About me
I am a homeschooling, stay-at-home mother of two, an avid health researcher, and a former aerospace engineer. I earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 2000. I then worked for our nation's space agency as an aerospace engineer for ten years, with a focus on oxygen hazards analysis and materials testing. This was a rewarding and exciting career, but once my daughter was born in 2007, I knew that I wanted to be able to stay home with my kids. I became a stay-at-home mom at the end of 2009, shortly before the birth of my son. I live in Las Cruces, New Mexico, with my husband and children, Alina and Ian. I am a co-leader for the Las Cruces chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation. In my spare time, I enjoy cooking, gardening, photography, writing, and anything that allows me to make a spreadsheet.About the blog
I created this blog as a place to share recipes and information about living a nourished and nurtured life. First and foremost, I will post recipes. Since my family is on the GAPS diet right now, the recipes I post will typically be GAPS-legal, which means they are grain-free, starch-free, and only use honey as a sweetener. (You can read more about the GAPS diet below under “GAPS diet”.)
I'll also be posting about nutrition in general, as well as gardening and composting. Nutrition is something I became very interested in back in 2005 (my husband Ryan would say I’m obsessed with it). I seem to spend a fair amount of time researching and learning more about nutrition, so if anyone wants more info, please ask! With two young children in the house, parenting is definitely something on my mind. So I'll also be posting about parenting and natural birth (both of my children were born in our home and natural birth is another one of my passions).
About our diet
Weston A. Price-inspired diet
My family has been following a nourishing, traditional diet (based on the research of Weston A. Price) since 2005. Price's research showed that people eating traditional foods had much better health (virtually no cancer or heart disease) and perfect teeth (no braces needed and virtually no cavities). Price found that the nutrient content of traditional foods was much greater than in modern foods. (For more info on Weston A. Price, go here: http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional-diets/622-ancient-dietary-wisdom.html)
For us, following a Price-inspired diet means we don’t eat processed foods (like white flour and sugar), but we do eat plenty of animal fats (like butter and chicken fat), humanely-raised beef and chicken, raw milk, organic fruits and vegetables (especially fermented veggies like homemade raw sauerkraut), and properly soaked whole grains and beans (soaking whole grains and beans in water with a little vinegar or whey neutralizes the enzyme inhibitors and phytic acid that blocks absorption of calcium, magnesium, and other minerals). We also all have a daily dose of cod liver oil, which is a real super food especially high in Vitamins A and D. The kids do not balk at taking the cod liver oil as they’ve been accustomed to taking it from a very young age.
It took lots of trial-and-error for us to get used to eating this way, but nowadays it does not take any more time as long as I plan ahead, and the food is delicious. When we changed our diets, we noticed definite improvements in our health (such as less illness). Of course this diet is also the diet that, according to my midwives, is the only reason my daughter Alina even survived in the womb with a compromised placenta (it was less than half the size of a normal placenta and had large calcified areas, so my daughter was a very small 4-pounds at full term).
GAPS diet
In August 2010, we began eating according to the GAPS diet developed by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. The GAPS diet is a temporary diet used to establish normal gut flora and repair any leaks in the gut walls. Having the wrong balance of gut flora and leaks in the gut walls can lead to a whole range of autoimmune reactions and diseases, from mild ones like eczema and allergies to serious problems such as lupus, autism, and rheumatoid arthritis. And since the immune system resides primarily in the gut, resistance to illness can also be compromised by gut problems.
The GAPS diet is very nourishing and allows the gut walls to heal by allowing no complex food molecules (which cannot be properly digested by a compromised gut). The diet allows no processed foods (such as white flour and sugar), as well as no starches (such as potatoes and corn), grains (such as wheat and oats), or complex sugars (which are present in sucanat and maple syrup, among others). Instead, the diet focuses on lots of healthy fats (like coconut oil and animal fats), along with meats, fruits, vegetables, bone broths, and fermented foods (which provide good bacteria to the gut). (For more information on GAPS, go here: http://gaps.me/)
Our goal in undertaking this diet was to resolve some non-major but lingering health issues, such as my husband's eczema and sinus problems, my unexplained shoulder pain that had been around for at least 8 months, and our daughter Alina's general tendency to catch every bug and illness going around (and be miserably sick for days, even with a cold). So far, we have had good results with the diet. My husband’s eczema and sinus problems have improved, my shoulder pain is completely gone, and our daughter has not had as many illnesses this winter as usual (and for the first time ever she did not have a fever with a cold).
Following the GAPS diet was quite a challenge at first, especially with a young infant in the house, since it requires me to prepare almost every single thing we eat (reducing our already low reliance on store-bought convenience items such as crackers). But over time we have all adjusted to eating according to GAPS, and now we are not even missing the grains and starches (okay, maybe the occasional potato). We will definitely be limiting the grains in our diets from now on as we just feel so good without them.
