Tips for Traveling on Special Food Diets

1) Use the list serves to connect with people on SCDiet who live in the area you will be visiting.

2) Google for familiar food resources close to where you will be staying.

3) Stay in a place with at least a fridge and microwave so that you can keep and heat your own meals.

4) If you stay at a bed and breakfast, call in advance to ask if you can keep some food items in their fridge and if the chef will observe cross contamination rules in the kitchen.

5) Plan out all of your meals in advance, precook and freeze them. Take all of your food with you, or ship it to your destination.

6) If you are flying, investigate whether shipping will be cheaper than checking frozen food sealed in Styrofoam.

7) If you are flying, call the airline and ask about all protocol for bringing food with you, especially if you will need to eat in flight. In most cases, you will need a doctor’s letter and you will need to allow for extra time through security.

8) If you have medication or supplements that need to be kept cool, make sure that you have the right items to ensure their stability in transit. Dry ice, special freezer packs, and insulated containers may all be used.

9) If you need to eat out, do so at more expensive restaurants where you can speak with the chef, produce is fresh and not out of cans, and many menu items will be from local farmers.

10) If you stay in a hotel or bed and breakfast, and need to ship food, make sure to inform them that you will be expecting a package.

11) If you stay at a bed and breakfast, call in advance to ask if you might have access to the kitchen to do some minor cooking yourself.

12) Make sure that you plan for snacks as well as meals.

13) Always make sure to bring an extra full day’s worth of food, just in case, especially if where you will be staying is remote to resources.

14) Many hotels have suites with kitchens if you need to cook.

15) If you will have access to a kitchen and can cook at your destination, but you will not have access to food resources, you can bring or ship raw frozen foods to be prepared instead of precooking everything.

Meatballs with Tomato Sauce Recipe and How-To Video

Meatballs with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

2 pounds ground beef

2 eggs

3 large white onions

head of garlic

fresh parsley

2 tablespoons oregano

1 tablespoon ground cumin

2 teaspoons each thyme, basil, marjoram

1 tablespoon course Celtic sea salt

1 tablespoon fine ground Celtic sea salt

ground black pepper

2 tablespoons fresh parsley

tomato soup (homemade by AD recipe)

4 tablespoons butter

red and green bell peppers, and hot peppers deseeded: cayenne, jalapeño, hot banana suggested for color

Muenster and or Parmesan cheese

Utensils:

Large cast iron pans

2 spatulas

set of 3 mixing bowls

2 small bowls for spices

large and small knife

tablespoon

teaspoon

large and small cutting boards

large covered baking dish
fork

Directions:

* Mix spices for meatballs: 1 teaspoon oregano, 1 tablespoon each ground cumin, fresh parsley, hot peppers, diced garlic and fine ground Celtic sea salt, 1 teaspoon each thyme, basil, marjoram, ground black pepper, oregano. Stir with fork.

* Mix spices for tomato sauce: 1+ tablespoon oregano, 1 tablespoon each fresh parsley, hot peppers, and course Celtic sea salt, 1 teaspoon each thyme, basil, marjoram, ground black pepper. Stir with fork.

* Chop hot peppers after deseeding.
* Dice head of garlic.
* Preheat cast iron pan for sauce with 3 tablespoons of butter over medium low heat.
* Chop onion.
* Sautee onion and garlic until translucent. Remember to stir occasionally.
* Chop red and green bell pepper. Add a handful to beef in large mixing bowl and place the rest in medium mixing bowl for sauce.
* Preheat cast iron pan with one tablespoon of butter for meatballs.
* Add 3 large eggs to meatball mixture after whisking with spices in small mixing bowl.
* Mix meatballs with both hands until well blended and roll into palm sized balls.
* Place meatballs into hot pan covering only half so that you have room to roll them around as they cook.
* Brown the meatballs on all sides before transferring them into the baking pot.
* Add premade tomato soup to onions and garlic. Stir and add in spices, stirring again.
* Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
* Once all the meatballs are browned, add bell peppers into sauce and stir.
* After the sauce mixture comes to a boil again with peppers, ladle sauce into baking pot.
* Bake for 30-45 minutes. Allow to cool for five minutes before serving.

Tip:
* Serve over spaghetti squash with shredded cheese on top.

Make Your Own Resources and Keep Them Handy:

1) Premix your own herbs and spices. Keep your favorite concoctions in small glass jars, either recycled from single spices or purchased just for this use.

2) Always keep chicken stock in your freezer in single serving amounts, as well as small amounts for recipes by using ice cube trays. You can store the cubes in a bag after they are frozen. The times when you really need chicken stock are usually the times when you will least feel like cooking.

3) Keep organic, frozen, bagged vegetables in your freezer at all times. This can be a real time saver when you have none to spare, and frozen veggies have more nutrition than other forms, such as canned. They are the best option next to fresh.

4) Every time you cook a meal, make at least one extra serving to freeze so that when you don’t feel like cooking, you don’t have to!

5) Grate your cheeses and keep them in bags in the fridge. Mix and match different blends for more robust tastes.

6) Wash your herbs and store in the fridge wrapped in a moist paper towel at the base. Ready to use on a moments notice for your favorite flavors.

7) Blanch and freeze vegetables when they are in season. They will have the most nutrients and will feel luxurious out of season. They can also be staples of your diet that you cannot find already frozen.

8) Make lists of your favorite dishes along with recipes you’ve always wanted to try. When you are too tired to think, go with a favorite from the list that you can make with your eyes closed. When you get bored and have the energy to explore, pick a new recipe!

From Tennessee to Texas in Search of Support

Well, Nashville turned out to be a truncated experience living in Tennessee. While the weather was indeed warmer than Minnesota, with a beautiful environment and nice people, it was just not the right place for me culturally. So, on to Texas! I have moved to Austin. Climate AND culture allured me to this place.

Actually, this is the place where I have wanted to live since 2006 and I am very pleased to have finally arrived- for real this time. I was here for all of three weeks in ‘06 before having to return to Minnesota to work on my health with the only doctor I trusted. The road has been long, and at times very depressing and unpleasant. I can’t count how many times I have looked around and thought, “What am I doing here?” Sometimes that question can only be answered in hindsight after moving on ahead a ways.

This city has the kind of support and resources that I need: arts, music, film, health, and international culture. I am finding many people here who are cooperative in personality with a firm belief in paying it forward. Austinites are well educated, liberal, and progressive. I have already found several groups to be a part of, including SCDiet support.

I cannot overstate the importance of support, especially when a person is struggling for any reason. We all need support, and it is positively correlated with success. What does that mean? The more support a person has, the more likely they are to succeed. The support of one person can make a difference, especially if it comes with real understanding, the kind that comes with personal experience. It is good to share similarities and to respectfully tease out differences.

I don’t know about you, but support is not usually forthcoming from most people when it comes to my diet. More often than not, the response I get is, “that’s too hard! I could never do that!” When so many people put my eating lifestyle “down,” it is easy to start thinking like they do under the peer pressure. “Maybe it won’t be so bad if I just have a taste, and it would make my life so much easier…” WRONG!!! It hurts me like no one else gets unless they have experienced my level of disease. Now I know, without any doubt through repetitive testing, just say NO! Disease is challenging, special diets are challenging, and it doesn’t help to have individuals constantly challenging what helps me to heal on top of it all. I let those comments roll off now because I know it’s not too hard. I’m doing it, and it gets more rewarding every day. It’s more important to find other people who are doing it, too, and to find out how they are making it happen for themselves.

What works for me may not work for you. In fact, it probably won’t. It is estimated that each person has around 500 or so microbes as part of their very own cultural make-up, and we’re all slightly different due to our different contacts and occupation of space. We share some strains that are the most common in humans, but like snowflakes no two of us is exactly alike. Unfortunately, we all suffer from being alone in a sea of people because each of us is unique, just like everybody else. Yes, as individuals we feel the pang of separation from the group, which gives us a collective experience. Esoteric? Yeah. I wish it could be easier to find one’s way in life, but golly-gosh almighty! My way sure has proven to be a doozy several times over. I keep having to readjust my culture, inside and out, constantly re-culturing myself in search of the perfect balance for me. And yeah, not everybody can move to Austin, or would want to, and I am seeking employment so that I can stay here…

Remember, it is only a small space to make nowhere now here. Sometimes, life happens in a rather round-a-bout way. However, I am nothing if not perseverant, persistent, determined, tenacious, or otherwise stubborn. If at first you do not succeed, tend to the wounds with loving care and then try again, a little different!

Trying new things, and old things in different ways, can bring what is desired into reality. One of the things that my doctor told me when I was having so many challenges was, “The better we get your health, the better decisions you will make.” I just kind of looked at him, with my head cocked to one side and eyebrow raised like a curious dog, attempting to comprehend this notion. He was ever so right on, and I’m beyond glad that I trusted him and believed what he was saying. Just trying SCDiet not only improved the quality of my life, it saved my life. I have no doubt that I would be dead if not for the diet, and for my doctor. But, I had to be the one willing to try and forge ahead into the unknown, even if that meant backtracking to MN for a few years of drudgery. Fall down 7 and get up 8, according to Confucius. All that matters is that I keep getting up, I keep trying, and one day I will get it “right.” Almost four years later, here I am, now here in Austin!

Relocating and Reculturing Myself

I have been in the process of relocating my life for the past few months. Living in Minnesota for the past 22 years with its winters was very hard on me physically, and therefore psychologically. I have been looking for somewhere else to be for years. This hasn’t been an easy task, but the primary focus has been to get somewhere significantly warmer with more sunshine so that I can gain another level of health. My aim is always to increase my capabilities and quality of life, to overcome my disabilities by addressing what causes or exacerbates my diseases.

Ironically enough, I had to get well enough to leave MN before I could get to a place that would increase my health and well-being. For the longest time, it seemed like I would never be able to leave MN because I was in a feedback loop; I was not well enough to relocate, but not ever going to get well enough to relocate due to the current location’s deleterious effects of my health. For years, I felt like I was on a mouse wheel, going around and around but getting nowhere different. In hindsight, I guess I was developing some “muscle strength” to run on something other than a wheel! At least I was perseverant in my efforts to get well despite the feelings and outward appearances of no progress for long periods of time.

Almost unbelievably, I am finally out of MN and living in Tennessee, where it gets hot and humid in the summer. This is a marked accomplishment for me. And, it is a testament to how well I am actually doing in the present due to my prior hard work. My determination has been rewarded! The winter is not white with temperatures constantly below freezing. Below freezing temperatures are infrequent here. As I watch the blizzards hit Minnesota one after another this year, comparing their negative degree temperatures with some days getting up to 60 here, I feel relieved that I am no longer living in the land of ice and snow.

It’s much easier to move around without constant frozen precipitation. I don’t have to wear as many layers of clothing. I don’t have to worry if part of my body will be exposed long enough to get frostbite in a matter of seconds. I don’t feel frigidly cold all the time. It doesn’t take as long to drive on roads that have exposed concrete and asphalt, without the help of salt and sand. No more slip and slide everywhere I go. No more fear of potentially falling down with every step. (At least once a winter in MN I fell. There were maybe a handful in the last few years when I managed to avoid it, but it is a common experience.) Life is less threatening in TN for the winter because there are fewer climate hazards to deal with here.

Since I grew up in the South, it isn’t a total culture shock for me to be in Tennessee, even after a couple of decades as a Northerner. And, America is America despite regional differences. It’s not as though I moved to a place in the world where wheat and starch products aren’t the major staple of “everyone’s” diet. My basic food challenges will still have to be met. I am hunting for a new meat farmer to call my own! I miss my Farmer Bob, and many other things about MN. After all, if it hadn’t been for the winter and it’s lengthy duration, I would not have chosen to leave that cultural milieu. But, the winters were enough of a burden for me to carry that I felt an absolute need to get out as soon as possible, despite the risks involved in relocating. My need for better health and well-being trumped all else.

It is hard to make “sacrifices” for my health- even though facing the fear of the unknown has become routine for me. I am constantly giving up things that I know for new things that I don’t know so intimately, if at all, as I create my new life. It is hard to give up known cons for the potential of worse unknown cons that come with taking any new risk for the potential pros involved. Sometimes, risk pans out and success is achieved. Sometimes, risk results in a failure, or a learning experience, otherwise known as an opportunity disguised as a challenge.

It is hard to embrace change, again and again- especially when I think that I have just “landed” somewhere “secure.” Sometimes, I just want to rest for a while instead of always being on guard. It would be nice and easy to live in a world of stable and consistent “facts” instead of change and ambiguity, which requires constant attention, effort, and learning. When I exchanged wheat flour for almond flour, I thought that I had found something permanent and safe to live by. As it turns out, I was incorrect. It was only temporary. Something even more different was waiting around the corner for me to discover and to embrace- a new way of being in the world, my very own special subculture within a subculture.

Learning different and new ways of doing things in the world, ways of being, ways of interacting with others around me, this all has to happen regularly for me to get well. My world view has to be ever evolving. I have to bend (and bend- this way, then that way, then yet another direction, blowing in the wind) or I will break. I have to choose to change my culture in order to live. It is not only the culture in which other people surround me socially as part of a location, but also the culture within my body that I am changing.

Relocating is part of reculturing myself. I am reordering my microbial balance, my intestinal flora and fauna, in the same way that I am changing my external surroundings. I am promoting what I want and neglecting to develop that which I don’t want in my environments. And, I went to the extreme of changing my larger environment to promote my own development. Support is positively correlated with success, so it makes sense to get as much of it as possible in all ways. I happen to need a lot of warmth and sunshine! (I often like to think of myself as a tropical shade plant. That kind of thing really can’t grow naturally in MN.)

I am reculturing myself daily with intention, even when it seems as though I am getting nowhere. It is only a space that translates nowhere into now here. I have a new opportunity to be in a more supportive environment for my health and well-being in Tennessee. I will not be spending so much energy fighting what hurts me, the cold of Minnesota. I can get on with more joyful experiences! I am beginning to relax from some of the tension that I have been carrying with me from always being on high alert.

The only thing constant is change, so the saying goes. What’s next, then? Now what?

Pause in my blog activity

I am in transition from Minnesota to Tennessee for my health. I will post again soon, including my last cooking video from MN on meatballs and sauce...

Ode to Farmer Bob Otis

Three years ago I found Farmer Bob and his exquisite meats. It didn't take me long to figure out his meats were not only better in taste but also in quality. I had been consuming organic, free roaming and ranging meats from Whole Foods. Little did I understand back then about the differences! 

I have since learned that certified organic meat isn't necessarily what I am looking for in my quest for health. What matters more is how the animal has lived, what it has eaten, all the medications it is given, and so on. In short, everything matters, not just the qualifications for organic certification from the FDA. 

Most industrial meats are finished with corn. This also includes most industrial organic meats such as those from Whole Foods. Cows and steers are not meant to eat corn. It is not a natural part of their diet. When they are fed corn, it causes them massive indigestion and gas. The gas build up is so great that they would suffocate to death if they weren't given medicine to reduce the bloat. The corn fattens them up so that they weigh more for slaughter bringing in more money. It is a capitalistic approach that completely disregards the natural order. It is a condition forced on the animals in the name of profit. 

Unfortunately for us humans, as well as the poor cows and steers, this is terrible for our health. All pollutants that the animal comes into contact with are stored in its fats. So, any and all toxins are passed on to you and I as the eaters. Antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, fertilizers, and all sorts of chemical residues from industrial farming still reside in the fat. If the animal has been fed grasses, or grains that it shouldn't be eating to begin with, that have been treated industrially then all of those chemicals are effecting the animal. That means they are all effecting the health of consumers. 

A sustainable farm, such as the Otis Family Farm, grows the grasses that the cows eat. It doesn't contain the animals with an "option" for them to go outside in the name of free roaming and ranging. The animals really do live outside wandering around. Farmer Bob actually has to catch the turkeys for Thanksgiving! 

I like to order a quarter of a steer at a time from Farmer Bob. That way I can talk to him about how I want the meat processed. I have the option to have parts like the tongue and liver put into the ground beef or as whole parts. The animal is slaughtered just for me and the cuts of meat come labeled with my name. I can either pick it up at the St. Paul Farmer's Market or arrange for him to drop it off at my house for a small gas fee. I keep a small freezer in my basement to house all of the meat. 

Along with beef, Otis Family Farms also raises chicken, lamb, turkey, and pork. They even have their own bees to pollinate the plants grown for the animals. You can also buy processed meats such as sausages and flavored chicken, but they are made using typical preservatives that I cannot consume. His eggs are so yummy, and the yolks trend orange instead of yellow. 

I would strongly urge you to try real free roaming and ranging, organic (even if not certified) meats from a local farmer. I can't even begin to tell you how satisfying it is to develop a relationship with the person who raises your food. For me, it has meant all the difference in my health. I feel as though Farmer Bob has given me life, and a much higher quality of life, by taking such good care of his farm and animals. I have depended on him for pure food on my table at every meal. He has been one of the most important people in my recovery process. I owe him a lot!  

Knowing the person that raises my food really connects me to my community. I love hearing the updates about what has been happening on the farm each week when I visit Farmer Bob at the market. He will tell me about the antics the animals have been up to. I am not detached from how my food made it to my table. I am very grateful for this fine food, and for Farmer Bob Otis. 

Otis Family Farms

Year round at the St. Paul Farmer's Market

290 E. 5th St. 

Lowertown St. Paul, MN 55101

Corner of Wall and 5th Streets

or give Farmer Bob a call at 715-338-0237