I'm still not sure what the final word is on eggs and the Wahls Diet.  Some places in Minding My Mitochondria advocate for them and then others state eggs are restricted.  My personal interpretation is that some folks have allergies or food sensitivities to eggs. If you are actively suffering taking eggs out of your diet is a good precaution and may help.

However, since I'm healthy and I don't have any current health issues I'll keep eating eggs.  I am choosing the best quality of fresh eggs from a local farmer.  They are a cheap source of protein.  And I know the Weston A. Price Foundation promotes eggs as an excellent source of complete protein.

Above is a plate with two servings.  Jeff and I usually split a plate so we get about two eggs each plus two or three cups of vegetables.  I change up the vegetables depending on what we have on hand.  This time of year I'm using a lot of the produce I put up frozen peppers, dehydrated cherry tomatoes, onion, purple cabbage and frozen kale.  Other veggies that occasionally make an appearance are leeks, spinach, mushroom and chard.

Above is another example of a skillet.  This one has spinach instead of kale and cabbage. One serving of these skillets has:

• 1/2 cup onion/mushroom (daily goal 1 cup)
• 1 cup cuciferous/greens (daily goal 3 cups)
• 1/2 cup brightly colored veggies (daily goal 3 cups)
• 1/2 tablespoon minerals  (daily goal 1 teaspoon)

Not too shabby.  Depending on how you combine the veggies you could fit even more in there.

There are two rather unusual ingredients I like to add to my skillets.  They are miso paste and dried seaweed flakes. 

Miso is from Japan and is a made by fermenting soybeans.  You may also see it made from barley, rice or other grains.  The most common application is as part of the broth in miso soup.  Here I'm using it like a bullion to add flavor to the veggies.  Notice I found a variety that is MSG free and low salt.  Fermented foods help keep your gut healthy.  Here's a blog post from Dr. Wahls on how that works: Your Gut and Auto Immune Disease.

I also add a tablespoon of dried dulse flakes.  Dulse is a type of seaweed.  One of the daily goals of the Wahls Diet is a teaspoon of minerals and dried seaweed counts.  In particular seaweed has iodine and zinc as well as other trace minerals.  I notice the smell more than the taste when I add in the dulse.  It smells a little fishy.  Fishy in a good way.  Kind of the same way the nori wrapped around sushi isn't a strong flavor.  

  

I bought both of the miso and seaweed off amazon.  If you have an Asian food store near you or a decent co-op you might be able to find them on the shelves. Here's the link online if you are interested:

They are a little pricey, the miso in particular but they both go a long way because they are used in small amounts.  And if you don't have them on hand, they aren't integral to the recipe.  You could substitute with some flavorful herbs.  

This skillet is a cinch to cook and it comes together quickly in about 20 minutes.  

Brain Food Breakfast Skillet 

Serves 2

4 eggs

1 onion, chopped

1 red or orange pepper, chopped

1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, rehydrated

2 cups purple cabbage, shredded

2 cups greens like kale, spinach or chard

1 tablespoon miso paste

1 tablespoon dried seaweed flakes like dulse

1 tablespoon solid fat like lard, tallow or coconut oil

1. Over medium heat in a large skillet saute the onions and peppers in half of the fat until the onions are glassy.
    
2. Add the cabbage and miso and continue cooking until the cabbage is starting to go limp.
    
3. Mix in the sun-dried tomatoes and greens give them a quick stir then push all the veggies to the edges.
    
4. Melt the remaining fat in the now empty center of the skillet to coat.  Reduce the heat to low and add the eggs.  Cook the eggs in the center until just set.
    
5. Sprinkle the seaweed flakes over the top and you're ready to serve. 

My other posts in this series:

Brain Food: Adopting the Wahls Diet
Brain Food: Warm Butternut Chickpea Salad - Recipe
Brain Food: What I ate today on the Wahls Diet
Brain Food: Sauerkraut and Cabbage Soup - Recipe
Brain Food: Liver and Onions - Recipe (Guest posted on Spain in Iowa)
Brain Food: One Teaspoon of Minerals a Day

For more recipes and ideas visit my Wahls Paleo Pinterest Board. 

Read More

Brain Food - Adopting the Wahls Diet

If you could prevent the onset of adult illnesses like cancer, type 2 diabetes and dementia wouldn't you want to? How far would you go to keep you and your family healthy?

Dr. Terry Whals, a physician, reversed the symptoms of her Multiple Sclerosis by eating a diet rich in micro-nutrients.  She researched the elements human bodies need to maintain cell health and figured out which foods to eat and how much.  She calls it the Wahls Diet (tm).



The Whals diet in a nutshell:

Once you eat your nine cups of fruits and vegetables with a serving of meat and minerals you can eat additional food if you need it for calories.  

The kicker I didn't include in my nutshell: no gluten, eggs, dairy, aspartame or MSG.

I first became interested in Terry Wahls after hearing her TED talk.

If you haven't watched it before it is well worth a listen.  She makes a persuasive argument that how people eat and live directly affects their health.  This is not a new idea.  The new and titillating part comes when she suggests simple changes to diet and lifestyle will prevent and possibly reverse many physical and mental health problems like:

• diabetes
• heart disease
• arthritis
• cancer
• autism
• depression
• learning disabilities
• obesity
• Nerve degeneration diseases like multiple sclerosis

Dr. Whals continues to do research and treat patients through diet.  She's the primary internal medicine physician for a traumatic brain injury clinic as well as a internal medicine physician working in a teaching hospital.  She has a website if you are interested in more: www.terrywahls.com. I watched several of her videos on youtube and read quite a bit online.  Wahls won me over because she has several videos on growing your own food!  I bought her book Minding My Mitochondria 2nd edition a couple months ago.  Here's a nice synopsis if you're interested: Food as Medicine.

The book explains in more detail how she, as a research physician and person with M.S., went about learning how to recover brain health.  Then she outlines her diet and shares recipes.

First Dr. Wahls tried taking vitamin and mineral supplements to treat her M.S. and had some success.  When she switched to eating food with those vitamins and minerals she had much better results.  She went from being wheel chair bound to walking and riding a bike within a year. What I took away from the book is the Standard American Diet is loaded with calories for energy but deficient in nutrients for building and maintaining the 100 billion neuron cells in our brain and body.  If we eat enough nutrients our DNA contains the wisdom to heal our bodies.

Only you can provide your body with the building block for your cells so that they can do the work of restoring your health and vitality. 

- Dr. Wahls

What I like about this diet is the science behind it.  Whals has researched and identified elements in cells and their quantities and deduced what and how much we need to eat to make sure our bodies are well supplied. This is not an eat like a caveman because cavemen were healthy.  Although there are many similarities between paleo diets and the Wahl's diet. This is not a diet to lose weight where it boils down to "eat less".  Although if you follow her diet I would image a healthy weight would come as part of it. I also like that Dr. Wahls says she doesn't know all the answers.  She points out there are probably many unidentified micro-nutrients that meat, vegetables and fruit provide for our bodies.  By eating a varied diet and meat from animals who also ate a varied diet we will give our bodies everything they need to function well. We don't have to wait until we have serious health problems to think about health.  I have a baby and right now all the food she gets is through my breast milk.  As she builds her brain and body I don't want her to lack any of the nutrients to develop and be healthy.   This little girl makes me more proactive for myself.

I decided come the New Year, after holiday baking and traveling were done, I'd take a serious stab at Dr. Wahls' recommendations. My goal is to do a month of her diet and see how I feel.  Over the next month my recipes and posts will be based on the Whals Diet and my experiences. It's going to be an experience.  I'll learn how to cook some organ meats, fit nine cups of fruits and vegetables into our meals, give up gluten(!) and dairy(!). Whals doesn't include eggs in her diet and I'm not sure why.  Until I understand why, I am still eating them. If anyone knows please leave me a note in the comments. The husband is on board so far as he's willing to eat what I cook.  It's up to him if he chooses to give up the gluten and dairy.  His favorite foods are bread and cheese so we'll see. What do you think?  Have you tried to increase your meal's micro-nutrient content?  Have you gone gluten and/or dairy free?

My other posts in this series:

Brain Food: Breakfast Skillet Inspired by Dr. Wahls
Brain Food: Warm Butternut Chickpea Salad - Recipe
Brain Food: What I ate today on the Wahls Diet
Brain Food: Sardine Avocado Citrus Salad - Recipe
Brain Food: 5 Strategies for the Wahls Diet 
Brain Food: Sauerkraut and Cabbage Soup - Recipe
Brain Food: Liver and Onions - Recipe (Guest posted on Spain in Iowa)
Brain Food: One Teaspoon of Minerals a Day


For more recipes and ideas visit my Wahls Paleo Pinterest Board.

Read More