Water Bath + More Cookbook for Beginners – by Sarah Roslin
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Whether you want to be prepared for the next major crisis that shuts down food supply chains, or just learn a new skill, this book provides the tools!
Especially beneficial if you also grow your own vegetables, but even you just buy those… Home-canned food is healthy, contains fewer additives and preservatives, and costs less in the long run.
Roslin teaches an array of methods, including most importantly:
- fermentation and pickling
- water bath canning, and
- pressure canning.
As for what’s inside? She covers not just vegetables, but also fruit, seafood, meat… Basically, anything that can be canned.
The book explains the tools and equipment you will need as well as how to perform it safely—as well as common mistakes to avoid!
Lest we be intimidated by the task of acquiring appropriate equipment, she also walks us through what we’ll need in that regard too!
Last but not least, there’s also a (sizeable) collection of simple, step-by-step recipes, catering to a wide variety of tastes.
Bottom line: a highly valuable resource that we recommend heartily.
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How To Heal Psoriasis Naturally
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Nutritionist Julia Davies explains the gut-skin connection (& how to use it to your advantage) in this video:
Inside out
Psoriasis is a chronic autoimmune skin condition, in which the skin renewal process accelerates from 28 days (normal) to 3–5 days, leading to red, scaly patches. It most commonly affects the outer joints (especially elbows & knees) but can appear anywhere, including the scalp and torso.
Autoimmune diseases are often linked to gut barrier integrity issues, as leaky gut syndrome allows toxins/food particles to penetrate the gut lining, triggering an immune response, which means inflammation.
Standard treatments often include topical or systemic immunosuppressants, such as steroids. Such medications suppress the immune response (and thus the symptoms) but they don’t address root causes.
What to do about it, from the root
As you might imagine, part of the key is a non-inflammatory (or ideally, anti-inflammatory) diet. This means starting by removing likely triggers; gluten sensitivity is common so that’s near the top of the list.
At the very top of the list though is sugar*, which is not only pro-inflammatory but also feeds candida in the gut, which is a major driver of leaky gut, as the fungus puts its roots through your intestines (that’s as bad as it sounds).
*as usual, sugar that comes with adequate fiber, such as whole fruit, is fine. Fruit juice, however, is not.
It is likely to see early improvements within 6 weeks, and significant improvement (such as being mostly symptom-free) can take 6–8 months, so don’t give up if it’s day 3 and you’re not cured yet. This is a marathon not a sprint, and you’ll need to maintain things or the psoriasis may return.
In the meantime, it is recommended to do all you reasonably can to help your gut to repair itself, which means a good amount of fiber, and occasional probiotics. Also, focusing on whole, nutrient-dense foods will of course reduce inflammation and improve energy—which can be a big deal, as psoriasis is often associated with fatigue, both because inflammation itself is exhausting (the body is very active, on a cellular level), and because a poor diet is not invigorating.
Outside of diet, stress is often a trigger for flare-ups, so try to manage that too, of course.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Of Brains & Breakouts: The Brain-Skin Doctor
Take care!
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How To Prevent And Reverse Type 2 Diabetes
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Turn back the clock on insulin resistance
This is Dr. Jason Fung. He’s a world-leading expert on intermittent fasting and low carbohydrate approaches to diet. He also co-founded the Intensive Dietary Management Program, later rebranded to the snappier title: The Fasting Method, a program to help people lose weight and reverse type 2 diabetes. Dr. Fung is certified with the Institute for Functional Medicine, for providing functional medicine certification along with educational programs directly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).
Why Intermittent Fasting?
Intermittent fasting is a well-established, well-evidenced, healthful practice for most people. In the case of diabetes, it becomes complicated, because if one’s blood sugars are too low during a fasting period, it will need correcting, thus breaking the fast.
Note: this is about preventing and reversing type 2 diabetes. Type 1 is very different, and sadly cannot be prevented or reversed in this fashion.
However, these ideas may still be useful if you have T1D, as you have an even greater need to avoid developing insulin resistance; you obviously don’t want your exogenous insulin to stop working.
Nevertheless, please do confer with your endocrinologist before changing your dietary habits, as they will know your personal physiology and circumstances in ways that we (and Dr. Fung) don’t.
In the case of having type 2 diabetes, again, please still check with your doctor, but the stakes are a lot lower for you, and you will probably be able to fast without incident, depending on your diet itself (more on this later).
Intermittent Fasting can be extra helpful for the body in the case of type 2 diabetes, as it helps give the body a rest from high insulin levels, thus allowing the body to become gradually re-sensitised to insulin.
Why low carbohydrate?
Carbohydrates, especially sugars, especially fructose*, cause excess sugar to be quickly processed by the liver and stored there. When the body’s ability to store glycogen is exceeded, the liver stores energy as fat instead. The resultant fatty liver is a major contributor to insulin resistance, when the liver can’t keep up with the demand; the blood becomes spiked full of unprocessed sugars, and the pancreas must work overtime to produce more and more insulin to deal with that—until the body starts becoming desensitized to insulin. In other words, type 2 diabetes.
There are other factors that affect whether we get type 2 diabetes, for example a genetic predisposition. But, our carb intake is something we can control, so it’s something that Dr. Fung focuses on.
*A word on fructose: actual fruits are usually diabetes-neutral or a net positive due to their fiber and polyphenols.
Fructose as an added ingredient, however, not so much. That stuff zips straight into your veins with nothing to slow it down and nothing to mitigate it.
The advice from Dr. Fung is simple here: cut the carbs. If you are already diabetic and do this with no preparation, you will probably simply suffer hypoglycemia, so instead:
- Enjoy a fibrous starter (a salad, some fruit, or perhaps some nuts)
- Load up with protein first, during your main meal—this will start to trigger your feelings of satedness
- Eat carbs last (preferably whole, unprocessed carbohydrates), and stop eating when 80% full.
Adapting Intermittent Fasting to diabetes
Dr. Fung advocates for starting small, and gradually increasing your fasting period, until, ideally, fasting 16 hours per day. You probably won’t be able to do this immediately, and that’s fine.
You also probably won’t be able to do this, if you don’t also make the dietary adjustments that help to give your liver a break, and thus by knock-on-effect, give your pancreas a break too.
With the dietary adjustments too, however, your insulin production-and-response will start to return to its pre-diabetic state, and finally its healthy state, after which, it’s just a matter of maintenance.
Want to hear more from Dr. Fung?
You may enjoy his blog, and for those who like videos, here is his YouTube channel:
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Greek Yogurt vs Cottage Cheese – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing Greek yogurt to cottage cheese, we picked the yogurt.
Why?
These are both dairy products popularly considered healthy, mostly for their high-protein, low-carb, low-fat profile. We’re going to assume that both were made without added sugars. Thus, their macro profiles are close to identical, and nothing between them there.
In the category of vitamins, both are a good source of some B vitamins, and neither are good source of much else. The B-vitamins they have most of, B2 and B12, Greek yogurt has more.
We’ll call this a small win for Greek yogurt.
As they are dairy products, you might have expected them to contain vitamin D—however (unless they have been artificially fortified, as is usually done with plant-based equivalents) they contain none or trace amounts only.
When it comes to minerals, both are reasonable sources of calcium, selenium, and phosphorus. Of these, they’re equal on the selenium, while cottage cheese has more phosphorus and Greek yogurt has more calcium.
Since it’s also a mineral (even if it’s usually one we’re more likely to be trying to get less of), it’s also worth noting here that cottage cheese is quite high in sodium, while Greek yogurt is not.
Another win for Greek yogurt.
Beyond those things, we’d be remiss not to mention that Greek yogurt contains plenty of probiotic bacteria, while cottage cheese does not.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Take care!
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Plant-Based Salmon Recipe
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From Tofu to Salmon
This video (below) by SweetPotatoSoul isn’t just a recipe tutorial; it’s an inspiring journey into the world of vegan cooking, proving that reducing animal products doesn’t have to mean sacrificing flavor.
The key to her vegan salmon is the tofu. However, there’s a trick to the tofu – you have to press it.
Essentially, this involved putting some paper towel on either side of the tofu, and then placing a heavy object on top; this removes excess water and, more importantly, primes the tofu to absorb the flavor of your marinade!
(You’ll want to press the tofu for around 1 hour)
Find the rest of the recipe in the 12-minute video below!
Other Plant-Based Recipes
With there being so many benefits of cutting meat out of your diet, we’ve spent the time reviewing some of the top books on vegan recipes, including The Green Roasting Tin and The Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook. We hope you enjoy them as much as you’ll enjoy this recipe:
How was the video? If you’ve discovered any great videos yourself that you’d like to share with fellow 10almonds readers, then please do email them to us!
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Veg in One Bed New Edition – by Huw Richards
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We all know that growing our own veg is ultimately not only healthier on the plate, but also a very healthy activity. Cheaper too. So why don’t more of us do it?
For many of us, it’s a matter of not having the skills or knowledge to do so. This book bridges that knowledge-gap.
Richards gives, as promised, a month-by-month well-illustrated guide to growing a wide variety of vegetables. He does, by the way, assume that we are in a temperate climate in the Northern Hemisphere. So if you’re not, you may need to make some adjustments.
The book doesn’t assume prior knowledge, and does give the reader everything we need from an initial basic shopping list onwards.
A particular strength of this book is that it’s about growing veg in a single raised bed—this ensures keeping everything very manageable.
Bottom line: if you have ever thought it would be good to grow your own veg, but didn’t know where to start and want something practical for a beginner, this is an excellent guide that will get you going!
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Managing Major Chronic Diseases – by Alexis Dupree
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Our author, Alexis Dupree, is herself in her 70s, and writing with more than three decades of experience of surviving multiple chronic diseases (in her case, Multiple Sclerosis, and then a dozen comorbidities that came with such).
She is not a doctor or a scientist, but for more than 30 years she’s been actively working to accumulate knowledge not just on her own conditions, but on the whole medical system, and what it means to be a “forever patient” without giving up hope.
She talks lived-experience “life management” strategies for living with chronic disease, and she talks—again from lived experience—about navigating the complexities of medical care; not on a legalistic “State regulations say…” level, because that kind of thing changes by the minute, but on a human level.
Perhaps most practically: how to advocate strongly for yourself while still treating medical professionals with the respect and frankly compassion that they deserve while doing their best in turn.
But also: how to change your attitude to that of a survivor, and yet also redefine your dreams. How to make a new game plan of life—while working to make life easier for yourself. How to deal, psychologically, with the likelihood that not only will you probably not get better, but also, you will probably get worse, while still never, ever, giving up.
After all, many things are easily treatable today that mere decades ago were death sentences, and science is progressing all the time. We just have to stay alive, and in as good a condition as we reasonably can, to benefit from those advances!
Bottom line: if you have a chronic disease, or if a loved one does, then this is an immensely valuable book to read.
Click here to check out Managing Major Chronic Diseases, and make life easier!
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