The Blog
SIBO is like your adult sibling staying over in the guest room. Everything's going great; he/she tells funny jokes, loves your dog, and even washes the dinner dishes on occasion. Until suddenly one evening you realize that he/she has inexplicably relocated the air mattress to YOUR bedroom and, to make matters worse, invited their friends. And friends of friends. Talk about crowded and awkward.
Growing up, I never sat down for a meal without a book, magazine, or -in more desperate times- a shopping catalog to flip through. Unless it was dinner, of course, where I wasn't allowed to mentally check out with a good read. Fast forward through the years, and that distraction has morphed into a smart phone, with a side of NPR.
Trying to unravel the causes of PCOS is like trying to find the start of a mobius strip, with conditions and symptoms continuously looping back on themselves. It’s a “chicken or egg” scenario, but in this case you start to wonder if maybe it was actually the chicken coop that came first. Or that bag of chicken feed. Or perhaps even the friendly farmer down the road who first put it into your head that owning chickens would be your jam.
Smoothies. They're the drink that keeps on giving. Whether in their recent metamorphosis as gloriously topped and striped bowls, or overflowing from a vintage mason jar with a trendy, compostable straw, we can’t get enough of liquefying our fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds into a one-stop meal shop.
Our body is carrying out detoxification processes constantly. Every minute we’re building up and breaking down hormones, enzymes, proteins, and a bajillion other compounds. These actions cause reactions. Reactions include byproducts. Byproducts and compounds that can’t be used or recycled must enter the detoxification pathways. It sounds exhausting; it can be for certain organs in your body.
Elimination diets are not for the faint of heart. They’re very restrictive, last longer than convenient, and generally require extra prep time in the kitchen or more money at the store. Still, the potential benefits are huge. From autoimmune disease to autism (to IBS, leaky gut, food allergies, depression, neurological issues, etc.) elimination diets can induce remission, heal the digestive tract, pinpoint food allergies, jumpstart weight loss, and restore overall health and vitality.
I first came across the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) about five years back when my husband was hospitalized for a major ulcerative colitis flare. He had lost a disturbing amount of weight and his digestive tract was so ravaged that he wasn’t even allowed to gnaw on ice chips. It took four days on IV steroids to calm his immune system and restore some order to his colon, and colon removal surgery was narrowly avoided.
I’ve long heard that goat milk is “better” than cow milk but not being a big milk drinker, I never bothered to wonder why. On the rare occasions I noticed goat milk in stores, it was either in yogurt form or far too expensive for my frugal self. Besides, should the occasional milk craving arise, we’re able to buy raw, grass-fed cow milk in our local market. So what's all the fuss about goat milk?
