Saturday 29 March 2014

The Divisiveness of Dairy

If you're afraid of butter, use cream.
Julia Child

love you Julia Child, and I love a good food debate.
Photo courtesy of www.redorbit.com


A couple of weeks ago I was out at a paleo potluck and I mentioned that I was having some problematic health issues--extreme stress, extreme cravings and insatiable hunger, constant belly bloating, and accumulating belly fat.

Of course, my very astute paleo peeps immediately pointed out my coffee intake was excessive, and caffeine does drive up cortisol and stress the adrenal glands.  Fine.  I will cut back my coffee intake (and I will miss it sorely...)

But the next thing that came up was my dairy consumption.  What?  Nothing, and I really mean nothing, is as hotly debated as dairy in the paleo/primal health community.  

My friend is a strong supporter of Loren Cordain's work.  He sent me this article:

Dairy:  Milking it for All its Worth

The article is certainly thought-provoking.  Some interesting points on the insulinogenic nature of low-fat diary and even high-fat milk and yogurt.  I had heard of studies that showed an extreme response to not just GI but also other insulin markers.  I had not, however, given much thought to the connection between insulin response from the specific kinds of dairy I was consuming and the belly fat accumulation I am dealing with (which may be exacerbated by my elevated stress levels)--my current health issues seem to be an issue of several combined factors rather than a single food group in isolation causing issues (SIBO, maybe?).  You know how it is when you KNOW the science, but somehow fail to apply it to yourself?

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On a simple level, mammalian milk is full of naturally-occurring growth-like hormones meant to be fed to our infants to cause them to grow quickly--it is meant to "fatten" infants up as quickly as possible.   So why would we, as adults who don't need to be fattened up, want to consume it, right?

It's funny how divisive this diary thing is.  I mean, you've got Loren Cordain and Robb Wolf on one side, and Chris Kresser, Mark Sisson, and Stephen Guyenet on the other side.  They've all read the same research, and somehow come up with completely different interpretations.  It is all too easy to interpret the results of research in a way that reinforces any point you are trying to make.  Chris Kresser has suggested that lab results measuring chemical markers (measuring GI on a scale and its' corresponding insulin markers) do not always equal the response inside our bodies.  Perhaps we have mechanisms within our bodies that mitigate or even negate the insulin response, because alternate studies have shown that high-fat dairy can REDUCE heart disease and IMPROVE insulin sensitivity.  Totally the opposite of what Cordain has been saying.  It is important to understand how studies are done in isolation of other factors--looking at a specific component in milk as opposed to all the elements in milk at once, because often one thing cancels or neutralizes another in its whole form.

So, just to throw a wrench into things, here are some arguments contrary to Cordains' statements about dairy (that I emailed back to my anti-dairy friend):

(this is an awesome podcast with transcript he did after his tv show appearance on Dr Oz, explaining and defending what was said on the show), and:


If nothing else, these all suggest that dairy (the right kinds) are, at minimum, not as harmful as originally suggested.  In fact, most of the big paleo advocates do allow the consumption of butter--the amount of actual dairy that remains in butter is negligible (99% of it is milk fat, the other 1% is lactose and water combined) unless you are casein intolerant--then, rendered ghee is a reasonable solution and it is even more loved than grassfed butter.  
Photo courtesy of www.internet451.com
I agree with Chris that it all boils to your personal state of health, or the health of your gut.  If you are already insulin-sensitive, milk--particularly low-fat milk-- may exacerbate the issue.  Anyone with a damaged metabolism or damaged gut biome would be smart to avoid most dairy altogether.

On the other hand, I doubt that butter causes much trouble for anyone except the casein-intolerant (and has proven, in fact, to be protecting against obesity and heart disease, among other things).   I feel that aged cheese, which is low in lactose (the sugar that causes the insulin response), simply makes food taste better, and if eating a bit of cheese as garnish now and then allows us to otherwise stick with a paleo-type diet, then it is a reasonable thing to allow.  As long as it doesn't replace meat in a meal--it should remain a garnish only since it is not actually a complete source of animal-based protein.

Photo courtesy of Dairy Farmers of Canada
Perhaps under my current level of stress, with my cortisol and insulin response not functioning as well as they should, it is not such a bad idea to return to a paleo template in it's most black-and-white form.  In the last few days, having removed dairy from my diet, my body has been acting like I'm on some kind of sugar-cleanse, giving some validity to Cordains' view on dairy.  So maybe it really is a question of your current state of health.  Right now, in my current state, it is not a good thing to consume.  Perhaps, if I were at my goal weight and under substantially less stress, I could tolerate small amounts of cheese and yogurt again, but not so much right now. 

I do follow more of a paleo framework rather than the strict sense of the diet itself--don't we all do that nowadays?  The whole diet is only as good as the science behind it, and the science is changing every day (have you heard Chris's stance on legumes now?)  I am a firm believer in the N=1 style of testing every theory on your body since we all are a bit different.  I really appreciate how the paleo diet has evolved over these past few years, relaxing it's stance on many whole foods that it had previously banned (like the whole safe starches argument that suggests white potatoes and white rice might be better for the metabolism than most fruits due to how your body breaks down simple fructose--but that's another post).  That being said, the minute your health begins to decline again, a return to a strict paleo diet (and sometimes an even stricter auto-immune protocol) is the best bet until conditions clear up.

Here's Mark Sisson's view on dairy, with a tonne of links--more good reading if I got you thinking....

Saturday 1 March 2014

Chili Chicken--hakka-style


So I'm sitting in the kitchen at my work the other day, eating my leftovers for lunch, and my co-worker (my mentor, my Indian guru) says to me (with this really sly smile) "I make Chili Chicken last night".  She has a thick accent,so that's really what she said.  She knows she's said something to really hook me.  Chili Chicken--those are magic words.

She shows me the food in her container.  It LOOKS like hakka-region style Chili Chicken.  The very kind that haunted me, that was the bane of my existence after I switched to a paleo diet.  It was the one take-out food that could bring me to my knees-literally-because I could not say no to it, and I totally could not digest it.

"Taste it", she says.  "Iz ok, I use corn starch."  So I tasted it.  I love JP, love all the food she's had me taste, all the things she's taught me about traditional cooking, and I loved her Chili Chicken.  It had never even occurred to me that I could re-create such a dish.  Sure, I know how to make the chili-garlic green beans with shrimp that we've gotten there.  But Chili Chicken?  Oooooh yea!

Now, hakka-region style Chili Chicken is kerpow-hot.  It'll knock your socks off.  And it's full of those crazy, skinny little indian hot peppers--I think they use serrano.  Those little gems are not-so-hot in the mouth, but when they get to your belly, they burn their way back up the esophagus and then downwards, too, causing some people to have a little 'cleanse' after their first hakka experience.  I won't do that to you here, don't worry.  I couldn't even find serrano peppers around where I live, so I had to get creative and use jalapeno peppers, hot banana peppers, and sriracha sauce in place of the regular chili sauce.  Once cooked, jalapenos and banana peppers become quite mild.  Even my spice-hating kid didn't complain.  So if you can find the serrano peppers, experiment with one or two in the dish, along with the jalapenos.  If you DO use the serrano peppers, you might want to try using a mild chili-garlic sauce in place of the sriracha sauce, just for balance.  Or not.  Your choice.

Of course JP told me how to make the dish, but JP's instructions were something like this "Toss the chicken in starch and turmeric.  Then you make the sauce with soy sauce, hot sauce, garlic, cut up chilis and onions"...  And that was about all I could retain of what she said.  So I had to Google a recipe that sounded like what she told me.  Because I'm like that.

This is what I found at a website called Curry and Comfort.  I soooo have to stalk that website a little more later.  Anyhow....a few paleo and taste bud tweaks, and I arrived here:


Serves 6 if served with cauli-rice
Takes about 1/2 hour

Ingredients:

(Sauce)
2 Tbs tomato paste
3 Tbs tomato sauce
2 Tbs sriracha sauce*
4 Tbs gluten-free tamari sauce**
2 tsp coconut sugar***
1 1/2 Tbs apple cider vinegar
2 Tbs lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

(For chicken)
1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken (I used thigh meat)
2 Tbs tapioca starch or arrowroot powder
1 tsp turmeric powder

1/2 spanish onion, sliced
2 jalapeno peppers
2 banana peppers
2 serrano peppers, optional
pinch hot pepper flakes
3 cloves garlic
2 tsp minced ginger

Method:

First, mix chicken, tapioca starch and turmeric, then set aside.  Then, mix all the sauce ingredients and set aside.  Heat up a large non-stick frypan (I like ceramic pans for this kind of stuff) to med-high.  In cooking oil of choice (I used coconut oil), fry up your chicken until no longer pink and crispy bits begin to form.  Set aside.  While chicken is cooking, seed and chop your peppers, slice your onions, dig out and prep your onions and ginger.  Once the chicken is out of the pan, add onions and peppers in and saute.  When onion is almost done, add ginger and garlic, cook 1 minute more.  Then, reduce heat to medium and add your sauce and simmer for 1-2 minutes.  Then add chicken back in and heat through.  taste and add salt and pepper as necessary.

This is a dish you can throw in a casserole dish and set in the oven to keep warm until you make any side dish.  It stays warm well, it re-heats well.  I set mine aside in the oven at this point and made my Fried Cauliflower Rice, just omitted the pork (and broth cubes) and used it as a side dish.  Voila.  Try it.  I think you'll love it!


* you can use any asian-style chili sauce in this depending on your heat preferences and what you own
**you can use coconut aminos here, too
***you could soak two dates in boiling water, puree, and use them instead if you're avoiding all sugars


Saturday 25 January 2014

Chimi-what?? Roast Chicken with Chimichurri Sauce and Zesty Zucchini Salad--Recipes Reviewed

Chimichurri sauce.

It's just fun to say it.

Chimichurri sauce.

Have you tried it yet?  When I first read about it, the blogger insisted it went with EVERYTHING.

I know, I was doubtful, too.  And then I tried it.

And as the zingy fresh robust flavours filled my mouth...wow.  Yup.  That green goo will go with everything. You just have to try it.  I tired it slathered over simple baked chicken thighs, but I can see how this sauce will also go with grilled fish, or steak, or even eggs.  I'm amazed that it's not as well known as ketchup.  My spice-hating step-daughter called 'spicy without the heat'.  It just comes to life in your mouth.

So this recipe originally came from here at Zenbelly.  It makes a LOT of sauce, despite my picture.  Enough to cover about 8-10 chicken thighs.

Chimichurri Sauce

1 bunch fresh parsley, stems removed
1/4 c fresh oregano leaves
3/4 c olive oil (or more as needed)
2 gloves garlic
1 tsp salt (or more to taste)
1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes
1 Tbs raw apple cider vinegar

Puree all in blender.  It won't fit in a magic bullet.

You can puree it smooth like Zenbelly did, or leave it a little thick like I did so it resembles pesto.

So...what goes with roasted meats slathered in crazy green sauce??

Well, this does.  With a little substitution, at least

Southern Zucchini Salad

Photo courtesy of  remcooks
4 medium green zucchini, chopped fine
1 yellow pepper, chopped fine
1/2 c onion, chopped
1/3 c olive oil
5-6 pickled jalapeno pepper rings, minced
2 tsp fresh garlic
1 Tbs dried oregano
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1/4 c parmesan cheese (optional)
1 Tbs apple cider vinegar

Mix, and let it sit for about half an hour to marinade flavours.

So there you go, something a little different, something that isn't just boring baked chicken and zucchini.

Are you following me on Pinterest yet?  You should check it out!  You'll see these recipes, and a kazillion other inspiring ideas on my boards......