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Topics:
1. Do anchovies have the same health benefits as sardines? [20:11]
2. Struggling with postpartum weight loss [23:23]
3. Are middle-of-the-night bathroom breaks such a big deal? / Liz’s fancy, grass-fed mattress [26:45]
4. Candida and die-off symptoms [32:56]
5. Egg-free, whey-free protein powder [35:24]
6. Are all FODMAPs created equal? [39:13]
7. Almond meal vs. blanched almond flour [42:20]
8. Paleo wraps or bread [45:21]
9. Refrigeration for meals and snacks on the go [49:52]
10. Post-workout snacks or meals [54:37] 
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Liz Wolfe: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Episode 102 of the Balanced Bites Podcast! We just keep rolling on. Before we get started with everything, Diane had a little chat with Pete of Pete’s Paleo, one of our awesome sponsors for wholesome, healthy paleo food. We’ll do a little segment real quick of what Diane had to ask Pete, and then we’ll jump right into the podcast.
Diane Sanfilippo: So Pete, why don’t you tell our listeners how you source the ingredients for Pete’s Paleo.
Pete Servold: That’s actually one of my favorite things that we get to do. We live in Southern California, and we just have plentiful amounts of awesome produce and awesome, properly-husbanded animals. All of our produce, for the most part, comes from Suzie’s Farm. It’s an all-organic farm. They grow, I think, 120 different kinds of vegetables and lettuces and fruits. We order on Monday morning or late Sunday night, and they harvest actually about 4:30 or 5 in the morning on Monday, and they bring it to the kitchen, so we’re cooking food that was in the ground that morning. And then all of our grass-fed beef, for example, comes from Open Space, which is a grass-fed ranch a few hours north of here in the Central Valley of California. I know the rancher. I know his name. And it’s the same for our pigs. They come from Cook Pigs in Julian, California. I know the family, I’ve visited the pigs, and that’s how we guarantee the best sources possible for all of our products.
Diane Sanfilippo: Thanks so much. I know that probably one of the biggest challenges that people have is sourcing all of their food, and it’s fantastic that they have a great resource in Pete’s Paleo meals. The code that people can use for Pete’s Paleo is BALANCEDBITESROCKS. That is good until further notice, and you get two free meals at checkout when you order from Pete’s Paleo.
Let’s talk about Chameleon Cold-Brew also.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, because I’m drinking some right now. We don’t have to tell everyone what time of day it is that I’m drinking this coffee –
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s still early.
Liz Wolfe: – but I’m drinking the Mocha… Oh, my goodness.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ermahgerd.
Liz Wolfe: Ermahgerd. It’s really extraordinary, this Mocha Chameleon Cold-Brew Coffee. I think everyone knows at this point that we’re pretty obsessed with it. When you’re finishing up a book, I think all bets are off.
Diane Sanfilippo: We’ve talked about this before, too: I used to get that really funky stomach from drinking coffee, and I don’t get that at all with the cold brew. And the other thing I always talk about with Chameleon is that it’s organic, fair-trade coffee. This is a really fantastic product. That’s why we actually invited them to be a sponsor of the show. We want people to make sure that they’re getting organic coffee, especially when it’s in your house. I’m sure we’re going to drink non-organic coffee now and then when we go out to a restaurant, but if it’s something that you’re going to keep in your house, you’re best to find the organic. Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: Don’t panic, it’s organic!
Liz Wolfe: That’s funny.
Diane Sanfilippo: What else? What’s going on with you in the middle of nowhere with ticks and no Internet service and what else?
Liz Wolfe: The ticks are so much better right now. I think either they peaked or the beneficial nematodes worked or I grew a pair, I’m not really sure, but we actually had people over. You weren’t invited, unfortunately. Sorry.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m not worried.
Liz Wolfe: That’s OK. And that was cool. Everything’s good in the ‘hood. People have been asking me… I played the whole book deal pretty close to the vest for a while just because… I don’t know. I was a little worried that I could do everything that I wanted to do with it, and it now appears that I have, and I’m really excited about it, but folks don’t really know what it’s going to be all about, so I wanted to give people a little primer on Modern Cave Girl. I need to work on my elevator pitch for it, my escalator pitch… my treadmill desk pitch. Are you on your treadmill desk right now?
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m not.
Liz Wolfe: You’re not. So here’s what inspired the book, my book, Modern Cave Girl, which will release this fall. What inspired it was the questions that we all get about the way we choose to live and eat, and these are the questions that I got over and over again from people that I talked to, new readers to the blog, and through clients who were new to this ancestral way of eating. People would say: Well, isn’t all that fat gonna clog my arteries? And isn’t animal protein gonna give my cancer? Haven’t you seen Forks Over Knives? Does meat clog up your colon? And don’t I need all that fiber from whole grains? And all that stuff that we hear all the time, debunking paleo-type stuff, and I wanted to give people a fun, funny read – hopefully funny – that they could hand to their friends or their family or even plagiarize it in their own blog posts – which I’m mostly joking – but just to explain exactly what’s up and put it all in one place but make it a fun read because a lot of what I included in the book is scientific studies, different evaluative run-downs from scientists in the field, and things like that that aren’t really that fun to read, and I wanted to put all of this stuff together on all of these topics so people could have a resource about the myths and the truths about nutrition. A lot of us know that these things are myths, but a lot of us maybe can’t explain exactly why, so with my book you’ll hopefully be able to do that. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry from laughing, you’ll enjoy some pop culture references – it’s just gonna be an all-around good time. Editor and I are fighting a little bit right now over an Empire Records reference, but it’s all good.
Diane Sanfilippo: Which one? Ooo, I love that movie.
Liz Wolfe: I can’t tell you because what if it doesn’t make it in?
Diane Sanfilippo: All right, you’re going to have to tell me off air.
Liz Wolfe: I will.
Diane Sanfilippo: Secret, insider information that is, like, the only reason that we’re friends so that I can hear these kinds of things.
Liz Wolfe: Pretty much. So that’s kind of what made me realize how old we are, to be like: Wait. Somebody wouldn’t get that reference from Empire Records?! Are you insane?!
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, boy.
Liz Wolfe: Eighteen years later, apparently there’s a whole new crop of people who haven’t seen that movie. Who knew?
Diane Sanfilippo: Well, I’ll tell you what, though: I was at a Guster concert – two Guster concerts –
Liz Wolfe: Right.
Diane Sanfilippo: – this summer, and I was like: Look at all these kids who like Guster! There’s this whole new generation of fans. You know, I liked them when they started and were basically right out of college and I was still in college, and there are all these kids who are actually still in college who like them. So you know, you never know what kind of cult following Empire Records has. Don’t underestimate that film. It’s a classic.
Liz Wolfe: Such a classic. 1995 was a good year.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ooorange.
Liz Wolfe: [laughter]
Diane Sanfilippo: Yay! I know something!
Liz Wolfe: Oh, man. That’s gonna go back and forth. Because it would hurt a lot, Warren. All right.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s seriously probably one of the movies I’ve seen the most.
Liz Wolfe: Ah, it’s so good.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’ve seen it so many times. OK, I’ve been in a hole trying to finish my book, and I’m going to have to break a little bit of bad news: It’s going to release a little bit later than originally planned. It’s totally my fault. I’m horrible with deadlines and stress, and I tend to retract like a turtle into its shell when stress hits me really hard, and I can’t always just kind of crank things out. I just freeze up sometimes. So basically it was going to release September 24. Now I think it will be either October 7 or October 15. You’ll get the book in plenty of time to do a November sugar detox if you want to do that before the holidays and then obviously plenty of time to prepare before New Year’s if you wanted to do it then. I know the holidays can be a tough time for people, but we always have tons of people doing the detox every single month, so it’s not really a total loss to have it early. You’ll be able to use it early if you want to and kind of get prepared and whatnot.
The cool thing about this book, the first book, is I counted and I have, I think, at least 95, maybe 96 recipes in the book, and probably not more than 10 of them are also in Practical Paleo, and it’s some of the basics, like broth and mayonnaise and some of the spice blends and then a couple of the sort of greatest-hits recipes that I just think people will really want, that you guys have told me are some of your favorites, so I didn’t want to cheat the detoxers out of these awesome recipes, but there are probably at least 80 or 85 that are totally new and different from what I had in Practical Paleo, so that’s kind of good to know. And then also the cookbook will be about a hundred or more recipes that will all be paleo friendly as well, so even if you never want to do the detox, these are my next couple of books and there are tons of recipes that are a similar style to what I’ve done in the past, where they’re really easy to make, very few ingredients for the most part, a couple of random different ingredients that maybe you don’t currently use every day, which is sort of the point, I think, of getting a cookbook or trying new recipes.
It’s been a very, very stressful process for me, more stressful than I thought it would be, and one of the things that my editor actually said to me, which was really helpful, because I have this really overwhelming sense of responsibility to say as much as I can about the story regarding carbohydrates and your body, and it’s really hard to do that – as you can probably tell, it’s hard to say everything you know about nutrition in one book. And it’s even really hard to say everything you know about just carbohydrates and how to handle that in one book unless you’re going to do Good Calories, Bad Calories like Gary Taubes did, which he followed up with an abridged version, Why We Get Fat. Side note: I don’t agree with everything that he says about carbohydrates. But anyway, I was just really stressed about that because there’s so much to the story around what we eat and how it affects us. However, this book is intended to guide you through a three-week sugar detox. It’s not intended to be your end-all, be-all, here’s everything about nutrition, everything about how food works in your body. Guess what? I already have that book. It’s called Practical Paleo. So if people are curious about how this book can help their friends or family or want to just buy it for a friend or the friend says that they’re interested, it’s a great starting point. And the first level of the program is not necessarily paleo, but what it does is it helps people learn how their bodies react to different foods. It’s also a great stepping stone to say: Hey, you can learn a lot more in Practical Paleo if you’re interested.
That’s just one thing I’ve been battling with a lot. It’s just really hard to be like: They’re gonna want to know about this, they’re gonna want to know about this. And you guys all know I always want to teach you as much as possible in one place if I can, but it’s just really not something I could do within the scope of this book and this project for something that’s intended to be a three-week period of your life. So that’s that. But I’m really excited because it’s coming together amazingly well. The book looks awesome. I mean, dare I say, I think it looks even better than Practical Paleo in some ways just because I’m refining the way that I do things. The charts are awesome, some new useful charts. There are a lot of products that people might be looking for and brands that we recommend. A lot of information coming from the Facebook page and what thousands of people have experienced and just helpful tips and tricks for people on the program. That’s pretty much it. But I’m really excited about it, and I think it’s going to be a fantastic resource for everyone who wants to do the sugar detox or if they just want a whole bunch of new recipes to try. And that’s my story.
Liz Wolfe: Very good.
Diane Sanfilippo: And I worked out… for the first time in three weeks!
Liz Wolfe: I work out!
Diane Sanfilippo: I work out!
Liz Wolfe: Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.
Diane Sanfilippo: For the first time in three weeks because we get a lot of questions about adrenal fatigue, yes?
Liz Wolfe: Yep.
Diane Sanfilippo: And one of the things, just to address this quickly. I don’t know if you have anything to say about the way that you’ve been feeling stress wise or if you’ve been feeling OK because of, like, farm work balancing you out –
Liz Wolfe: No.
Diane Sanfilippo: No. OK, so my current experience has been that I could tell that my heart rate has just been higher than it should be when I’m at rest. This feeling of mild anxiety all the time just working on the book, and this is just something that comes with it. I don’t want people to offer me solutions.
Liz Wolfe: Right.
Diane Sanfilippo: Honestly, unless you’ve written a book – and that’s not to say that you haven’t done something very difficult, but you know, I don’t know what it’s like to give birth, so I’m not giving people advice on giving birth, but you know, if you’ve been here –
Liz Wolfe: Just calm down!
Diane Sanfilippo: Exactly!
Liz Wolfe: Don’t get so upset about things! Just birth the baby!
Diane Sanfilippo: But it’s one of those things where there’s just a lot of pressure, and I have felt like my cortisol output, my stress level just internally has been at the top of what I can put out every single day. It’s just there. It’s at the top. And I knew despite the fact that I had the time, I could have taken two hours out of my day to go to the gym, warm up, do the workout, sit around and see people, I knew that my capacity to have cortisol output for exercise was just not there. It was really for me, but I had three whole weeks where I just did not even go to the gym. And I went back and I did a workout on Sunday just with a couple of the coaches, just kind of one on the minute, didn’t push myself to 100%, kept it around, like, 70% of what I know I’m capable of, and then worked out again yesterday. I’ll probably take off today, but getting back into the gym feels really good. Yeah. Do you want to talk about your stress at all, or do you not want to talk about it? Will that make you stressed out?
Liz Wolfe: No. I don’t think so. This is a nice break from the work, but yeah, it’s just not one of those things that you can say: Well, I should have punctuated my work this way and then everything could have been done in a nice little timeline and then I wouldn’t be so stressed out. It’s not even so much the emotional stress because it is stressful, and that’s a huge part of it because you’re about to put something out into the world for people to judge.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s horrible.
Liz Wolfe: It’s really scary because a blog, it’s kind of like: You know what? A free blog, a free podcast, if people don’t like it, then they don’t like it. It’s not the end of the world. But people judge a manuscript so much more harshly. And I swear, I think that’s probably, as much as the physical stress and just the actual work itself is physically taxing, it’s really the emotional turmoil that really gets to me, I think, and I tend to be – like we talked about in the last episode – a little bit of an introvert, so my respite is solitude, but what’s difficult about that is that it’s solitude 24/7 because I’m working on book edits and I’m doing stuff that only I can do. My husband’s always like: Well, can I help you with something? And I’m like: Uh… you can rub my back. Because he literally can’t take any of the stuff off of my plate. So the point is it’s just a really, I think, unique experience. This is my first time around with it, and maybe next time I’ll handle it differently or better, but at this point, I’m just trying to be forgiving of myself, and I’m also doing some liposomal vitamin C morning and evening, which I think has actually helped quite a bit. That’s basically all I’ve found that has been super-duper helpful.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think that people who don’t feel like they’re breaking working on a book or writing a book are the ones who don’t actually write their own books.
Liz Wolfe: Like that girl from Laguna Beach?
Diane Sanfilippo: I have no idea.
Liz Wolfe: Tori Spelling.
Diane Sanfilippo: And I’m just going to say this: Somebody long ago – it was only, like, one person, I think – There was some random fan of mine, not a random fan, it’s actually probably a fan that I knew by name at least. He said something like a friend of his messaged him that: You know she didn’t write that book, right? And I was like: Are you kidding me?! That someone would say that I didn’t write my book?! I’m like: I nearly died writing that book!
Liz Wolfe: Oh, my goodness.
Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know who they think wrote it, anyway! I was just like: This is out of control! It’s fine and there are situations like that, but I couldn’t even believe it. I was like: I’m not even upset. I’m laughing because it’s so ridiculous. Man, I don’t know. I just thought it was crazy.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, man.
Diane Sanfilippo: That person obviously either doesn’t read anything I do because they would realize that this is exactly all the stuff I’ve been writing for a long time, or they just were, like, angry or jealous or who knows what. Crazy, right? Can you imagine after your book comes out if somebody’s like: You know she didn’t write that. You’d be like: Are you kidding me?!
Liz Wolfe: No, but I definitely just decided not to publish this book because I cannot handle it. I simply cannot. My mom wanted to be my assistant for a little bit there. I was thinking: Gosh, I need some help just for a little bit. And my mom was like: I’ll be your assistant! And I was like: No, because you would get so upset reading some of the things that people say. I can’t do that to you, Mom.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, yeah. Totally.
Liz Wolfe: I don’t want her cortisol to go up, too. I did that enough to her for the first 25 years of my life. Anyway.
Diane Sanfilippo: Now that we’ve spent… ahem… adequate time.
Liz Wolfe: By this point, people know to fast-forward through the first 10 minutes.
Diane Sanfilippo: Good.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Let’s do some questions, shall we?
Diane Sanfilippo: We shall.
Liz Wolfe: OK. So these are fun questions today, like when we pull from the Facebook community.
Diane Sanfilippo: Let me throw in a quick reminder, too, that we’ve been getting a lot of very intensive medical health condition questions, and I appreciate that a lot of people are struggling to find practitioners who can offer them support and help, but the reality is that we are not doctors. We are not here to offer medical advice. We focus on nutrition and lifestyle. And I want to make sure that if you’re submitting a question that’s about a very serious medical condition or a health concern that is very medical in nature that you remember that fact, and there’s a really good chance we’re just not going to be able to answer that question… ever. Something will come into the queue, and we’re just like: We can’t touch that. I don’t want people to be like: Ugh, I submitted a question three months ago and I’m in pain, I’m struggling. Go see a doctor. Find a naturopathic doctor. Look on Paleo Physicians Network or Primal Docs, and really seek out that kind of help. This is a podcast and we have a lot of limitations with not only our own area of expertise but what we can really offer in this format.
1. Do anchovies have the same health benefits as sardines? [20:11]
Liz Wolfe: On that note, let’s talk about this very light question. This one I’m excited to answer. This is from Chris: ”I hear a lot of recommendations for sardines in the community. Do anchovies have the same benefits?”
Chris, I’m sorry. This is of an extremely medical nature. I don’t know that we can answer this. Just kidding. I don’t know. Do they? I would assume so. Diane?
Diane Sanfilippo: I was thinking you were going to answer that one since you’re the sardine queen.
Liz Wolfe: I know, but I only love sardines. I guess maybe anchovies remind me too much of pizza.
Diane Sanfilippo: What do you mean? What’s wrong with pizza?
Liz Wolfe: Well, nothing’s wrong with pizza, but it’s just that association. I would imagine anchovies have the same benefits. I truly don’t really know.
Diane Sanfilippo: You’re definitely going to get omega-3′s from anchovies. They’re quite small, so you’ll need to eat even more of them.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s great that they’re an even smaller fish. That’s probably good.
Liz Wolfe: Do they come with the bones usually?
Diane Sanfilippo: I think you can get them either way. If they come with the bones, that’s also good because you’ll get some bioavailable calcium there. I don’t know about CoQ10.
Liz Wolfe: I don’t know about that or taurine either.
Diane Sanfilippo: Sorry. Doppler effect of motorcycles driving by.
Liz Wolfe: Do anchovies usually come with the heads, with the eyeballs?
Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t think they typically do.
Liz Wolfe: OK. If they did, those would probably be some good added benefits that most sardines don’t have because sardines don’t come with the fishy brains and the fishy eyeballs.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think most of them are sort of filleted and in a can, kind of similarly to the way a lot of sardines are, so I don’t know that they all have bones, but I think there’s a good chance they do. Because they’re so tiny, it might just be something that… you know, manufacturers are not going to be deboning these tiny little anchovies. I think one thing I’d look out for the same way with the sardines is how they’re being sourced and also what they’re being preserved in, if they’re in water or if they’re in oil and what kind of oil it is.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: And I know that we’ve been able to find some good brands of sardines, so if you can find good brands of anchovies, then they might be just as good of a bet. I know that anchovy paste and anchovies in general are kind of like an Italian umami. I think I said that in the last couple of episodes at some point, like capers and olives and all these salty, yummy things that sometimes you just can’t quite put your finger on what that flavor is.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: Anchovy is one of those. It’s a good one.
Liz Wolfe: I think anchovies are in traditional Worcestershire sauce. And what’s the other thing they’re in? Caesar dressing.
Diane Sanfilippo: Caesar.
Liz Wolfe: Which are both kind of those “can’t quite put my finger on it” types of flavors. Interesting.
Diane Sanfilippo: There’s a lot of traffic right now, it’s just that time, so I keep muting myself because it’s really loud. Anyway. Go ahead.
2. Struggling with postpartum weight loss [23:23]
Liz Wolfe: All right. This is from Kerri: ”Struggling with postpartum weight loss. Would it be better to count calories or add in some intense workouts? Not sure I can handle both in my sleep-deprived state, LOL.”
I wanted to answer this one, and obviously this is kind of a rapid-fire question, so we don’t know how far postpartum Kerri is, but I am going to answer this actually by reading something that Katy Bowman says, and I’m, like, her super-stalker. Katy is at AlignedAndWell.com. She’s an alignment expert. She’s hilarious and amazing, and we’re going to have her on the podcast in about a month, which I’m really excited about. But this is from a post I just happened to be reading of Katy’s at some point today when I saw this question, and I loved what she said. This is in response to a commenter who was asking her about postpartum weight loss and how she keeps her abs and all of that stuff, and this is what Katy said. She said: ”Here is my ‘secret’: I breastfeed. I walk everywhere and carry my baby in my arms. I eat about 2500-3000 calories a day, about 70% of them from high quality fat. I don’t eat anything out of a box (usually) or mutter the words ‘I really shouldn’t be eating this.’ I only eat that which I am totally on board eating. If I want a scoop of ice cream, I am super excited to eat it and don’t create any negative emotions or punishments. I’m aligned with my diet, so to speak. My core is strong, NOT because I work it hard. I don’t work it at all. I keep my bones in the position that allows my muscles to function, constantly, without me needing to think about it. Dropping the ribs and keeping a neutral pelvis do wonders for abs. I don’t do any high-intensity or stressful activities. I try to meditate for at least 10 minutes a day. I belly laugh about 8 times a day. I don’t have any living room furniture, so I sit on the ground and roll around a lot. The getting up and down off of the floor and stretching while I am there replaces any yoga class that I would make it to before I had a new baby.”
I highly recommend people check out Katy Says. That’s the blog from AlignedAndWell.com. She has some amazing things to say about exercise and alignment and all that stuff that absolutely are relevant to postpartum moms, postpartum weight loss, and all that good stuff. So my answer to Kerri is definitely listen to Katy, number one, and just continue to be patient. There are so many hormonal readjustments and adjustments going on postpartum that you really do have to give yourself time. We just see a completely unrealistic picture of postpartum weight loss in the media and even with some of these CrossFit athletes that have babies and then immediately, you know, two weeks later have an eight-pack. It’s funny. You know who else just wrote about this was Sage… oh, why am I an idiot? … I love her… Sage… ugh, I don’t know her last name now. We’ll have to put a link in the podcast notes.
Diane Sanfilippo: I have no idea who you’re talking about.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, you do.
Diane Sanfilippo: Nope.
Liz Wolfe: She’s an Olympic lifter, Sage. She’s awesome. SageOlyLifting.blogspot.com was her old one, and I think there’s a new blog. But anyway, she just had a baby and was talking about the realities of postpartum, and it was pretty funny. I’ll try and find that and we’ll put it in the show notes.
Diane Sanfilippo: OK.
3. Are middle-of-the-night bathroom breaks such a big deal? / Liz’s fancy, grass-fed mattress [26:45]
Liz Wolfe: OK. All right, next one. This is from Stephanie: ”Is having to get up to pee in the middle of the night such a big deal? All the paleo gurus talk about getting uninterrupted sleep. They don’t have a tiny bladder like I do. They don’t know my life! For the record, I stop taking in liquids at least an hour before bed. I sleep well otherwise.”
Sometimes I wake up to pee.
Diane Sanfilippo: Gurus!
Liz Wolfe: Gurus.
Diane Sanfilippo: When I talk about getting sleep, I don’t talk about it being uninterrupted because my sleep is interrupted. I usually wake up at least once to pee. It is annoying, and sometimes it’s more than once. Sometimes it’s twice. But I don’t have any trouble going back to sleep. I think if you were concerned about it, what I would do is get one of those sleep monitor things and just see if you’re getting deep, restful sleep when you are sleeping because the amount of time that you’re asleep isn’t as critical as the amount of deep sleep you get during those hours. I gauge the restfulness of my sleep by how awake and alert I feel the next day, not only when I first wake up, but throughout the day. Over the 2 to 5 p.m. hour would normally be a real low for me if my sleep hasn’t been good, if I’ve been stressed, whatever else, so if my energy feels OK at that time of day, then I can gauge my sleep a little bit based on that. I also previously was waking up, literally waking up in the morning feeling like I didn’t even sleep. That was happening to me for several months. And I think it was just based on stress, but you know, I was waking up then, and I’m waking up now and I’m waking up feeling rested, so I think it really just depends more on that. I’ve talked to some people about the whole ancestral idea of this dark room, 8 to 9 hours uninterrupted, and the idea that we may not have slept like that ancestrally.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: It may not have been that many hours. There may have been things going on and some noises and some rustling –
Liz Wolfe: Some wrestling?!
Diane Sanfilippo: Not wrestling, rustling. Oh, boy. But I do think that the darkness is important just to counterbalance how my light exposure we have during the day, and I think the time of deep REM sleep, that restful sleep, is important. So if it’s something you’re worried about, I would get one of the sleep monitors. There are some monitors and I think you strap them on like a heart rate monitor type of thing. I don’t know exactly, but I’ve seen them floating around the community.
Liz Wolfe: As a corollary to that, I wanted to do that probably three or four years ago… I don’t know. I lose track of time. I’m just so old.
Diane Sanfilippo: You’re almost 30.
Liz Wolfe: I know! My husband turned 30 the other day. I made him s’mores. You would know that if you read my Email Monday.
Diane Sanfilippo: I did know that!
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: Only because I read Email Monday, not because we’re friends and you tell me things.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, yeah, that too. Shoot. So I wanted to gauge my sleep quality with one of those contraptions a couple years back, and at the time we actually had a Tempur-Pedic mattress, and apparently those don’t work with the Tempur-Pedic, which led me to look a little bit more into the Tempur-Pedic and something I had never thought about before was what’s actually in my mattress, what it’s made of, and what that could potentially do to manipulate sleep. I know the issue here is the bladder. The bladder’s getting filled up, and she needs to go empty it. But I probably for about two years was not getting as good of sleep as I could have been getting until we finally bought this new mattress. My dad calls it our grass-fed mattress because it’s organic and whatever, that whole pile of crap that we don’t necessarily associate with mattresses, but we basically totally made over our bedding, and we got this natural latex mattress –
Diane Sanfilippo: What brand is it?
Liz Wolfe: It’s Savvy Rest.
Diane Sanfilippo: Hmm.
Liz Wolfe: It was not cheap, but we wanted a big-kid bed, you know? We wanted to get our grown-up bed, but we wanted it to be really nice, so we saved up for it for several years to be able to do it, but we got this, it’s natural latex, which sounds weird, but it’s actually just like the baked residue from rubber or something. It’s crazy. And I guess this is something that mattresses were made out of for many, many years before all the synthetic stuff came on the market. The woman was telling us about how her parents had a natural latex mattress for 50 years and whatever, so we bought it. We got all of this natural wool bedding, so everything is über-natural, nothing crazy. The wool, she assured us, is from, like, New Zealand sheep raised in the mountains and only sheared after being taken to an Enya concert, so very happy sheep and all that stuff. But anyway, the point is, I’ve never slept so well in my entire life. It’s like a Tempur-Pedic, only better, and folks might want to look at that if they’re not sleeping well: what they’re sleeping in.
Diane Sanfilippo: I like that.
Liz Wolfe: Man, it’s extraordinary.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think a good mattress is really important.
Liz Wolfe: Yes, and you know we thought the Tempur-Pedic was a good mattress because, you know, my husband’s in the military so there were times when he had to leave in the middle of the night and have an odd schedule, and I didn’t want to wake up when he left… well, I did want to wake up, but not in an annoyed, “why can I feel you putting your boots on while you’re sitting on the edge of the bed?” type of way, so we got the Tempur-Pedic and thought it was great for a minute there but didn’t really realize until we got this new organic, grass-fed mattress how poorly we were sleeping before that. Interesting stuff. And I can’t feel when he gets up in the middle of the night anyway, so it’s all good.
4. Candida and die-off symptoms [32:56]
All right, next one. This is from Kimberly: ”Candida and die-off symptoms. I started Prescript-Assist,” which is a probiotic, “three weeks ago and have been itching like crazy and having random headaches and fatigue for a week and a half. Curious if that is what’s happening.”
Well, it does sound like it’s related.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Diane, do you have a ton of experience with candida die-off?
Diane Sanfilippo: With the 21-Day Sugar Detox, it’s something that a lot of people are aware of and sensitive to, and it definitely can be a candida die-off situation or it can just be the change in the gut flora just changing your whole detoxification. Your liver deals with everything that’s coming out of your gut. There shouldn’t be too much bacteria in your actual small intestine, but through the lining there, through what’s happening in your colon as well as you’re digesting and breaking down food, and the bacteria should be living more in your colon, your liver is actually interacting with what’s happening there, so that’s going to lead to some of these other seemingly related and some seemingly unrelated detoxification effects, and so that’s, I think, the headaches and fatigue, the itching. If there’s any rash that you get, she didn’t mention that, but that’s also another really common one, is that sometimes people feel like they have a quick bout of eczema or something that shows up on their skin other than just that itchiness. So yeah, kind of the quick answer here is, yeah, I think that is what’s happening. If it persists more than a couple of weeks, I might say there could be something going on that’s a little bit deeper in terms of why your body might not be reacting positively over the longer term to that probiotic. If it’s a month and you’re still experiencing that, maybe talk to whoever your practitioner is or whomever else you’re working with on this, and see if there’s another route to go. There might be something that’s antibacterial you might need to do to kill some things off that are in there.
Liz Wolfe: Yep. Prescript-Assist is a good one. It’s one I’ve recommended before.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think The Paleo Mom recommends it as well.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, yeah? There you go. Cool.
5. Egg-free, whey-free protein powder [35:24]
All right, next one. Heather asks: ”What is the best protein powder for someone that cannot tolerate eggs or whey?”
I’m not a huge protein powder gal, but I suppose if we were just answering the question and not being jerks about it, I would say maybe some beef protein, some cricket protein –
Diane Sanfilippo: Ooo, I wonder if they can sell the cricket protein as a powder. They’re putting it into bars, this Exo brand.
Liz Wolfe: I know! I funded that! I crowd-funded that. Did you?
Diane Sanfilippo: I did not.
Liz Wolfe: I gave them a bunch of money.
Diane Sanfilippo: I have given so many Kickstarters money that I was passing on this one almost just out of, like, I’m tired of funding Kickstarters for this week.
Liz Wolfe: They didn’t need any more help. They were on, like, Forbes.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. You know, I just thought, we feed these freeze-dried mealworms to our chickens and our guineas to make them like us. You could totally just throw those in the blender.
Diane Sanfilippo: All right, now you’re just being gross.
Liz Wolfe: No!
Diane Sanfilippo: She’s not going to do that.
Liz Wolfe: You know what, though? You could do it.
Diane Sanfilippo: If you don’t tolerate eggs or whey, honestly, my quick answer to this on Facebook was just going to be, like, no. I don’t think there is one. I mean, you could use hemp protein, but I just don’t think plant sources of protein are the best way to go. I don’t think that they’re complete, and I just don’t think you’re really getting what you need from that. I only started using the whey protein a while ago, and I kind of stopped and started and wasn’t using it really… well, I haven’t been working out, but it’s one of those things where I lived without it for a very long time, and you just eat meat. You just chew it. You just make jerky. That’s kind of the other substitute. It’s like, well, if you’re doing the whey protein because it’s fast and easy and you can keep it with you, then you just start making jerky more often, something like that. I know it’s not the best answer, but I honestly don’t, at this point, have any others that I really recommend. I know there are beef protein isolates, right? Is that what you were talking about before?
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know what that would taste like. I have no idea.
Liz Wolfe: It probably tastes slightly beefy.
Diane Sanfilippo: Maybe email the Exo people and see if they’ll sell you some cricket protein powder.
Liz Wolfe: I’m so serious about the mealworms. That would actually be really… and they’re cheap! When you said hemp protein powder, people do swear by that. That’s kind of the vegetarian favorite, but I do think that even if we call a plant protein optimal, there’s still a balance of amino acids – and we’ve talked about this in our workshops before – there’s a balance of amino acids that, I think, over the long term, if it’s something you’re eating every single day, any kind of fractionated protein or plant protein, I think you could potentially end up dealing with some problems with regards to amino acid imbalance. I don’t have any studies on that at my fingertips, but it’s just kind of a suspicion that I’ve had for a while. There are a lot of disorders and diseases that do have some amino acid deficiencies tied in. I believe anxiety is tied to lysine deficiency. It’s kind of something that I looked at in the writing of my book and nothing that I could really prove, but there were definitely some associations there that made me suspicious. Thoughts by Jack Handey.
Diane Sanfilippo: Will your editor let you reference Jack Handey?
Liz Wolfe: No. We went from about 80,000 words to about 12 words that I was actually allowed to use, so this is why it’s taking me so long.
Diane Sanfilippo: That sounds about right.
6. Are all FODMAPs created equal? [39:13]
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. All right, so next one from Pamela: ”With FODMAPs, are they all created equal? Are some more problematic than others? Does that vary with the individual?”
I think it varies.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m going to answer these questions.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah?
Diane Sanfilippo: No, yes, yes. They’re not all created equal, some are more problematic than others, and it does vary with the individual. For people who don’t know what FODMAP stands for, it’s Fermentable Oligo-, Di-, Monosaccharides And Polyols, so it’s basically four different types of carbohydrate molecules that can be found in various… well, I would say plant foods, but it’s not just plants because dairy is also a FODMAP. They’re different fruits, vegetables, and grains. I think a lot of GI doctors who are, like, anti-gluten-free for non-celiacs, they’re like: Well, people should just be avoiding FODMAPs. I’m like: Guess what’s a FODMAP? Wheat. Wheat is a FODMAP! So they’re basically putting people on a gluten-free diet, but they don’t want to call it that because they think that it’s not OK for people who aren’t celiac.
Anyway, long story short, I have kind of a quick answer about what are FODMAPs in the back of Practical Paleo in the FAQ section. And if you search for an image, if you do a Google search and you do an image search on FODMAPs, I think there’s a chart that shows different columns, and it will give you… Yeah, there’s a graphic that says, “Eliminate foods containing FODMAPs,” and it’s red and white basically. I meant to recreate one just to help people out in terms of showing FODMAPs that are only paleo foods because this lists things like milk and cheese and, like I said, legumes and grains. Those are things that we don’t normally eat on a paleo type of diet, things like high-fructose corn syrup and all of that, but it will tell you what has high fructose content, what is high in polyols, what is high in fructans, galactans, and lactose, which obviously will be dairy. So you can see what some of these categories of FODMAPs are, and yeah, you may have very different reactions to different categories of them. I’m trying to see… there’s another chart here from Picket Fence Paleo, I think. That might be helpful. I probably should just make one, but it’s just not something that I feel I have huge expertise on, so I’d rather kind of leave that to some other folks. But yeah, short story is, yep, different reactions depending on your situation. And I would look at those categories to do some reintroduction on them and reintroduce them in categories to see how you do.
7. Almond meal vs. blanched almond flour [42:20]
Liz Wolfe: Very good. All right, this one: ”Is almond meal better than blanched almond flour?” So is almond meal made with the almonds that still have the skin better than blanched almond flour, which is almonds without the skin? I have no idea.
Diane Sanfilippo: They’re different. I think you can get almond meal two different ways. One, you take almonds that are not blanched, so they still have that brown skin on them, and you just grind them up, use a food processor and get them into kind of a meal. It’s not very, very finely ground, though. That’s one way to get almond meal. Another way to get almond meal, or sometimes we’ll call it almond pulp, but I think it acts just like almond meal, is to make almond milk, so you basically soak the almonds overnight, you blend them with water, you strain them through a thick cheesecloth or they actually have something called a nut milk bag. Yes, it’s called that.
Liz Wolfe: What?
Diane Sanfilippo: Exactly. And you strain it through that, and what you’re left with is the almond milk on one side and your almond meal or pulp in the bag. I actually think that’s a great way to get the almond meal. You can dehydrate that and use it the same way you would pretty much any other almond meal. But the blanched almond flour is what most people use in recipes where they’re making baked goods and they want the almond flour to act sort of like wheat flour. And this is perhaps a little-known fact, but almond flour, when it’s the blanched almond flour, can be used one-for-one in pretty much any wheat flour recipe. But if you’re not using the blanched, it will act differently. I think it doesn’t have the same kind of moisture. It might be a little bit more bitter if it has that skin on it. The skin will hold a little bit more of the antinutrient value that almonds have. Any of its protective coating will have a little bit more of that antinutrient value, which is why we tend to tell people to soak things like nuts and seeds. So long story short, yes, they’re different. They act differently in recipes, and if a recipe you find calls for blanched almond flour, go online. I think Honeyville is probably the biggest brand that you can find, and it’s the most affordable, and that’s what you want to use. Or don’t expect the perfect result. I think you can use regular almond meal or almond flour, but you may not have the same fluffy, exact result as you would have if you used the blanched. End of story.
[ringtone]
Liz Wolfe: Ding, ding!
Diane Sanfilippo: Are you getting text messages? What’s happening?
Liz Wolfe: Not even close.
Diane Sanfilippo: Do people even contact you outside of, like, me when I tell you it’s time to start recording?
Liz Wolfe: No. You and my husband, that’s about it. That was USA Today, actually, letting me know something important about A-Rod and somebody. I don’t know. We’re on silent now.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m not. What? Oh, your phone’s on silent.
Liz Wolfe: The phone’s on silent, yeah.
8. Paleo wraps or bread [45:21]
OK, this one’s from Brandy: ”Where can I find a paleo wrap or bread?”
Well, I don’t recommend anybody ever try one of these paleo bread situations because I just think it’s trying really, really hard to substitute for something that is superfluous anyway. I swear I don’t care anything about bread anymore. I just don’t. I haven’t had it in my house for years, and I don’t miss it. Sometimes I do like to wrap stuff, though, and Brandy does ask about a wrap. I’ll do nori, sheets of seaweed. There are some coconut wraps out there that are just dehydrated coconut and water. Those are pretty fun. Lettuce. So if you need kind of a vehicle to make it easier to get from plate to face, those help, single-ingredient-type things.
Diane Sanfilippo: I just use my fingers and eat my food.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, me too.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think Simone from Zenbelly – which I definitely recommend you check out her Facebook page and her blog – she is in San Francisco, and she was working as a caterer for a long time. I think she’s been developing a lot of really cool paleo-friendly recipes. I think she made a plantain tortilla recipe, and it’s not from plantain flour, I don’t think. I think it’s from actual whole plantains, probably egg, water, I don’t know, something like that. But she posted some pictures and, I think, a recipe recently on her blog, so check that out.
Liz Wolfe: Very good.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think Danielle from Against All Grain, I think she has an almond flour bread recipe in her book. I definitely think if you want “bread” or whatever… I guess it doesn’t need to be in quotes. If it’s bread, it’s bread!
Liz Wolfe: Have you seen Role Models, where Paul Rudd’s like: Why did you put presence in quotes?
Diane Sanfilippo: You’re obsessed with Paul Rudd!
Liz Wolfe: I know! But listen to this quote: ”Why did you put presence in quotes? Are you implying that we’re not here?” Like, are you implying that it’s not bread? Bread is not bread? Sorry.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m pretty sure Danielle has a sandwich bread recipe in her book, and I think if you’re going to do something like bread or a wrap or something that’s sort of mimicking what we’re not eating anymore, I honestly think it’s best to make it yourself.
Liz Wolfe: Agreed.
Diane Sanfilippo: It limits how much of it you’re going to have. It’s a quality control on ingredients. There’s no sketchy stuff going on. Yeah, I’m with you on that, the paleo bread. I think the people from Julian Bakery really like us. I heard that they carry my book in their store, which is really nice of them, and thank you, but I can’t recommend that product. It looks horrific. And whenever I see a picture of it in a paleo meal, they’ll post a picture, like paleo bread. And I’m like: What is this brown stuff doing on top of the eggs? Get that away! It looks so weird to me to see this paleo meal with… a piece of stuff that looks like dried cardboard.
Liz Wolfe: You can tick them off the potential show sponsors list.
Diane Sanfilippo: Indeed. Oy. I’m sorry. I don’t have anything nice to say, I shouldn’t say anything at all, but guess what? This is our podcast.
Liz Wolfe: Well, I think it’s true that if you want to eat it, you should make it yourself. I think that’s a good way to respect the actual work that goes into it and maybe enjoy it a little bit more. But like I was talking about the s’mores, I didn’t guy graham crackers. I didn’t even buy gluten-free graham crackers.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m beyond impressed with your efforts on this, by the way.
Liz Wolfe: It’s solely because I am so in love with my husband. Really. I won’t even cook that way for myself.
Diane Sanfilippo: I was going to say, it’s people like you making recipes like that that you end up thinking cooking has to be so hard. It’s because of this that people don’t want to cook!
Liz Wolfe: Because I made my husband s’mores?!
Diane Sanfilippo: Because they look at your three-week endeavor to make a s’more, to make one s’more. I’m like: That’s not how it has to be!
Liz Wolfe: But the fact is that stuff is not easy to make, and so that’s why I don’t eat it. I don’t want the cheap, fake crap. I don’t want the corn syrup marshmallows with FD&C Blue No. 5. I don’t want the graham crackers with trans fat. And I don’t… well, the chocolate’s usually fine. So if you want something, you make it. And it took three days, and he’s not going to turn 30 again, so I’m off the hook. I’m good.
Diane Sanfilippo: Nice.
9. Refrigeration for meals and snacks on the go [49:52]
Liz Wolfe: Nice. All right, next one: ”Managing quick lunches and snacks throughout the day, especially if they don’t need refrigeration.”
Diane Sanfilippo: Is that a question?
Liz Wolfe: I’m not sure this is a question, but it did make me think. People are so concerned about refrigerating their food, and I don’t usually refrigerate things that I probably should refrigerate. Like, if I’m leaving the house and I’m going to be gone all day, I’ll put egg muffins in a baggy and just have them with me all day. From your food safety background, Diane, what are your thoughts on that?
Diane Sanfilippo: Um, phftbft.
Liz Wolfe: We’re so refrigeration-happy in this culture.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, shoot. I made the raspberry sound, which for anyone who reads the transcripts, the way that raspberry sounds are written in letters is pretty hysterical to me. Anyway, two things on that: One, I think when it’s raw food, like raw meat or raw dairy, or just dairy in general, anything that’s raw I’d be a little more weary of. Like, I wouldn’t just carry a chicken thigh –
[laughter]
Liz Wolfe: I put this raw chicken in this baggy in my purse!
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m sorry, but I have to tell you… Let me tell you the side story… Wait. I’ll finish my thoughts, and then I’ll tell you the side story because it’s good. It’s really funny.
Liz Wolfe: OK.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m with you. Unless I know it’s going to be really hot and I don’t want my food to be anything other than cold, I’ll just kind of throw something in a bag, no big deal, but I have a lot of cooler bags, so I throw them in a cooler bag with an icepack and that’s really it. In terms of worrying about refrigeration, I don’t normally worry too much about it. I have cooler bags, and I use them. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I don’t worry, though, about most of that stuff. I think if you’re buying prepared foods and salads and things from grocery stores or wherever you might be getting something, you might be a little bit more concerned about the temperature of those types of things because you just don’t know start-to-finish how the handling was, and food safety laws and regulations say that food shouldn’t spend more than two hours between the temperatures of 40 and 140 degrees. Forty and below is where you refrigerate, and 140 and above is where you cook, and so basically it’s in that room temperature range, it shouldn’t be there for more than two hours, and that’s total time. So again, if you’re buying something out somewhere and you don’t know if they were really on it with refrigeration, just kind of keep that in mind. But otherwise, I eat very questionable things often.
Liz Wolfe: [laughter]
Diane Sanfilippo: So let me tell you this totally disgusting story. Dr