You Really Can Be Gluten and Dairy Free On Thanksgiving

Here’s a few tips for a Gluten and Dairy free Turkey Day that I’ve used over the years!

• Remember to cut up and toast your gluten free bread cubes on low heat for a long time to get them nice and dry and crunchy to use for your GF stuffing.  Leaving them out ahead of time to get a bit stale helps too.  And of course, look for gluten free croutons which make great GF stuffing.
• If you want to avoid any kind of bread stuffings then go with super healthy wild rice or quinoa pilafs and add the same stuff you would to your bread stuffing.  These are fabulous, add some turkey or veggie stock to it and let the flavors really meld together.
• If you want to lighten up your potatoes use a combination of celery root and potato and really whip them with a hand blender stick.
• If you want to go really light–try steaming cauliflower til tender and then place in a high speed blender.  Don’t add any liquid, just push it down til it’s totally creamy. Add a touch of olive oil, salt and pepper and then serve piping hot with a tiny drizzle of olive oil and snipped chives on top.
• For die hard gravy fans–there is no problem using tapioca or potato starch for your thickener.   Not quite as high glycemic as corn starch, but almost.
• Remember that sweet potatoes are named as such because they are already…….sweet!  No need to add anything sweet to them for goodness sake!
• You can easily buy GF pie crusts now or my favorite GF flour mixture is:  2 cups brown rice flour, 2/3 cup potato starch and 1/3 cup tapioca starch.  Just mix this in a sealable container and scoop from it as you need it during the holidays.  I change it up often in order to experiment so this year I might try using quinoa flour instead of potato starch to increase the protein.  Just follow your favorite flaky pie crust recipe using this flour mixture.  I’ve also used ghee instead of butter and that was ok too.
• My pumpkin pie is gluten and dairy free and I get there by using unsweetened almond milk in the filling, an extra egg white, and only about 1/3 cup of maple syrup for the large can of pumpkin.  I decrease the almond milk by about 1/3 since I am using a liquid sweetener and then I double the spices for big flavor!  I bet some of the popular coconut products could be a nice dairy alternative also, give it a try and let me know.
• Remember you can always make the pumpkin pie filling in ramekins or custard cups and skip the crust.
• If you want to avoid eggs altogether, then definitely go with apple crisp or even baked apples or other warmed fruit with toasted nuts for a lighter dessert.

Hope some of these tips are helpful for you and do leave me a comment about your favorite ways to lighten up your Thanksgiving dinner and keep it allergen free!

THANKSGIVING GRATITUDE

It’s a lovely crisp Fall Sunday morning before Thanksgiving and I’m drawn to stop and take note of all that I could easily take for granted but am actually truly grateful for.

I can hear the washer and dryer going down in the garage, I smell the fresh soup stock simmering on the stove and there are super fragrant sweet potatoes in the oven for a wonderful recipe I’ll make later. Organic apples with cinnamon are cooking down and what a comforting smell that is. For all of this I am grateful.

Moments ago I came in to a nice warm house after picking kale from the garden and I’m excited to make Chicken, Kale and Wild Rice soup that will give me several lunches or dinners this week. For all of this I am grateful.

I’ve got piles of paperwork to do, charts and test results, letters and emails. For all of this I really am grateful……because that means I have a career that has grown and expanded and I love it even more than when I started 30 years ago! Every day is exciting and different, every patient is unique in their issues. I get to pull from my very broad toolbox of training and create solutions to previously unsolvable situations–a challenge I thrive on! For this I am truly grateful.

I am grateful for my friends, my family and my clients that support me and keep me challenged to grow and learn. Even this little guy named Magic who nabbed half of his Mom’s appointment so that we could create some weight bearing and strengthening strategies for his devastating hind limb injury. For these unexpected moments of fun, laughs and ability to help others–I am eternally grateful.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and bask in the energy that makes all of this possible!

Lower Back Pain: Have You Really Tried Everything?

Unresolved lower back pain is probably one of the more common complaints that brings people to my office. This is no surprise since it is estimated that about 31 million people in the US suffer from lower back pain, each person taking at least 4 days off from work per year due to loss of function from back pain. Lower back pain (LBP) ranks 3rd (just after cancer and heart disease) in terms of the most expensive health conditions in the US!

I invite you to ponder these questions with me: Why are there so many people in the US who suffer from lower back pain when there is a plethora of skilled and knowledgeable body workers, complementary care practitioners and spinal care specialists? Why is there such a gross disconnect between prevalence and solution?

Has everyone who suffers low back pain been in some kind of traumatic car accident or other high impact injury that has resulted in permanent lumbosacral damage? Although the answer to this last question unfortunately includes a certain percentage of yes’s, the majority of low back pain sufferers have not had an accident or injury that preceded their back condition. So where does their pain come from and why does it continue?

As a Physical Therapist, I work with individuals who have low back pain for a variety of reasons and my greatest passion and skill is working with the group of LBP sufferers who have negative scan findings and can’t specifically account for their pain onset, why it continues or recurs or how to prevent it. If you are in this group you know that you can feel helpless and frustrated because no one seems to know how to help you and your doctor doesn’t know what to make of your symptoms or story. It often comes down to feeling that no one is listening or that nothing can be done for you. This is where having both credentials as a Certified Nutritionist and Physical Therapist equips me to evaluate and treat from a broader and integrated perspective. A thorough hands on evaluation of the musculoskeletal system which includes assessing tension patterns of the digestive tract, combined with a detailed nutritional assessment has proven to be immeasurable in value compared to either method of evaluation by itself.

It’s not unusual for me to see someone with chronic LBP who either has a history of or currently has a diagnosis of Constipation, Crohn’s Disease, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Diverticulitis or Microscopic Colitis for example. With these cases, intestinal symptoms are obvious and often life limiting. Brief education about the anatomical proximity and physical connection between the digestive tract and lumbar spine results in better understanding that intestinal problems can easily contribute to lower back pain. A more difficult LBP/digestion connection to accept is when symptoms from the digestive tract are minimal or even absent yet compromise to the digestive system exists and is contributing to lower back pain. Conditions that can have difficult to perceive symptoms yet are undermining the integrity of the low back include food intolerances, imbalanced gut flora, bacterial or parasitic infections, irritable bowel syndrome, or poor production of digestive acid, enzymes or bile for example.

As an integrated practitioner I know that unresolved spinal issues are often the end result of multiple systems, each with their own weakness, connecting to each other and producing the final compromise that is experienced as lower back pain.

The next time you are seeking care for persistent problems in your low back take note if your evaluation includes an examination of your abdomen (the front of your back) and a detailed inquiry about your food and digestive function. If your practitioner allows only your back pain to lead them on the path to solution–that path can lead to a brick wall!