GAPS Diet: Day 14 May 10, 2008

Just got back from the farmer’s market.

Here are the meals I’m going to make this week (not in any particular order, although I know we are doing ribs tonight and brisket tomorrow night):

BBQ Pork Spare Ribs with Beet Greens sauteed in chicken fat, tomato and cucumber salad — and broth
Brisket with Sauerkraut and some vegetables (not sure what yet), and Carrot Ginger Soup
Roast Chicken, salad, broth or soup
Bratwurst with Sauerkraut and a green salad — and broth
Miso Soup, Seaweed Salad and Sashimi
Ribeye Steak, Salad, and maybe I’ll try to make Onion Soup (sans cheese and bread, of course)
Chicken Cacciatore with an arugula and fennel salad and soup

Both the brisket and the chicken will provide leftovers which I will use for lunches. I also got 5 dozen eggs. Jungleen asked me, “Do you really go through that many eggs in one week?” Yes, we really do. Seth usually eats 4 eggs for breakfast, and Kate and I split 4 eggs. That’s 8 eggs per day right there. And we eat eggs every morning so that’s 56 eggs. Plus we use eggs to make the coconut oil mayonnaise (which we eat almost every day for lunch — either chicken salad, tuna salad or egg salad — oops more eggs for the egg salad).

And I often make smoothies with 2 egg yolks for lunch. That’s actually one of my favorite lunches. Two raw egg yolks, some strawberries or blueberries, 2-3 TBS of coconut oil, 1 TBS of Frontier brand nutritional yeast, and either kefir or coconut milk, and sweetened with a TBS or two of raw honey. (I am still doing kefir. That is the only dairy I still eat. I don’t have any problems with dairy like Seth does and Dr. Cowan said if you can tolerate kefir, you can eat it from the beginning.)

I need to check the papers from Dr. Cowan to see when we can start eating beans. I’d love to have some lentil soup. Or make black beans and taco meat.

But I don’t want to start introducing anything new until I’m sure Seth’s gut pain is totally gone and he’s not having any constipation or diarrhea.

I’m also really excited to start making my own ketchup. Seth loves ketchup and eats a lot of it. It will be great to have real lacto-fermented ketchup. Same thing with salsa. I’m going to stake my tomatoes today. We should have tomatoes in another month to 6 weeks.

It’s a perfect day to garden. Nice and cool outside.

I have some potatoes we never gotten around to eating that started sprouting… Cute little purple ones. I think I’m going to throw those into a big container I have (used to have a palm in it but it died). We’ll see if they grow. We can eat potatoes right now but maybe by the time these come up we will be able to.

Oh, PS: I’ve lost somewhere between 6 and 7 pounds now. (Sometimes the scale says 148, sometimes 147.) Yes, it’s true, I may have lost weight because we are eating so low-carb. But I was on a low-carb diet for a few months starting in December and I couldn’t lose past a certain point. I really think the Iodoral is what’s helping. Anyway, we’ll see how next week goes.

I also bought a Lumiscope thermometer — the kind Dr. Rind recommends on his website — from Drugstore.com. It was only $6. He says it’s the most accurate. I’m going to start charting my temperature every few hours like he recommends.

Muzzy en Espanol May 10, 2008

Kate and I are watching Muzzy, the language program from the BBC. We got the one in Spanish to start. We watch it every day.

I love this show. The songs stick with you — I find myself singing them throughout the day. And you know what is weird? I only half pay attention to it because I’m usually on the computer or doing something else when it’s on — but I am learning Spanish! Every time I watch, I understand more.

The first time I watched this I could only understand a little bit (I took Spanish in high school). But now I understand a lot of it. I guess this is how immersion works — it just rubs off on you.

We’re going to get the French version next.

I just finished the Italy part of “Eat Pray Love” (it’s written in three parts: Italy, India, and Indonesia) and I was so inspired that she was able to speak Italian after studying the language for just a few months in Italy. Isn’t the exciting?

I want to be multilingual. I have taken Spanish and French in school, and I understand some words (a lot of words actually). It’s amazing how fast they come back to you when you start studying again. I would like to take Kate for some long trips traveling around Spain and France and be able to practice our languages. Mexico, too.

You know what’s neat about languages? Even knowing a little bit helps. People in Paris are always so much nicer when you at least try to speak the language. Even if you speak in English but you preface it with, “Excuse-moi, parlez-vous anglais?” (”Excuse me, do you speak English?”) Ask that first and most Parisians will happily speak to you in English.

It’s also so nice to be able to say a few words to the people at the farmer’s market. And it’s really fun when you start understanding what people are saying around you.

You know what else is neat about languages? The more languages you know, the easier it is to learn more languages. I studied some Japanese in college and it was a breeze (ahem — speaking, not writing or reading) after taking French.

I have to go shower now. We are going to the Farmer’s Market today — like we do every Saturday. I’m meeting my friends — Victoria and Jungleen and Annie — bringing them kombucha scobys and kefir grains. The great thing about giving away cultures is that if yours ever poops out, you can always get it back again from your friends.

Speaking of that — Paula, I finally have enough kefir grains to share. I stopped rinsing them and now they are expanding. I will send them to you this week.

I have no idea what I’m going to make for dinner this week. I guess I will see what they have at the market. The Japanese dinner was a hit, by the way. I think my homemade miso soup was better than the miso soup you get at most restaurants.