Nutritious, delicious, intolerance-friendly recipes and advice
Apple crumble is a delicious, warming dessert. My crumble is low in sugar, full of fibre and high in protein. The apples are packed with insoluble fibre, as I leave the skins on. The crumble topping is made with almond meal, quinoa and coconut sugar – a natural sweetener packed with nutrients.
It is gluten free, and dairy free and can be used as a topping on apple crumble muffins too….
If you sit a bit long on the loo, these chia pudding treats are for you!
Chia seeds have a huge amount of soluble fibre – when mixed with liquid, they form a jelly-like consistency, which helps to form healthy stools. Soluble fibre also binds toxins and cholesterol and helps to excrete them from your body. …
I am all for baking! I absolutely love baking… and, let’s be honest, eating my baking. But I no longer have any desire for high-sugar, wheat-filled, inflammatory and unhealthy muffins and cakes! No thank you! Gluten-free whole-food healthy baking and treats for us now.
sugar-free sweet banana muffins
My intolerances led me to gluten-free baking, but it’s my desire for a healthier lifestyle that has kept me creating new and healthier treats. There is really no need to eat a lot of processed sugar, and we all know it’s not healthy. The less sugar you eat, the healthier you’ll be.
apple crumble alternative
Fruit has the benefit of being the whole package – fibre, vitamins and minerals, in a perfectly sweet package. This allows the slow release of energy over time, keeping us fuller for longer, and without spikes and troughs in our blood sugar (which can lead to disease over time). Using bananas for sweetness is a perfect way to get a tasty treat without added sugar, and some B vitamins for energy, to boot! **And now, a new apple quinoa crumble version below!…
Deliciously flavoursome, a little sweet (from the pumpkin) and gently fragrant (from the basil). This easy risotto makes a lovely meal with grilled chicken or fish and some fresh greens. Only takes about 10 minutes to prep and throw everything in, then set and forget.
Works well with substitutions to keep the salicylates moderate. For the rest of us, it’s very sticky and rich and full of vegetable goodness….
Perfectly intolerance-friendly as is, or substitute one or all ingredients to make it how you like it
These little balls of love are perfect for entertaining or just savouring on the couch after dinner. They are loved equally by kids and adults and they’re easily adapted for various intolerances.
As always, they’re gluten and dairy free and can be made with low-moderate food chemicals. If you’re ok with cacao/cocoa – then please feel free to use it, but the great thing about these bliss balls, is they taste and smell like chocolate, without the chocolate. So if you’re intolerance to amines, or theobromine, or caffeine, you can enjoy a chocolatey treat without the reaction. The cocoa butter smells just like chocolate, so the blissful hormones are triggered before you’ve even taken a bite!
Mix and match with your favourite nuts and seeds and whole food sweeteners, or make just like me, with cashews, carob and rice malt syrup, so anyone with a salicylate or amine intolerance can enjoy a delicious treat, that’s also full of goodness and nutrient-dense. Please enjoy!
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I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for a good biccie or cookie! They don’t even have to be that sweet, but there’s something very comforting about a crunchy or chewy little morsel of deliciousness. These biccies are soft in the middle and just a little crunchy on the outside.
However, being a nutritionist, I like my treats to be healthy and full of goodness. My self-made mission in life is to turn tasty treats into healthful and still delicious treats. When we eat what makes us happy, in the right portion sizes, include all the food groups and stay moving, we are at our most healthy.
These biccies cover off healthy – tick! – intolerance friendly – tick tick! – and they’re yummy too. The biccies are packed full of fibre and protein from the chickpeas and more protein and zinc from the cashews, so they’re going to keep you fuller for longer and not send your blood sugar into a spike. They are also made with a whole food sweetener that’s also packed with vitamins and minerals (and not completely devoid of nutrients, like processed sugar). If you’d like a fructose-free option, that’s there too.
You can mix these up with different nut butters and seeds, but I’ve kept them low in salicylates and amines for those of us who need that. Stay away from those store-bought, sugar-laden biccies that are no good for you, and probably full of palm sugar too (which is leading to deforestation and the destruction of many beautiful animal species). Try these instead. As always, they are super quick and easy, and make the perfect after school snack with a piece of fruit 🙂
If you can, buy BPA-free cans of chickpeas. BPA builds up in our system and mimics oestrogen. We can have trouble excreting it, which may lead to symptoms of excess oestrogen, such as sore breasts and irritability before your period, and more serious complaints, such as early-onset puberty, fibroids and breast cancer. It also messes with our other hormones, such as cortisol, the stress hormone, throwing them out of balance too. So please be mindful to choose BPA-free whenever you can.
Cashew & chickpea biccies
Gluten free, dairy free, egg free, soy free
Ingredients
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
1 can chickpeas, drained & rinsed
1/2 cup cashew butter
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 1/2 tbsp poppy seeds (or hemp seeds)
1/4 cup maple syrup (or rice malt syrup for a less sweet, fructose-free version)
1 tsp baking powder
Method
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease two flat oven trays.
Combine all in food processor and blend until smooth. Use a dessertspoon to scoop out heaped spoonfuls and slide off the spoon with your finger. (They are very sticky so try and do it in one movement – they’ll flip over – and place them straight onto the greased tray.)
Place in preheated oven and bake for about 25 minutes or until golden brown around the edges.
Makes about 18 biccies.
a platter of salad is great to share – everyone can choose what they can eat. just add some complex carbs and protein for a balanced meal.
Finally, it’s nearing the end! We can almost say, so long elimination diet, but not yet. Not yet.
It’s a slow process getting back to health and finding the perfect diet to accommodate food intolerances with the right nutrients for you to thrive. Don’t forget that a few well chosen (prescribed) supplements can bridge the gap while your diet or health is lacking.
When we retested salicylates for Sofia, we discovered a clear connection with her eczema, especially the itchiness. So for the time being, we need to be really careful with those. We need to swap berries, onion and hidden spinach for lettuce, carrot, peeled cucumber and zucchini, pear, red delicious apples, bananas and the occasional piece of mango. Avocado is already the hardest thing to give up, but hopefully it’s just for a short time. We have salads or veggies at least twice, usually three times a day, to make sure everyone gets enough.
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So, to recap, an elimination diet is designed to help you discover food intolerances in a systematic and structured way. It allows you to determine exactly what foods are a problem, how much of that food triggers a reaction and what reactions occur. You can test gluten, wheat, dairy, soy, eggs, salicylates, amines or glutamates – basically whatever you like. It’s deliciously simple, but not all that easy, because it means being on a strict diet. The best thing is, once you’ve done it, life becomes a whole lot easier! Suddenly, you’re not guessing anymore. You can avoid the triggers or cut them down, depending what works. You can improve your gut, get healthier and enjoy all the delicious foods that don’t make you sick. Now, if it’s your kids, don’t you think they’d want that too?
Sofia’s elimination diet discovery mission is nearing its end. We’ve discovered soy and gluten (along with cow’s dairy) are the worst triggers of her eczema. Next we tested salicylates and amines, and I was a little surprised with the result….
Deliciously flavoursome, a little sweet (from the pumpkin) and gently fragrant (from the basil). This easy risotto makes a lovely meal with grilled chicken or fish and some fresh greens. Only takes about 10 minutes to prep and throw everything in, then set and forget.
Works well with substitutions to keep the salicylates moderate. For the rest of us, it’s very sticky and rich and full of vegetable goodness….
kiddie fish cakes – simple elimination diet
Happy New Year everyone! Hope you have all had a peaceful break and some wonderful family time. I’ve had a lot more time to play with my kids, and I’ve really enjoyed it. Less time to make up new recipes and write blogs, but that’s ok, it’s a good time of year just to be.
In light of my new, more relaxed attitude, I’ve kind of just winged the food challenges for Sofia, letting natural occurrences (like a sandwich at Grandma’s) become the challenge. Here’s what I’ve discovered.
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